A minute more and I had the Fargo house on the wire.
“Who are you?” says I. “Oh, Mr. Fargo’s butler. Well, this is Shorty McCabe, and I want to talk to some of the fam’ly about the old man. Sure, old Jerry. He’s here. Eh, his sister? She’ll do. Yes, I’ll hold the wire.”
I’d heard of that old maid sister of his, and how she was a queer old girl; but I didn’t have any idea what a cold blooded proposition she was. Honest, she seemed put out and pettish because I’d called her up.
“Jeremiah again, hey?” she squeaks. “Now, why on earth don’t he stay in that sanatorium where I took him? This is the fourth time he’s gone wandering off, and I’ve been sent for to hunt him up. You just tell him to trot back to it, that’s all.”
“But see here, Miss Fargo,” says I, “he’s been trottin’ around until you can’t tell him anything! He’s snoozin’ away here in my office, dead to the world.”
“Well, I can’t help it,” says she. “I’m not going to be bothered with Jeremiah to-day. I’ve got two sick cats to attend to.”
“Cats!” says I. “Say, what do you – ”
“Oh, hush up!” says she. “Do anything you like with him!” And hanged if she don’t bang up the receiver at that, and leave me standin’ there at my end of the wire lookin’ silly.
“Talk about your freak plutes,” says I to Tutwater, after I’ve explained the situation, “if this ain’t the limit! Look what I’ve got on my hands now!”
Tutwater, he’s standin’ there gazin’ hard at old Jerry Fargo, his eyes shinin’ and his thought works goin’ at high pressure speed. All of a sudden he slaps me on the back and grips me by the hand. “Professor,” says he, “I have it! There is Opportunity!”
“Eh?” says I. “Old Jerry? How?”
“I shall cure him – restore his mind, make him normal,” says Tutwater.
“What do you know about brushin’ out batty lofts?” says I.
“Nothing at all,” says he; “but I can find someone who does. You’ll give me Fargo, won’t you?”
“Will I?” says I. “I’ll advance you twenty to take him away, and charge it up to him. But what’ll you do with him?”
“Start the Tutwater Sanatorium for Deranged Millionaires,” says he. “There’s a fortune in it. May I leave him here for an hour or so?”
“What for?” says I.
“Until I can engage my chief of staff,” says he.
“Say, Tutty,” says I, “do you really mean to put over a bluff the size of that?”
“I’ve thought it all out,” says he. “I can do it.”
“All right, blaze ahead,” says I; “but I’m bettin’ you land in the lockup inside of twenty-four hours.”
What do you think, though? By three o’clock he comes back, towin’ a spruce, keen eyed young chap that he introduces as Dr. McWade. He’s picked him up over at Bellevue, where he found him doin’ practice work in the psychopathic ward. On the strength of that I doubles my grubstake, and he no sooner gets his hands on the two sawbucks than he starts for the street.
“Here, here!” says I. “Where you headed for now?”
And Tutwater explains how his first investment is to be a new silk lid, some patent leather shoes, and a silver headed walkin’ stick.
“Good business!” says I. “You’ll need all the front you can carry.”
And while he’s out shoppin’ the Doc and me and Swifty Joe lugs the patient up to Tutwater’s office without disturbin’ his slumbers at all.
Well, I didn’t see much more of Tutwater that day, for from then on he was a mighty busy man; but as I was drillin’ across to the Grand Central on my way home I gets a glimpse of him, sportin’ a shiny hat and white spats, just rushin’ important into a swell real estate office. About noon next day he stops in long enough to shake hands and say that it’s all settled.
“Tutwater Sanatorium is a fact,” says he. “I have the lease in my pocket.”
“What is it, some abandoned farm up in Vermont?” says I.
“Hardly,” says Tutwater, smilin’ quiet.
“It’s Cragswoods; beautiful modern buildings, formerly occupied as a boys’ boarding school, fifteen acres of lovely grounds, finest location in Westchester County. We take possession to-day, with our patient.”
“But, say, Tutwater,” says I, “how in blazes did you – ”
“I produced Fargo,” says he. “Dr. McWade has him under complete control and his cure has already begun. It will be finished at Cragswoods. Run up and see us soon. There’s the address. So long.”
Well, even after that, I couldn’t believe he’d really pull it off. Course, I knew he could make Fargo’s name go a long ways if he used it judicious; but to launch out and hire an estate worth half a million – why he was makin’ a shoestring start look like a sure thing.
And I was still listenin’ for news of the grand crash, when I begun seein’ these items in the papers about the Tutwater Sanatorium. “Millionaires Building a Stone Wall,” one was headed, and it went on to tell how five New York plutes, all sufferin’ from some nerve breakdown, was gettin’ back health and clearin’ up their brains by workin’ like day laborers under the direction of the famous specialist, Dr. Clinton McWade.
“Aha!” says I. “He’s added a press agent to the staff, and he sure has got a bird!”
Every few days there’s a new story bobs up, better than the last, until I can’t stand it any longer. I takes half a day off and goes up there to see if he’s actually doin’ it. And, say, when I walks into the main office over the Persian rug, there’s the same old Tutwater. Course, he’s slicked up some fancy, and he’s smokin’ a good cigar; but you couldn’t improve any on the cheerful countenance he used to carry around, even when he was up against it hardest. What I asks to see first is the five millionaires at work.
“Seven, you mean,” says Tutwater. “Two more came yesterday. Step right out this way. There they are, seven; count ’em, seven. The eighth man is a practical stone mason who is bossing the job. It’s a good stone wall they’re building, too. We expect to run it along our entire frontage.”
“Got ’em mesmerized?” says I.
“Not at all,” says Tutwater. “It’s part of the treatment. McWade’s idea, you know. The vocational cure, we call it, and it works like a charm. Mr. Fargo is practically a well man now and could return to his home next week if he wished. As it is, he’s so much interested in finishing that first section of the wall that he will probably stay the month out. You can see for yourself what they are doing.”
“Well, well!” says I. “Seven of ’em! What I don’t understand, Tutwater, is how you got so many patients so soon. Where’d you get hold of ’em?”
“To be quite frank with you, McCabe,” says Tutwater, whisperin’ confidential in my ear, “only three of them are genuine paying patients. That is why I have to charge them fifty dollars a day, you see.”
“And the others?” says I.
“First class imitations, who are playing their parts very cleverly,” says he. “Why not? I engaged them through a reliable theatrical agency.”
“Eh?” says I. “You salted the sanatorium? Tutwater, I take it all back. You’re in the other class, and I’m backin’ you after this for whatever entry you want to make.”
CHAPTER XVII
HOW HERMY PUT IT OVER
What do you know about luck, eh? Say, there was a time when I banked heavy on such things as four-leaf clovers, and the humpback touch, and dodgin’ ladders, and keepin’ my fingers crossed after gettin’ an X-ray stare. The longer I watch the game, though, the less I think of the luck proposition as a chart for explainin’ why some gets in on the ground floor, while others are dropped through the coal chute.
Now look at the latest returns on the career of my old grammar school chum, Snick Butters. Maybe you don’t remember my mentionin’ him before. Yes? No? It don’t matter. He’s the sporty young gent that’s mortgaged his memorial window to me so many times, – you know, the phony lamp he can do such stunts with.
He’s a smooth boy, Snick is, – too smooth, I used to tell him, – and always full of schemes for avoidin’ real work. For a year or so past he’s held the hot air chair on the front end of one of these sightseein’ chariots, cheerin’ the out of town buyers and wheat belt tourists with the flippest line of skyscraper statistics handed out through any megaphone in town. They tell me that when Snick would fix his fake eye on the sidewalk, and roll the good one up at the Metropolitan tower, he’d have his passengers so dizzy they’d grab one another to keep from fallin’ off the wagon.
Yes, I always did find Snick’s comp’ny entertainin’, and if it hadn’t been more or less expensive, – a visit always meanin’ a touch with him, – I expect I’d been better posted on what he was up to. As it is, I ain’t enjoyed the luxury of seein’ Snick for a good many months; when here the other afternoon, just as I was thinking of startin’ for home, the studio door opens, and in blows a couple of gents, one being a stranger, and the other this Mr. Butters.
Now, usually Snick’s a fancy dresser, no matter who he owes for it. He’ll quit eatin’ any time, or do the camel act, or even give up his cigarettes; but if the gents’ furnishing shops are showin’ something new in the line of violet socks or alligator skin vests, Snick’s got to sport the first ones sprung on Broadway.
So, seein’ him show up with fringes on his cuffs, a pair of runover tan shoes, and wearin’ his uniform cap off duty, I can’t help feelin’ some shocked, or wonderin’ how much more’n a five-spot I’ll be out by the time he leaves. It was some relief, though, to see that the glass eye was still in place, and know I wouldn’t be called on to redeem the ticket on that, anyway.
“Hello, Snick!” says I. “Glad you came in, – I was just going. Hope you don’t mind my lockin’ the safe? No offense, you know.”
“Can it, Shorty,” says he. “There’s no brace coming this time.”
“Eh?” says I. “Once more with that last, and say it slower, so I can let it sink in.”
“Don’t kid,” says he. “This is straight business.”
“Oh!” says I. “Well, that does sound serious. In that case, who’s your – er – Did he come in with you?”
I thought he did at first; but he seems so little int’rested in either Snick or me that I wa’n’t sure but he just wandered in because he saw the door open. He’s a high, well built, fairly good lookin’ chap, dressed neat and quiet in black; and if it wa’n’t for the sort of aimless, wanderin’ look in his eyes, you might have suspected he was somebody in partic’lar.
“Oh, him!” says Snick, shootin’ a careless glance over his shoulder. “Yes, of course he’s with me. It’s him I want to talk to you about.”
“Well,” says I, “don’t he – er – Is it a dummy, or a live one? Got a name, ain’t it?”
“Why, sure!” says Snick. “That’s Hermy. Hey you, Hermy, shake hands with Professor McCabe!”
“Howdy,” says I, makin’ ready to pass the grip. But Hermy ain’t in a sociable mood, it seems.
“Oh, bother!” says he, lookin’ around kind of disgusted and not noticin’ the welcomin’ hand at all. “I don’t want to stay here. I ought to be home, dressing for dinner.”
And say, that gives you about as much idea of the way he said it, as you’d get of an oil paintin’ from seein’ a blueprint. I can’t put in the pettish shoulder wiggle that goes with it, or make my voice behave like his did. It was the most ladylike voice I ever heard come from a heavyweight; one of these reg’lar “Oh-fudge-Lizzie-I-dropped-my-gum” voices. And him with a chest on him like a swell front mahog’ny bureau!
“Splash!” says I. “You mean, mean thing! So there!”
“Don’t mind what he says at all, Shorty,” says Snick. “You wait! I’ll fix him!” and with that he walks up to Hermy, shakes his finger under his nose, and proceeds to lay him out. “Now what did I tell you; eh, Hermy?” says Snick. “One lump of sugar in your tea – no pie – and locked in your room at eight-thirty. Oh, I mean it! You’re here to behave yourself. Understand? Take your fingers off that necktie! Don’t slouch against the wall there, either! You might get your coat dusty. Dress for dinner! Didn’t I wait fifteen minutes while you fussed with your hair? And do you think you’re going to go through all that again? You’re dressed for dinner, I tell you! But you don’t get a bit unless you do as you’re told! Hear?”
“Ye-e-es, sir,” sniffles Hermy.
Honest, it was a little the oddest exhibition I ever saw. Why, he would make two of Snick, this Hermy would, and he has a pair of shoulders like a truck horse. Don’t ever talk to me about chins again, either! Hermy has chin enough for a trust buster; but that’s all the good it seems to do him.
“You ain’t cast the hypnotic spell over him, have you, Snick?” says I.
“Hypnotic nothing!” says Snick. “That ain’t a man; it’s only a music box!”
“A which?” says I.
“Barytone,” says Snick. “Say, did you ever hear Bonci or Caruso or any of that mob warble? No? Well, then I’ll have to tell you. Look at Hermy there. Take a good long gaze at him. And – sh-h-h! After he’s had one show at the Metropolitan he’ll have that whole bunch carryin’ spears.”
“Is this something you dreamed, Snick,” says I, “or is it a sample of your megaphone talk?”
“You don’t believe it, of course,” says he. “That’s what I brought him up here for. Hermy, turn on the Toreador business!”
“Eh?” says I; then I sees Hermy gettin’ into position to cut loose. “Back up there! Shut it off! What do I know about judgin’ singers on the hoof? Why, he might be all you say, or as bad as I’d be willin’ to bet; but I wouldn’t know it. And what odds does it make to me, one way or another?”
“I know, Shorty,” says Snick, earnest and pleadin’; “but you’re my last hope. I’ve simply got to convince you.”
“Sorry, Snick,” says I; “but this ain’t my day for tryin’ out barytones. Besides, I got to catch a train.”
“All right,” says Snick. “Then we’ll trot along with you while I tell you about Hermy. Honest, Shorty, you’ve got to hear it!”
“If it’s as desperate as all that,” says I, “spiel away.”
And of all the plunges I ever knew Snick Butters to make, – and he sure is the dead gamest sport I ever ran across, – this one that he owns up to takin’ on Hermy had all his past performances put in the piker class.
Accordin’ to the way he deals it out, Snick had first discovered Hermy about a year ago, found him doin’ the tray balancin’ act in a porcelain lined three-off-and-draw-one parlor down on Seventh-ave. He was doin’ it bad, too, – gettin’ the orders mixed, and spillin’ soup on the customers, and passin’ out wrong checks, and havin’ the boss worked up to the assassination point.
But Hermy didn’t even know enough to be discouraged. He kept right on singsongin’ out his orders down the shaft, as cheerful as you please: “Sausage and mashed, two on the wheats, one piece of punk, and two mince, and let ’em come in a hurry! Silver!” You know how they do it in them C. B. & Q. places? Yes, corned beef and cabbage joints. With sixty or seventy people in a forty by twenty-five room, and the dish washers slammin’ crockery regardless, you got to holler out if you want the chef to hear. Hermy wa’n’t much on the shout, so he sang his orders. And it was this that gave Snick his pipedream.
“Now you know I’ve done more or less tra-la-la-work myself,” says he, “and the season I spent on the road as one of the merry villagers with an Erminie outfit put me wise to a few things. Course, this open air lecturing has spoiled my pipes for fair; but I’ve got my ear left, haven’t I? And say, Shorty, the minute I heard that voice of Hermy’s I knew he was the goods.”
So what does he do but go back later, after the noon rush was over, and get Hermy to tell him the story of his life. It wa’n’t what you’d call thrillin’. All there was to it was that Hermy was a double orphan who’d been brought up in Bridgeport, Conn., by an uncle who was a dancin’ professor. The only thing that saved Hermy from a bench in the brass works was his knack for poundin’ out twosteps and waltzes on the piano; but at that it seems he was such a soft head he couldn’t keep from watchin’ the girls on the floor and striking wrong notes. Then there was trouble with uncle. Snick didn’t get the full details of the row, or what brought it to a head; but anyway Hermy was fired from the academy and fin’lly drifted to New York, where he’d been close up against the bread line ever since.
“And when I found how he just naturally ate up music,” says Snick, “and how he’d had some training in a boy choir, and what a range he had, I says to him, ‘Hermy,’ says I, ‘you come with me!’ First I blows in ten good hard dollars getting a lawyer to draw up a contract. I thought it all out by myself; but I wanted the whereases put in right. And it’s a peach. It bound me to find board and lodging and provide clothes and incidentals for Hermy for the period of one year; and in consideration of which, and all that, I am to be the manager and sole business representative of said Hermy for the term of fifteen years from date, entitled to a fair and equal division of whatsoever profits, salary, or emoluments which may be received by the party of the second part, payable to me, my heirs, or assigns forever. And there I am, Shorty. I’ve done it! And I’m going to stay with it!”
“What!” says I. “You don’t mean to say you’ve invested a year’s board and lodgin’ and expenses in – in that?” and I gazes once more at this hundred and eighty-pound wrist slapper, who is standin’ there in front of the mirror pattin’ down a stray lock.
“That’s what I’ve done,” says Snick, shovin’ his hands in his pockets and lookin’ at the exhibit like he was proud of it.
“But how the – where in blazes did you get it?” says I.
“Squeezed it out,” says Snick; “out of myself, too. And you know me. I always was as good to myself as other folks would let me. But all that had to be changed. It come hard, I admit, and it cost more’n I figured on. Why, some of his voice culture lessons set me back ten a throw. Think of that! He’s had ’em, though. And me? Well, I’ve lived on one meal a day. I’ve done a double trick: on the wagon day times, night cashier in a drug store from nine till two a.m. I’ve cut out theaters, cigarettes, and drinks. I’ve made my old clothes last over, and I’ve pinched the dimes and nickels so hard my thumbprints would look like treasury dies. But we’ve got the goods, Shorty. Hermy may be the mushiest, sappiest, hen brained specimen of a man you ever saw; but when it comes to being a high class grand opera barytone, he’s the kid! And little Percival here is his manager and has the power of attorney that will fix him for keeps if I know anything!”
“Ye-e-es?” says I. “Reminds me some of the time when you was backin’ Doughnut to win the Suburban. Recollect how hard you scraped to get the two-fifty you put down on Doughnut at thirty to one, and how hard you begged me to jump in and pull out a bale of easy money? Let’s see; did the skate finish tenth, or did he fall through the hole in his name?”
“Ah, say!” says Snick. “Don’t go digging that up now. That was sport. This is straight business, on the level, and I ain’t asking you to put up a cent.”
“Well, what then?” says I.
Would you guess it? He wants me to book Hermy for a private exhibition before some of my swell friends! All I’ve got to do is to persuade some of ’em to give a little musicale, and then spring this nutmeg wonder on the box holdin’ set without warnin’.
“If he was a Russki with long hair,” says I, “or even a fiddlin’ Czech, they might stand for it; but to ask ’em to listen to a domestic unknown from Bridgeport, Conn. – I wouldn’t have the nerve, Snick. Why not take him around to the concert agencies first?”
“Bah!” says Snick. “Haven’t we worn out the settees in the agency offices? What do they know about good barytone voices? All they judge by is press clippings and lists of past engagements. Now, your people would know. He’d have ’em going in two minutes, and they’d spread the news afterwards. Then we’d have the agents coming to us. See?”
Course I couldn’t help gettin’ int’rested in this long shot of Snick’s, even if I don’t take any stock in his judgment; but I tries to explain that while I mix more or less with classy folks, I don’t exactly keep their datebooks for ’em, or provide talent for their after dinner stunts.
That don’t head off Snick, though. He says I’m the only link between him and the set he wants to reach, and he just can’t take no for an answer. He says he’ll depend on me for a date for next Wednesday night.
“Why Wednesday?” says I. “Wouldn’t Thursday or Friday do as well?”
“No,” says he. “That’s Frenchy’s only night off from the café, and it’s his dress suit Hermy’s got to wear. It’ll be some tight across the back; but it’s the biggest one I can get the loan of without paying rent.”
Well, I tells Snick I’ll see what can be done, and when I gets home I puts the problem up to Sadie. Maybe if she’d had a look at Hermy she’d taken more interest; but as it is she says she don’t see how I can afford to run the chances of handin’ out a lemon, even if there was an op’nin’. Then again, so many of our friends were at Palm Beach just now, and those who’d come back were so busy givin’ Lent bridge parties, that the chances of workin’ in a dark horse barytone was mighty slim. She’d think it over, though, and see if maybe something can’t be done.
So that’s the best I can give Snick when he shows up in the mornin’, and it was the same every day that week. I was kind of sorry for Snick, and was almost on the point of luggin’ him and his discovery out to the house and askin’ in a few of the neighbors, when Sadie tells me that the Purdy-Pells are back from Florida and are goin’ to open their town house with some kind of happy jinks Wednesday night, and that we’re invited.
Course, that knocks out my scheme. I’d passed the sad news on to Snick; and it was near noon Wednesday, when I’m called up on the ’phone by Sadie. Seems that Mrs. Purdy-Pell had signed a lady harpist and a refined monologue artist to fill in the gap between coffee and bridge, and the lady harper had scratched her entry on account of a bad case of grip. So couldn’t I find my friend Mr. Butters and get him to produce his singer? The case had been stated to Mrs. Purdy-Pell, and she was willin’ to take the risk.
“All right,” says I. “But it’s all up to her, don’t you forget.”
With that I chases down to Madison Square, catches Snick just startin’ out with a load of neck stretchers, gives him the number, and tells him to show up prompt at nine-thirty. And I wish you could have seen the joy that spread over his homely face. Even the store eye seemed to be sparklin’ brighter’n ever.
Was he there? Why, as we goes in to dinner at eight o’clock, I catches sight of him and Hermy holdin’ down chairs in the reception room. Well, you know how they pull off them affairs. After they’ve stowed away about eleventeen courses, from grapefruit and sherry to demitasse and benedictine, them that can leave the table without wheel chairs wanders out into the front rooms, and the men light up fresh perfectos and hunt for the smokin’ den, and the women get together in bunches and exchange polite knocks. And in the midst of all that some one drifts casually up to the concert grand and cuts loose. That was about the programme in this case.
Hermy was all primed for his cue, and when Mrs. Purdy-Pell gives the nod I sees Snick push him through the door, and in another minute the thing is on. The waiter’s uniform was a tight fit, all right; for it stretches across his shoulders like a drumhead. And the shirt studs wa’n’t mates, and the collar was one of them saw edged laundry veterans. But the general effect was good, and Hermy don’t seem to mind them trifles at all. He stands up there lookin’ big and handsome, simpers and smiles around the room a few times, giggles a few at the young lady who’d volunteered to do the ivory punishing, and then fin’lly he gets under way with the Toreador song.
As I say, when it comes to gems from Carmen, I’m no judge; but this stab of Hermy’s strikes me from the start as a mighty good attempt. He makes a smooth, easy get-away, and he strikes a swingin’, steady gait at the quarter, and when he comes to puttin’ over the deep, rollin’ chest notes I has feelin’s down under the first dinner layer like I’d swallowed a small thunder storm. Honest, when he fairly got down to business and hittin’ it up in earnest, he had me on my toes, and by the look on Sadie’s face I knew that our friend Hermy was going some.
But was all the others standin’ around with their mouths open, drinkin’ it in? Anything but! You see, some late comers had arrived, and they’d brought bulletins of something rich and juicy that had just happened in the alimony crowd, – I expect the event will figure on the court calendars later, – and they’re so busy passin’ on the details to willin’ ears, that Hermy wa’n’t disturbin’ ’em at all. As a matter of fact, not one in ten of the bunch knew whether he was makin’ a noise like a bullfighter or a line-up man.
I can’t help takin’ a squint around at Snick, who’s peekin’ in through the draperies. And say, he’s all but tearin’ his hair. It was tough, when you come to think of it. Here he’d put his whole stack of blues on this performance, and the audience wa’n’t payin’ any more attention to it than to the rattle of cabs on the avenue.
Hermy has most got to the final spasm, and it’s about all over, when, as a last straw, some sort of disturbance breaks out in the front hall. First off I thought it must be Snick Butters throwin’ a fit; but then I hears a voice that ain’t his, and as I glances out I sees the Purdy-Pell butler havin’ a rough house argument with a black whiskered gent in evenin’ clothes and a Paris model silk lid. Course, everyone hears the rumpus, and there’s a grand rush, some to get away, and others to see what’s doin’.
“Let me in! I demand entrance! It must be!” howls the gent, while the butler tries to tell him he’s got to give up his card first.
And next thing I know Snick has lit on the butler’s back to pull him off, and the three are havin’ a fine mix-up, when Mr. Purdy-Pell comes boltin’ out, and I’ve just offered to bounce any of ’em that he’ll point out, when all of a sudden he recognizes the party behind the brunette lambrequins.
“Why – why,” says he, “what does this mean, Mr. – ”
“Pardon,” says the gent, puffin’ and pushin’ to the front. “I intrude, yes? A thousand pardons. But I will explain. Next door I am dining – there is a window open – I hear that wonderful voice. Ah! that marvelous voice! Of what is the name of this artist? Yes? I demand! I implore! Ah, I must know instantly, sir!”
Well, you know who it was. There’s only one grand opera Napoleon with black whiskers who does things in that way, and makes good every trip. It’s him, all right. And if he don’t know a barytone voice, who does?
Inside of four minutes him and Hermy and Snick was bunched around the libr’y table, chewin’ over the terms of the contract, and next season you’ll read the name of a new soloist in letters four foot high.
Say, I was up to see Mr. Butters in his new suite of rooms at the St. Swithin, where it never rains but it pours. He’d held out for a big advance, and he’d got it. Also he’d invested part of it in some of the giddiest raiment them theatrical clothing houses can supply. While a manicure was busy puttin’ a gloss finish on his nails, he has his Mongolian valet display the rest of his wardrobe, as far as he’d laid it in.
“Did I get let in wrong on the Hermy proposition, eh?” says he. “How about stayin’ with your luck till it turns? Any reminder of the Doughnut incident in this? What?”
Do I debate the subject? Not me! I just slaps Snick on the back and wishes him joy. If he wants to credit it all up to a rabbit’s foot, or a clover leaf, I’m willin’ to let him. But say, from where I stand, it looks to me as if nerve and grit played some part in it.