Torchy and Vee
Mamie Stribble working here, haven't you; a young lady with kind of
goldy hair, dark eyebrows and a sort of old ivory complexion?"
"Ah!" says the Madame. "Perhaps you mean Marie St. Ribble?"
"That's near enough," says I. "Could I have a few words with her?"
"But yes," says Madame Maurice. "It is her hour for luncheon. I will
see." With that she calls up an assistant, shoos me into a back parlor
and asks me to wait a moment, leavin' Crosby out front with his mouth
open.
And two minutes later in breezes the Madame leadin' Mame Stribble by the
arm. The lady boss seems somewhat peeved, too. "Tell me," she demands,
"is this the street dress which you observed in the window?"
"That's the very one," says I.
"Hah!" says she. "Then perhaps Marie will explain to me later. For the
present, M'sieur, I leave you."
"Sorry if I've put you in bad, Miss Stribble," says I, as the Madame
sweeps out.
"Oh, that's all right," says Mame, tossin' her chin. "She'll get over
it. And, anyway, I was takin' a chance."
"So I noticed," says I. "What was the big idea, though?"
"Just sizin' up the people who pass by," says Mame. "It's grand sport
havin' 'em stretch their necks at you and thinkin' you're just a dummy.
I got onto it one day while I was changin' a model. Course, it cuts into
my lunch time, and I have to sneak a dress out of stock, but it's kind
of fun."
"'Specially when you've got one particular young gent coming to watch
regular, eh?" I suggests.
That seems to give her sort of a jolt and for a second she stares at me,
bitin' her upper lip. "Who do you mean, now?" she asks.
"He has a chin dimple and his name's Crosby Rhodes," says I. "You've put
the spell on him for fair, too. He's out front, waiting to meet you."
"Oh, is he?" says Mame, lettin' on not to care. "And yet when he was
livin' in one of our apartments he passed me every day without seein' me
at all."
"Oh, ho!" says I. "You took notice of him, though, did you?"
Miss Stribble pinks up at that. "Yes, I did," says she. "He struck me as
a reg'lar feller, one of the kind you could tie to. And when he'd almost
step over me without noticin'--well, I'll admit that sort of hurt. I
expect that's why I made up my mind to shake the mop and pail outfit and
break in some place where I could pick up a few tricks. After a few
stabs I landed here at the Maison. I remember I had on a saggy skirt and
a shirtwaist that must have looked like it had been improvised out of a
coffee sack. It's a wonder they let me past the door. But they did. For
the first six weeks, though, they kept me in the work rooms. Then I got
one of the girls to help me evenings on a black taffeta; I saved up
enough for two pairs of silk stockin's, blew myself to some pumps with
four inch heels, and begun carryin' a vanity box. It worked. Next thing
I knew they had me down on the main floor carryin' stock to the models
and now and then displayin' misses' styles to customers. I had a hunch
I was gettin' easier to look at, but you never can tell by the way women
size you up. All they see is the dress. And in the window there I had a
chance to see whether I was registerin' with the men. That's the whole
tragic tale."
"Leaving out Crosby Rhodes."
"That's so," admits Mame. "And it was some satisfaction, bringin' him to
life."
"You've done more'n that," says I. "He's one of these guys that wants
what he wants, and goes after it strong. Just now it seems to be you."
"How inter-estin'!" says Mame. "Tell me, what's his line?"
"Airplane timber," says I. "He's from out on the Coast."
"Oh!" says she. "From one of these little
straight-through-on-Main-street burgs, I suppose?"
"Headquarters in Seattle, I understand," says I. "That's hardly on the
Tom show circuit."
"Yes, I guess I've heard of the place," says Mame. "But what's his
proposition!"
"First off," says I, "Crosby wants to get acquainted. If he has any
hymen stuff up his sleeve, I expect you'd better hear that from him
personally. The question now is, do you want to meet him?"
"Oh, I dunno," says Mame careless. "I guess I'll take a chance."
"Then forget that vanishing act of yours," says I, "and I'll run him
in."
And, honest, as I slips out of the Maison Noir and beats it for my
lunch, I felt like I'd done a day's work. What it would come to was by
me. They was off my hands, anyway.
That couldn't have been over a week ago. And here only yesterday Crosby
comes crashin' into the Corrugated general offices, pounds me
enthusiastic on the back, and announces that I'm the best friend he's
got in the world.
"Meanin', I expect," says I, "that Miss Stribble and you have been
gettin' on?"
"Old man," says Crosby, his mild blue eyes sparklin', "she's a wonderful
girl--wonderful! And within a week she's going to be Mrs. Crosby Rhodes.
We start for home just as soon as the Maison Noir can turn out her
trousseau; which is going to be some outfit, take it from me."
I hope I said something appropriate. If I didn't I expect Crosby was too
excited to notice. Also that night I carried home the bulletin to Vee.
"There!" says Vee. "I just knew, the moment I saw her, that she wasn't
at all as that horrid old man tried to make us believe."
"No," says I, "Mame's vamping was just practice stuff. A lot of it is
like that, I expect."
"But wasn't it odd," goes on Vee, "about her meeting the very man she'd
liked from the first?"
"Well, not so very," says I. "With that show window act she had the net
spread kind of wide. The only chance Crosby had of escape was by staying
out of New York, and nobody does that for very long at a time."
CHAPTER VI
TURKEYS ON THE SIDE
Say, I hope this Mr. Hoover of ours gets through trying to feed the
world before another fall. It's a cute little idea all right and ought
to get us in strong with a whole lot of people, but if he don't quit I
know of one party whose reputation as a gentleman farmer is going to be
wrecked beyond repair. And that's me.
I don't know whether it was Vee's auntie that started me out reckless on
this food producin' career, or old Leon Battou, or Mr. G. Basil Pyne.
Maybe they all helped, in their own peculiar way. Auntie's method, of
course, is by throwin' out the scornful sniff. It was while she was
payin' us a month's visit one week way last summer, out at our four-acre
estate on Long Island, that she pulls this sarcastic stuff. Havin'
inspected the baby critical without findin' anything special to kick
about, she suggests that she'd like to look over the grounds.
"Oh, yes, Torchy," chimes in Vee, "do show Auntie your garden."
Maybe you don't get that "your garden." It's only Vee's way of playin'
me as a useful and industrious citizen. Course, I did buy the seeds and
all the shiny hoes and rakes and things, and I studied up the catalogues
until I could tell the carrots from the cucumbers; but I must admit that
beyond givin' the different beds the once-over every now and then, and
pullin' up a few tomato plants that I thought was weeds, I didn't do
much more than underwrite the enterprise.
As a matter of fact, it was mostly Leon Battou, the old Frenchy who does
our cookin', that really ran the garden. Say, that old boy would have
something green growin' if he lived in the subway and had to bring down
his real estate in paper bags. It was partly on his account, you know,
that we left our studio apartment and moved out in the forty-five
minutes commutin' zone. Then, too, there was Joe Cirollo, who comes in
by the day to cut the grass and keep the flower beds slicked up, and do
the heavy spadin'. And with Vee keepin' books on what was spent and what
we got you can guess I wasn't overworked. Also it's a cinch that garden
plot just had to hump itself and make good.
Auntie ain't wise to all this, though. So she raises her eyebrows and
remarks: "A garden? Really! I should like to see it. A few radishes and
spindly lettuce, I suppose?"
"Say, come have a look!" says I.
And when I'd pointed out the half acre of potatoes, and the long rows of
corn and string beans and peas--and I hope I called 'em all by their
right names--I sure had the old girl hedgin' some. But trust her!
"With so much land, though," she goes on, "it seems to me you ought to
be raising your eggs and chickens as well."
"Oh, we've planned for all that," says I, "ducks and hens and geese and
turkeys; maybe pheasants and quail."
"Quail!" says Auntie. "Why, I didn't know one could raise quail. I
thought they----"
"When I get started raisin' things," says I, "I'm apt to go the limit."
"I shall be interested to see what success you have," says she.
"Sure!" says I. "Drop around again--next fall."
You wouldn't have thought she'd been disagreeable enough to go and
rehearse all this innocent little bluff of mine to Vee, would you? But
she does, it seems. And of course Vee has to back me up.
"But, Torchy!" she protests, after Auntie's gone. "How could you tell
her such whoppers?"
"Easiest thing I do," says I. "But who knows what we'll do next in the
nourishment producin' line? Hasn't old Leon been beggin' to go into the
duck and chicken business for months? With eggs near a dollar a dozen
maybe it would be a good scheme. And if we go in for poultry, why not
have all kinds, turkeys as well?"
So a few days later I put it up to him. Leon shakes his head. "The
chickens and the ducks, yes; but the turkey----" Here he shrugs his
shoulders desperate. "Je ne connais pas."
"You jennie what?" says I. "Ah, come, Leon, don't be a quitter."
He explains that the ways of our national bird are a complete mystery to
him. He'd as soon think of tryin' to hatch out ostriches or canaries. So
for the time being we pass up the turkeys and splurge heavy on cacklers
and quackers. Between him and Joe they fixed up part of the old carriage
shed as a poultry barracks and with a mile or so of nettin' they fenced
off a run down to the little pond. And by the middle of August we had
all sorts of music to wake us up for an early breakfast. I nearly
laughed a rib loose watchin' them baby ducks waddle around solemn, every
one with that cut-up look in his eye. Say, they're born comedians, ducks
are. I'll bet if you could translate that quack-quack patter of theirs
you'd get lines that would be a reg'lar scream on the big time circuit.
And then along in the fall we begun gettin' acquainted with our new
neighbors that had taken that cute little stucco cottage halfway down
to the station from us. The Basil Pynes, a young English couple, we
found out they were. Course, Vee started it by callin' and followin'
that up by a donation of some of our garden truck. Pretty soon we were
swappin' visits reg'lar.
I can't say I was crazy over 'em. She's a little mouse of a woman, big
eyed and quiet, but Vee seems to like her. Pyne, he's a tall, slim gink
with stooped shoulders and so short sighted that he has to wear extra
thick eyeglasses. He'd come over to work for some book publishin' house
but it seems he wrote things himself. He'd landed one book and was
pluggin' away on another; not a novel, I understands, but something
different.
"Huh!" says I to Vee. "No wonder he had to go into the lit'ry game, with
that monicker hung on him. Basil Pyne! The worst of it is, he looks it,
too."
"Now, Torchy!" protests Vee. "I'm sure you'll find him real interesting
when you know him better."
As usual, she's right. Anyway, it turns out that Basil has his good
points. For one thing he's the most entertaining listener I ever talked
to. Maybe you know the kind. Never has anything to say about himself but
whatever you start, that's what he wants to know about. And from the
friendly look in the mild gray eyes behind the thick panes, and the