Odd Numbers. Ford Sewell

a little bit of all right, eh?” says I. “But say, I’m glad I ain’t Occie, the heir to the brewery. I wouldn’t know whether I was engaged to Maizie, or caught in a belt.”

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

WHERE SPOTTY FITTED IN

       Table of Contents

      Also we have a few home-grown varieties that ain’t listed frequent. And the pavement products are apt to have most as queer kinks to ’em as those from the plowed fields. Now take Spotty.

      “Gee! what a merry look!” says I to Pinckney as he floats into the studio here the other day. He’s holdin’ his chin high, and he’s got his stick tucked up under his arm, and them black eyes of his is just sparklin’. “What’s it all about?” I goes on. “Is it a good one you’ve just remembered, or has something humorous happened to one of your best friends?”

      “I have a new idea,” says he, “that’s all.”

      “All!” says I. “Why, that’s excuse enough for declarin’ a gen’ral holiday. Did you go after it, or was it delivered by mistake? Can’t you give us a scenario of it?”

      “Why, I’ve thought of something new for Spotty Cahill,” says he, beamin’.

      “G’wan!” says I. “I might have known it was a false alarm. Spotty Cahill! Say, do you want to know what I’d advise you to do for Spotty next?”

      No, Pinckney don’t want my views on the subject. It’s a topic we’ve threshed out between us before; also it’s one of the few dozen that we could debate from now until there’s skatin’ on the Panama Canal, without gettin’ anywhere. I’ve always held that Spotty Cahill was about the most useless and undeservin’ human being that ever managed to exist without work; but to hear Pinckney talk you’d think that long-legged, carroty-haired young loafer was the original party that philanthropy was invented for.

      Now, doing things for other folks ain’t one of Pinckney’s strong points, as a rule. Not that he wouldn’t if he thought of it and could find the time; but gen’rally he has too many other things on his schedule to indulge much in the little deeds of kindness game. When he does start out to do good, though, he makes a job of it. But look who he picks out!

      Course, I knew why. He’s explained all that to me more’n once. Seems there was an old waiter at the club, a quiet, soft-spoken, bald-headed relic, who had served him with more lobster Newburg than you could load on a scow, and enough highballs to float the Mauretania in. In fact, he’d been waitin’ there as long as Pinckney had been a member. They’d been kind of chummy, in a way, too. It had always been “Good morning, Peter,” and “Hope I see you well, sir,” between them, and Pinckney never had to bother about whether he liked a dash of bitters in this, or if that ought to be served frappe or plain. Peter knew, and Peter never forgot.

      Then one day when Pinckney’s just squarin’ off to his lunch he notices that he’s been given plain, ordinary salt butter instead of the sweet kind he always has; so he puts up a finger to call Peter over and have a swap made. When he glances up, though, he finds Peter ain’t there at all.

      “Oh, I say,” says he, “but where is Peter?”

      “Peter, sir?” says the new man. “Very sorry, sir, but Peter’s dead.”

      “Dead!” says Pinckney. “Why—why—how long has that been?”

      “Over a month, sir,” says he. “Anything wrong, sir?”

      To be sure, Pinckney hadn’t been there reg’lar; but he’d been in off and on, and when he comes to think how this old chap, that knew all his whims, and kept track of ’em so faithful, had dropped out without his ever having heard a word about it—why, he felt kind of broke up. You see, he’d always meant to do something nice for old Peter; but he’d never got round to it, and here the first thing he knows Peter’s been under the sod for more’n a month.

      That’s what set Pinckney to inquirin’ if Peter hadn’t left a fam’ly or anything, which results in his diggin’ up this Spotty youth. I forgot just what his first name was, it being something outlandish that don’t go with Cahill at all; but it seems he was born over in India, where old Peter was soldierin’ at the time, and they’d picked up one of the native names. Maybe that’s what ailed the boy from the start.

      Anyway, Peter had come back from there a widower, drifted to New York with the youngster, and got into the waiter business. Meantime the boy grows up in East Side boardin’-houses, without much lookin’ after, and when Pinckney finds him he’s an int’restin’ product. He’s twenty-odd, about five feet eleven high, weighs under one hundred and thirty, has a shock of wavy, brick-red hair that almost hides his ears, and his chief accomplishments are playin’ Kelly pool and consumin’ cigarettes. By way of ornament he has the most complete collection of freckles I ever see on a human face, or else it was they stood out more prominent because the skin was so white between the splotches. We didn’t invent the name Spotty for him. He’d already been tagged that.

      Well, Pinckney discovers that Spotty has been livin’ on the few dollars that was left after payin’ old Peter’s plantin’ expenses; that he didn’t know what he was goin’ to do after that was gone, and didn’t seem to care. So Pinckney jumps in, works his pull with the steward, and has Spotty put on reg’lar in the club billiard room as an attendant. All he has to do is help with the cleanin’, keep the tables brushed, and set up the balls when there are games goin’ on. He gets his meals free, and six dollars a week.

      Now that should have been a soft enough snap for anybody, even the born tired kind. There wa’n’t work enough in it to raise a palm callous on a baby. But Spotty, he improves on that. His idea of earnin’ wages is to curl up in a sunny windowseat and commune with his soul. Wherever you found the sun streamin’ in, there was a good place to look for Spotty. He just seemed to soak it up, like a blotter does ink, and it didn’t disturb him any who was doin’ his work.

      Durin’ the first six months Spotty was fired eight times, only to have Pinckney get him reinstated, and it wa’n’t until the steward went to the board of governors with the row that Mr. Cahill was given his permanent release. You might think Pinckney would have called it quits then; but not him! He’d started out to godfather Spotty, and he stays right with the game. Everybody he knew was invited to help along the good work of givin’ Spotty a lift. He got him into brokers’ offices, tried him out as bellhop in four diff’rent hotels, and even jammed him by main strength into a bank; but Spotty’s sun absorbin’ habits couldn’t seem to be made useful anywhere.

      For one while he got chummy with Swifty Joe and took to sunnin’ himself in the studio front windows, until I had to veto that.

      “I don’t mind your friends droppin’ in now and then, Swifty,” says I; “but there ain’t any room here for statuary. I don’t care how gentle you break it to him, only run him out.”

      So that’s why I don’t enthuse much when Pinckney says he’s thought up some new scheme for Spotty. “Goin’ to have him probed for hookworms?” says I.

      No, that ain’t it. Pinckney, he’s had a talk with Spotty and discovered that old Peter had a brother Aloysius, who’s settled somewhere up in Canada and is superintendent of a big wheat farm. Pinckney’s had his lawyers trace out this Uncle Aloysius, and then he’s written him all about Spotty, suggestin’ that he send for him by return mail.

      “Fine!” says I. “He’d be a lot of use on a wheat farm. What does Aloysius have to say to the proposition?”

      “Well, the fact is,” says Pinckney,