"All of which," he goes on, "I am quite sure, Mrs. Wells, you will appreciate."
"Go on, you whiskered old stuff!" comes back Mabel spiteful. "How do you know so much what's good for us? You and your nutty dreams about cows and flower gardens and hens! I'd rather go back to Second avenue and frisk another quick-lunch job. Hand us a wad: that's all we want."
Course it was a batty piece of work, tryin' to persuade people to let you push money on 'em; but that's just where we stood. And in the end J. Bayard wipes his brow weary and turns to me.
"Well, McCabe, what do you say?" he asks. "Shall we?"
"I leave it with you," says I. "You're the one that's developed this what-do-you-call-it instinct, temperin' kindly zeal with practical wisdom, ain't you? Then go to it!"
So five minutes later Hackett Wells shuffles out with an order good for the whole twenty-five hundred in his pocket, and Mabel clingin' tight to his arm.
[Illustration: "What's the idea," says Mabel, "Wishin' this Rube stuff on us?"]
"So long, Profess," says she over her shoulder, as I holds the door open for 'em. "We're headed for happy days."
And J. Bayard Steele, gazin' after her, remarks puzzled, "Now just precisely what can she mean by that?"
"Bein' only a crude and simple soul, J. B.," says I, "I got to give it up. Anyhow, Mabel's entirely too thick a girl for me to see through."
Besides, not knowin' her tastes or little fads, how was I to guess her notion of happy days? Then again, I didn't have to. All that's clear is that Pyramid had wanted us to do some good turn for this old goat, to sort of even up for that spill of years gone by, and we'd done our best. Whether the money was to be used wise or not accordin' to our view was a problem that don't worry me at all. Might have once, when I was dead sure my dope on things in gen'ral was the only true dope. But I'm getting over that, I hope, and allowin' other folks to have theirs now and then. In fact, I proceeded to forget this pair as quick as possible, like you try to shake a bad dream when you wake up in the night. And I warned J. Bayard that if he didn't quit luggin' his punk philanthropy specimens into my studio I'd bar him out entirely.
Let's see, that was early in the summer, and it must have been just before Labor Day that I broke away for a week or so to run up into the White Mountains and bring back Sadie and little Sully. First off Sadie was plannin' to come by train; but by the time I got there she'd changed her mind and wanted to tour back in the machine.