Page:The Leather Pushers (1921).pdf/210

 Take next train New York Meet me Yale Club All plans upset.

Sweet Papa!

Well, I again had the sensations of feelin' like Napoleon, only this time I felt like the well-known army man must of felt durin' the last half of the ninth at Waterloo. . ..

When I fin'ly get past the doorkeeper at the Yale Ctub, the Kid is pacin' back and forth in the lobby and the minute he flashed me he dragged me into a little room at one side. His twitchin' lips showed me where his nerves was.

"Now what the Gehenna's the—" I begins.

"Everything's the matter," he butts in, finishin' for me. "Lower your voice, can't you? This is a gentlemen's club, not a gymnasium!" A yellow piece of paper is shoved under my eyes. "Read that and weep!" he says.

This one is a wireless, readin' thusly:

Arrive pier 49 North River Thursday noon Keep from newspapers Booked as R. H. Carson.. . J. A.

"Who's J. A?" I says, handin' it back.

The Kid bends over and hisses in my ear, like a villain in the old-time gun operas which the movies killed off: "J. A. is J. A. Halliday—my father!"

"Well, that's fine!" I remarks pleasantly. "I'll be glad to meet the old gent. But what's this jam you're in now?"

He swung around on me, and for a instant I thought he was goin' to forget we was in a gentlemen's club and not no gymnasium.

"You—you—you colossal ass!" he busts out fin'ly.