Boys! let me put you wise! If you want to keep off the griddle don't ever try to show your shy little lady friend how the birdies sing in "Bohemia."
You'll get stung if you do.
For the past six months Clara Jane has been handing out hints that she'd like to have me take her down the line and let her Oh, listen to the band! in one of those real devilish New York restaurants.
She intimated that she'd like to sit in the grand stand and hold the watch on those who are going the pace that kills.
She wanted to know if I thought she could toy with a tenderloin steak in a careless café without getting the call down from Uncle William.
Clara Jane's Uncle William hands out the lesson leaflets in Sunday school and wrestles the Golden Rule to a finish every Sabbath.
During the week he conducts a fire sale.
I told her I thought she could and she was pleased.
"I'm just crazy to take lunch, sometime, among the Bohemians!" she gurgled.
I told her I though she'd have a happier time if we tramped down to the tunnel and butted in among the Italians just as the twelve o'clock whistle blew, and she threw both lamps at me good and hard.
Clara Jane spent the summer once at Sag Harbor and she's been a subscriber for The Young Ladies' Home Companion, but outside of these her young life has been devoid of excitement.
A few days ago I took her to the matinee at "The New York" where you have to pinch off only 50 cents and then you're entitled to slosh around in parlor furniture and eat up about $8 worth of comedy.
That "New York" thing is immense—believe me!
Everything else has faded away.
After the show we thought we'd pat the pave for a few blocks and who should we run into but Bud Phillips.
Bud belongs to the Grand Lodge of Good Fellows.
So far as I can size him up the Good Fellow puts in twelve hours a day trying to stab himself to death with gin rickeys, and the other twelve are devoted to yelling for help and ice-water.
This is not a tap on the door. Nix on the knock.
It isn't my cue to aim the hammer.
When it comes to falling off the water wagon I can do a bit of a specialty in grand and lofty tumbling that gets a loud hand from all the members of the High Tide Association. So nix on the knock.
His father cut out the breathing business about two years ago and left Bud $100,000 and a long dry spell on the inside.
Bud has been in the lake ever since.
"As you were!" said Bud. "Why, it's John Henry! touch thumbs, old pal?" and then in a side speech he wanted to know what troupe the soubrette was cutting-up with.
If Clara Jane had heard him my finish would have hopped over the fence then and there.
But she didn't, so I introduced them and quietly tipped Bud off to the fact that it will be a case of wedding bells when Willie gets a wad—be nice! be nice!
And Bud woke up to the occasion.
"You to the carryall!" he said. "I'll float you down to Muttheimer's and we'll get busy with the beans!"
"He's out to cough for a few cookies," I explained to Clara Jane.
"I never heard of Muttheimer's before," said Clara Jane, on the side.
"You luck has given you a thrown-down," I said.
"But I do hope it's Bohemian," she sighed.
"Sure!" I said. I hated to break her heart.
Muttheimer's is one of those eateries where the waiters look wise because they can't speak English.
If you ask them a question they bark at you in German.
It's supposed to be Bohemian because there's sawdust on the floor and the flies wear pajamas and say "Prosit!" before falling in the stuff that you swallow to-day and taste to-morrow.
Bud bunches his hits on the bell and the low-forehead has a Fitzsimmons hug on the order when Ikey Mincenpizenstein crawls into the harbor and drops anchor at our table.
I don't know how Ikey ever pressed close enough to get on Bud's staff.
Ikey is a lazy loosener.
When the waiter deals out the check Ikey is the busiest talker in the bunch.
Whenever he passes a bank he takes off his hat and walks on his toes.
He's the sort of a Sim Dempsey who sheds in-growing tears every time anybody spends money in his neighborhood.
He hates to see it wasted, and that's why his whiskers peep out of his face and worry the wind.
But, then, a Good Fellow doesn't have to go to sea to gather barnacles.
I spoke his name fast when I introduced Ikey to Clara Jane but she was busy trying to live a swift life by ordering a seltzer lemonade, so it didn't make much difference, anyway.
"What is he?" she whispered after a bit, "a painter?"
"Oh! he's a painter all right," I said. "When some one leads him up to a tub."
"Water-colors or oil?" she asked.
"Oil," I said; "Fusel oil."
"Has he ever done any good thing?" said she.
"Yes," I said; "Bud Phillips."
"Oh, I'm enjoying this so much! Who is the man with the fawn-like eyes and the long hair at that other table?" she whispered.
He was the night-watchman of the apartment house next door but I gave her an easy speech to the effect that he was Bill Beethoven, a grandson of old man Beethoven who wrote the wedding march and "Mah Rainbow Coon" and "Father Was a Gentleman When Mother Was Not Near" and several other gems.
She thought she was in Bohemia and having the time of her life, so I let her dream.
In the meantime Bud was busy trying to put out the fire in the well Ikey used for a neck.
Every time a waiter looked over at out table Bud's roll would blaze up.
Clara Jane concluded she'd broaden out a bit on Art and the Old Masters so she asked Ikey if he liked Rembrandt.
Ikey looked at her out of the corner of one eye and said, "Much 'bliged, but I'm up to here now!"
Then he went to sleep.
Bud was beginning to see double. Every once in a while he'd stop trying to whistle "Sallie, My Hot Tamale," and he'd look over at Clara Jane and hand her a sad, sad smile.
Then he'd press money in the waiter's hand and wait for his music cue.
Clara Jane had about decided that Bohemia was away up stage, but I wouldn't let go. I wanted her to get the lesson of her life, and that's where my finish began to get busy.
Tom Barclay waltzed into the subway, saw me and in a minute he was making the break of his life.
"Why, hello, John Henry!" said Tom, "say, I saw her to-day—and she's immense! You've got a great eye, old man!"
I tossed off a few wicked winks on that great eye of mine but Tom went right along to the funeral.
"Lizzie B. is a peach, John Henry! You've got the eye for the good girls, all right, all right!" he chortled.
Clara Jane began to freeze.
I felt like a boiled potato in the hands of an Irish policeman.
"She's every bit to the good, old man!" Tom turned it on again; "she makes all the other birds chatter in the cage. And her feet—did you ever see such feet?"
I looked at Clara Jane's face, but there was no light in the window for me.
"You certainly picked out a warm proposition when you put your arms around Lizzie B. and I'm your friend for life for hauling me up in the chariot with you—what'll you have?" croaked Tom.
"Thirty-two bars rest," I whispered hoarsely; "cut it all out!"
"Cut out nothing!" said the prize idiot; "We'll drink to Lizzie B. What'll your lady friend have?"
When Clara Jane arose she was a mass of icicles.
"Mr. John Henry! will you have the kindness to escort me to a car?" she said, giving me the glittering gig-lamps, "then you may return and discuss your affairs of the heart at your leisure."
"Stung!" said Bud, bringing his hand down on the table so vigorously that Ikey woke up and ordered another high-ball.
Me—to the Badlands! It took me three mortal hours to convince her that Tom was only talking about a horse.
Hereafter when Clara Jane yearns for something swift I'll take her down and let her watch the trolley cars go by.