Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

“Tonight at Professor Cherubusco’s. He sent his automobile for the Missis, and she took me along. I’ve been there with her before.”

“What’s the professor’s line?”

“He’s a clearvoyant and a witch. The Missis consults him. He knows everything. But he hasn’t done the Missis any good yet, though she’s paid him hundreds of dollars. But he told us that the stars told him we could find you here.”

“What’s the old lady want this cherry-buster to do?”

“That’s a family secret,” said Annie. “And now you’ve asked enough questions. Come on home, you big fool.”

They had moved but a little way up the street when Thomas stopped.

“Got any dough with you, Annie?” he asked.

Annie looked at him sharply.

“Oh, I know what that look means,” said Thomas. “You’re wrong. Not another drop. But there’s a guy that was standing next to me in the bed line over there that’s in bad shape. He’s the right kind, and he’s got wives or kids or something, and he’s on the sick list. No booze. If you could dig up half a dollar for him so he could get a decent bed I’d like it.”

Annie’s fingers began to wiggle in her purse.

“Sure, I’ve got money,” said she. “Lots of it. Twelve dollars.” And then she added, with woman’s ineradicable suspicion of vicarious benevolence: “Bring him here and let me see him first.”

Thomas went on his mission. The wan Bed Liner came readily enough. As the two drew near, Annie looked up from her purse and screamed:

“Mr. Walter⁠—Oh⁠—Mr. Walter!”

“Is that you, Annie?” said the young man meekly.

“Oh, Mr. Walter!⁠—and the Missis hunting high and low for you!”

“Does mother want to see me?” he asked, with a flush coming out on his pale cheek.

“She’s been hunting for you high and low. Sure, she wants to see you. She wants you to come home. She’s tried police and morgues and lawyers and advertising and detectives and rewards and everything. And then she took up clearvoyants. You’ll go right home, won’t you, Mr. Walter?”

“Gladly, if she wants me,” said the young man. “Three years is a long time. I suppose I’ll have to walk up, though, unless the street cars are giving free rides. I used to walk and beat that old plug team of bays we used to drive to the carriage. Have they got them yet?”

“They have,” said Thomas, feelingly. “And they’ll have ’em ten years from now. The life of the royal elephantibus truckhorseibus is one hundred and forty-nine years. I’m the coachman. Just got my reappointment five minutes ago. Let’s all ride up in a surface car⁠—that is⁠—er⁠—if Annie will pay the fares.”

On the Broadway car Annie handed each one of the prodigals a nickel to pay the conductor.

“Seems to me you are mighty reckless the way you throw large sums of money around,” said Thomas sarcastically.

“In that purse,” said Annie decidedly, “is exactly $11.85. I shall take every cent of it tomorrow and give it to professor Cherubusco, the greatest man in the world.”

“Well,” said Thomas, “I guess he must be a pretty fly guy to pipe off things the way he does. I’m glad his spooks told him where you could find me. If you’ll give me his address, some day I’ll go up there, myself, and shake his hand.”

Presently Thomas moved tentatively in his seat, and thoughtfully felt an abrasion or two on his knees and his elbows.

“Say, Annie,” said he confidentially, “maybe it’s one of the last dreams of booze, but I’ve a kind of a recollection of riding in an automobile with a swell guy that took me to a house full of eagles and arc lights. He fed me on biscuits and hot air, and then kicked me down the front steps. If it was the d.t.’s, why am I so sore?”

“Shut up, you fool,” said Annie.

“If I could find that funny guy’s house,” said Thomas, in conclusion, “I’d go up there some day and punch his nose for him.”

A favourite dodge to get your story read by the public is to assert that it is true, and then add that Truth is stranger than Fiction. I do not know if the yarn I am anxious for you to read is true; but the Spanish purser of the fruit steamer El Carrero swore to me by the shrine of Santa Guadalupe that he had the facts from the U.S. vice-consul at La Paz⁠—a person who could not possibly have been cognizant of half of them.

As for the adage quoted above, I take pleasure in puncturing it by affirming that I read in a purely fictional story the other day the line: “ ‘Be it so,’ said the policeman.” Nothing so strange has yet cropped out in Truth.

When H. Ferguson Hedges, millionaire promoter, investor and man-about-New-York, turned his thoughts upon matters convivial, and word of it went “down the line,” bouncers took a precautionary turn at the Indian clubs, waiters put ironstone china on his favourite tables, cab drivers crowded close to the curbstone in front of all-night cafés, and careful cashiers in his regular haunts charged up a few bottles to his account by way of preface and introduction.

As a money power a one-millionaire is of small account in a city where the man who cuts your slice of beef behind the free-lunch counter rides to work in his own automobile. But Hedges spent his money as lavishly, loudly and showily as though he were only a clerk squandering a week’s wages. And, after all, the bartender takes no interest in your reserve fund. He would rather look you up on his cash register than in Bradstreet.

On the evening that the material allegation of facts begins, Hedges was bidding dull care begone in the company of five or six good fellows⁠—acquaintances and friends who had gathered in his wake.

Among them were two younger men⁠—Ralph Merriam, a broker, and Wade, his friend.

Two deep-sea cabmen were chartered. At Columbus Circle they hove to long enough