Page:The Popular Magazine v72 n1 (1924-04-20).djvu/90

 the portfolio of assistant manager if I start anything, but I'll get him if I have to poison his oatmeal and use an iron bar!”

That was a vow.

There was no sign of Ottie until early in the afternoon when he locked Tarkie van Riker in his room and came down on the porch to give me a nudge and one of the handbills advertising the fair at the Town Hall the same night.

“Read this, Joe. Quite the event, what? Er—I've been trying to get Amabel on the telephone and invite her to blow down there with me to-night but so far the wire hasn't answered and she's not around the garden. I'd like to lay bets that she and Jep have gone over to Tarrytown in a hired hack. Honest, for a valet that boy spends money like an intoxicated spendthrift. I don't know what wages Van pays him, but they're a mistake, no matter how much.”

At four o'clock Ottie phoned the Biggs household again. There was no answer. At five he did the same thing over again with the same results. The big beautiful blonde was not home at six and the wire didn't respond at half past six, seven o'clock or twenty minutes after seven. When there was still nothing stirring at eight Scandrel, with three nails left on his right hand, was willing to acknowledge defeat.

“Mebbe the hack broke down somewhere, Joe. But that's neither here nor there. I'll give this Jepson a fast line when I see him. It's better to have loved and lost than to have gotten a broken nose. Come on, let's me and you run down to the Town Hall ourselves and look these knitting freaks over. Er—if you'll wait a minute I'll slip upstairs and slip on my cocktail suit. I might not be the best-known person there but I'll be the best dressed, I really will!”

When we reached the scene of carnival it was to find the entire population of Wellington present. The Town Hall was lighted up like a frost-bitten beak. There were at least twenty flivvers parked at the curb. We purchased a pair of admission tickets from a cross-eyed young man in a hard-boiled shirt and a cutaway coat.

“One dollar ninety each,” he informed us when my boy friend laid down a quarter.

“So you know we're from New York?” Ottie hissed. “What do you mean—one dollar and ninety cents?”

“The ninety cents is the war tax, mister.”

This statement made Scandrel sneer.

“War tax, is it? You silly mock turtle, haven't you heard the war is over? Step out here a minute and let me tell you a secret.”

The ticket seller came out of his booth, licking his lips.

“Yes, mister. What kind of a secret?”

“This!” Ottie bellowed, planting a right uppercut directly on the unfortunate pasteboard passer's chin. “The next time you want to have some more fun make an appointment with me by mail.”

We went up a flight of stairs and into the hall. There, the first thing we saw was the youth and beauty of Wellington tripping around from booth to booth, dressed like a burlesque show. We hardly had an eyeful before a stout lady in pink satin rushed up to the startled Ottie and pinned a lily on his lapel.

“Isn't that just adorable?” she gushed. “Two dollars please.”

She snatched a bank note from him, rushed away and was replaced by one of the village belles who carried a notebook and a pencil.

“Handsome stranger,” this girl lisped, “I'll just know you're going to take a chance on a diamond ring to help the benefit. You are, aren't you?”

Ottie gave me a helpless look.

“I'll need a benefit myself after this. Two fish for a pansy that don't smell so good as it is. A diamond ring, you say? That's different. I'll take all the chances you've got left. Who can tell? I might get engaged any time—to a blonde.”

“A short wife and a merry one!” the pride of Main Street cooed, taking another chunk out of Scandrel's bank roll.

From then until the time we reached the rear of the layout Ottie impersonated a sailor with a shore leave and a pocketful of rupees. He took chances on a half dozen pairs of knitted wristlets, a cream separator, an incubator, a red-flannel shirt and a pair of rubber boots. He put a dent in four different layer cakes at seventy-five cents a cut and tanked up on lemonade at a dime a sip. Further disaster was only prevented when we encountered Looie Pitz outside of a fortune teller's tent, sobbing in his handkerchief.

“Say you!” Ottie barked. “What's the matter—did somebody crook your bicycle?”

“You boys here?” Pitz moaned. “I just got an awful pushing around from a dame in a dunce cap. Her name is Lady Mys-