



Produced by Al Haines









[Frontispiece: THEY TACKLES ANYTHING I LEADS 'EM UP TO]





Side-stepping

with Shorty



_By_


Sewell Ford



_Illustrated by_

_Francis Vaux Wilson_




NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS




_Copyright, 1908, by Mitchell Kennerley_




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

     I.  SHORTY AND THE PLUTE
    II.  ROUNDING UP MAGGIE
   III.  UP AGAINST BENTLEY
    IV.  THE TORTONIS' STAR ACT
     V.  PUTTING PINCKNEY ON THE JOB
    VI.  THE SOARING OF THE SAGAWAS
   VII.  RINKEY AND THE PHONY LAMP
  VIII.  PINCKNEY AND THE TWINS
    IX.  A LINE ON PEACOCK ALLEY
     X.  SHORTY AND THE STRAY
    XI.  WHEN ROSSITER CUT LOOSE
   XII.  TWO ROUNDS WITH SYLVIE
  XIII.  GIVING BOMBAZOULA THE HOOK
   XIV.  A HUNCH FOR LANGDON
    XV.  SHORTY'S GO WITH ART
   XVI.  WHY WILBUR DUCKED
  XVII.  WHEN SWIFTY WAS GOING SOME
 XVIII.  PLAYING WILBUR TO SHOW
   XIX.  AT HOME WITH THE DILLONS
    XX.  THE CASE OF RUSTY QUINN




ILLUSTRATIONS


THEY TACKLES ANYTHING I LEADS 'EM TO...... _Frontispiece_

THE TWINS ORGANIZE A GAME OF TAG

"WE--E--E--OUGH! GLORY BE!" YELLS HANK, LETTIN' OUT AN EARSPLITTER

HE HAS THE PO'TRY TAP TURNED ON FULL BLAST




I

SHORTY AND THE PLUTE

Notice any gold dust on my back?  No?  Well it's a wonder there ain't,
for I've been up against the money bags so close I expect you can find
eagle prints all over me.

That's what it is to build up a rep.  Looks like all the fat wads in
New York was gettin' to know about Shorty McCabe, and how I'm a sure
cure for everything that ails 'em.  You see, I no sooner take hold of
one down and outer, sweat the high livin' out of him, and fix him up
like new with a private course of rough house exercises, than he passes
the word along to another; and so it goes.

This last was the limit, though.  One day I'm called to the 'phone by
some mealy mouth that wants to know if this is the Physical Culture
Studio.

"Sure as ever," says I.

"Well," says he, "I'm secretary to Mr. Fletcher Dawes."

"That's nice," says I.  "How's Fletch?"

"Mr. Dawes," says he, "will see the professah at fawh o'clock this
awfternoon."

"Is that a guess," says I, "or has he been havin' his fortune told?"

"Who is this?" says the gent at the other end of the wire, real sharp
and sassy.

"Only me," says I.

"Well, who are you?" says he.

"I'm the witness for the defence," says I.  "I'm Professor McCabe, P.
C. D., and a lot more that I don't use on week days."

"Oh!" says he, simmerin' down a bit.  "This is Professor McCabe
himself, is it?  Well, Mr. Fletcher Dawes requiahs youah services.  You
are to repawt at his apartments at fawh o'clock this awfternoon--fawh
o'clock, understand?"

"Oh, yes," says I.  "That's as plain as a dropped egg on a plate of
hash.  But say, Buddy; you tell Mr. Dawes that next time he wants me
just to pull the string.  If that don't work, he can whistle; and when
he gets tired of whistlin', and I ain't there, he'll know I ain't
comin'.  Got them directions?  Well, think hard, and maybe you'll
figure it out later.  Ta, ta, Mister Secretary."  With that I hangs up
the receiver and winks at Swifty Joe.

"Swifty," says I, "they'll be usin' us for rubber stamps if we don't
look out."

"Who was the guy?" says he.

"Some pinhead up to Fletcher Dawes's," says I.

"Hully chee!" says Swifty.

Funny, ain't it, how most everyone'll prick up their ears at that name?
And it don't mean so much money as John D.'s or Morgan's does, either.
But what them two and Harriman don't own is divided up among Fletcher
Dawes and a few others.  Maybe it's because Dawes is such a free
spender that he's better advertised.  Anyway, when you say Fletcher
Dawes you think of a red-faced gent with a fistful of thousand-dollar
bills offerin' to buy the White House for a stable.

But say, he might have twice as much, and I wouldn't hop any quicker.
I'm only livin' once, and it may be long or short, but while it lasts I
don't intend to do the lackey act for anyone.

Course, I thinks the jolt I gave that secretary chap closes the
incident.  But around three o'clock that same day, though, I looks down
from the front window and sees a heavy party in a fur lined overcoat
bein' helped out of a shiny benzine wagon by a pie faced valet, and
before I'd done guessin' where they was headed for they shows up in the
office door.

"My name is Dawes.  Fletcher Dawes," says the gent in the overcoat.

"I could have guessed that," says I.  "You look somethin' like the
pictures they print of you in the Sunday papers."

"I'm sorry to hear it," says he.

But say, he's less of a prize hog than you'd think, come to get
near--forty-eight around the waist, I should say, and about a number
sixteen collar.  You wouldn't pick him out by his face as the kind of a
man that you'd like to have holdin' a mortgage on the old homestead,
though, nor one you'd like to sit opposite to in a poker game--eyes
about a quarter of an inch apart, lima bean ears buttoned down close,
and a mouth like a crack in the pavement.

He goes right at tellin' what he wants and when he wants it, sayin'
he's a little out of condition and thinks a few weeks of my trainin'
was just what he needed.  Also he throws out that I might come up to
the Brasstonia and begin next day.

"Yes?" says I.  "I heard somethin' like that over the 'phone."

"From Corson, eh?" says he.  "He's an ass!  Never mind him.  You'll be
up to-morrow?"

"Say," says I, "where'd you get the idea I went out by the day?"

"Why," says he, "it seems to me I heard something about----"

"Maybe they was personal friends of mine," says I.  "That's different.
Anybody else comes here to see me."

"Ah!" says he, suckin' in his breath through his teeth and levelin'
them blued steel eyes of his at me.  "I suppose you have your price?"

"No," says I; "but I'll make one, just special for you.  It'll be ten
dollars a minute."

Say, what's the use?  We saves up till we gets a little wad of twenties
about as thick as a roll of absorbent cotton, and with what we got in
the bank and some that's lent out, we feel as rich as platter gravy.
Then we bumps up against a really truly plute, and gets a squint at his
dinner check, and we feels like panhandlers workin' a side street.
Honest, with my little ten dollars a minute gallery play, I thought I
was goin' to have him stunned.

"That's satisfactory," says he.  "To-morrow, at four."

That's all.  I'm still standin' there with my mouth open when he's
bein' tucked in among the tiger skins.  And I'm bought up by the hour,
like a bloomin' he massage artist!  Feel?  I felt like I'd fit loose in
a gas pipe.

But Swifty, who's had his ear stretched out and his eyes bugged all the
time, begins to do the walk around and look me over as if I was a new
wax figger in a museum.

"Ten plunks a minute!" says he.  "Hully chee!"

"Ah, forget it!" says I.  "D'ye suppose I want to be reminded that I've
broke into the bath rubber class?  G'wan!  Next time you see me prob'ly
I'll be wearin' a leather collar and a tag.  Get the mitts on, you
South Brooklyn bridge rusher, and let me show you how I can hit before
I lose my nerve altogether!"

Swifty says he ain't been used so rough since the time he took the
count from Cans; but it was a relief to my feelin's; and when he come
to reckon up that I'd handed him two hundred dollars' worth of punches
without chargin' him a red, he says he'd be proud to have me do it
every day.

If it hadn't been that I'd chucked the bluff myself, I'd scratched the
Dawes proposition.  But I ain't no hand to welch; so up I goes next
afternoon, with my gym. suit in a bag, and gets my first inside view of
the Brasstonia, where the plute hangs out.  And say, if you think these
down town twenty-five-a-day joints is swell, you ought to get some
Pittsburg friend to smuggle you into one of these up town apartment
hotels that's run exclusively for trust presidents.  Why, they don't
have any front doors at all.  You're expected to come and go in your
bubble, but the rules lets you use a cab between certain hours.

I tries to walk in, and was held up by a three hundred pound special
cop in grey and gold, and made to prove that I didn't belong in the
baggage elevator or the ash hoist.  Then I'm shown in over the Turkish
rugs to a solid gold passenger lift, set in a velvet arm chair, and
shot up to the umpteenth floor.

I was lookin' to find Mr. Dawes located in three or four rooms and
bath, but from what I could judge of the size of his ranch he must pay
by acreage instead of the square foot, for he has a whole wing to
himself.  And as for hired help, they was standin' around in clusters,
all got up in baby blue and silver, with mugs as intelligent as so many
frozen codfish.  Say, it would give me chillblains on the soul to have
to live with that gang lookin' on!

I'm shunted from one to the other, until I gets to Dawes, and he leads
the way into a big room with rubber mats, punchin' bags, and all the
fixin's you could think of.

"Will this do?" says he.

"It'll pass," says I.  "And if you'll chase out that bunch of
employment bureau left-overs, we'll get down to business."

"But," says he, "I thought you might need some of my men to----"

"I don't," says I, "and while you're mixin' it with me you won't,
either."

At that he shoos 'em all out and shuts the door.  I opens the window
so's to get in some air that ain't been strained and currycombed and
scented with violets, and then we starts to throw the shot bag around.
I find Fletcher is short winded and soft.  He's got a bad liver and a
worse heart, for five or six years' trainin' on wealthy water and pate
de foie gras hasn't done him any good.  Inside of ten minutes he knows
just how punky he is himself, and he's ready to follow any directions I
lay down.

As I'm leavin', a nice, slick haired young feller calls me over and
hands me an old rose tinted check.  It was for five hundred and twenty.

"Fifty-two minutes, professor," says he.

"Oh, let that pyramid," says I, tossin' it back.

Honest, I never shied so at money before, but somehow takin' that went
against the grain.  Maybe it was the way it was shoved at me.

I'd kind of got interested in the job of puttin' Dawes on his feet,
though, and Thursday I goes up for another session.  Just as I steps
off the elevator at his floor I hears a scuffle, and out comes a couple
of the baby blue bunch, shoving along an old party with her bonnet
tilted over one ear.  I gets a view of her face, though, and I sees
she's a nice, decent lookin' old girl, that don't seem to be either
tanked or batty, but just kind of scared.  A Willie boy in a frock coat
was followin' along behind, and as they gets to me he steps up, grabs
her by the arm, and snaps out:

"Now you leave quietly, or I'll hand you over to the police!
Understand?"

That scares her worse than ever, and she rolls her eyes up to me in
that pleadin' way a dog has when he's been hurt.

"Hear that?" says one of the baby blues, shakin' her up.

My fingers went into bunches as sudden as if I'd touched a live wire,
but I keeps my arms down.  "Ah, say!" says I.  "I don't see any call
for the station-house drag out just yet.  Loosen up there a bit, will
you?"

"Mind your business!" says one of 'em, givin' me the glary eye.

"Thanks," says I.  "I was waitin' for an invite," and I reaches out and
gets a shut-off grip on their necks.  It didn't take 'em long to loosen
up after that.

"Here, here!" says the Willie that I'd spotted for Corson.  "Oh, it's
you is it, professor?"

"Yes, it's me," says I, still holdin' the pair at arms' length.
"What's the row?"

"Why," says Corson, "this old woman----"

"Lady," says I.

"Aw--er--yes," says he.  "She insists on fawcing her way in to see Mr.
Dawes."

"Well," says I, "she ain't got no bag of dynamite, or anything like
that, has she?"

"I just wanted a word with Fletcher," says she, buttin' in--"just a
word or two."

"Friend of yours?" says I.

"Why--  Well, we have known each other for forty years," says she.

"That ought to pass you in," says I,

"But she refuses to give her name," says Corson.

"I am Mrs. Maria Dawes," says she, holdin' her chin up and lookin' him
straight between the eyes.

"You're not on the list," says Corson.

"List be blowed!" says I.  "Say, you peanut head, can't you see this is
some relation?  You ought to have sense enough to get a report from the
boss, before you carry out this quick bounce business.  Perhaps you're
puttin' your foot in it, son."

Then Corson weakens, and the old lady throws me a look that was as good
as a vote of thanks.  And say, when she'd straightened her lid and
pulled herself together, she was as ladylike an old party as you'd want
to meet.  There wa'n't much style about her, but she was dressed
expensive enough--furs, and silks, and sparks in her ears.  Looked like
one of the sort that had been up against a long run of hard luck and
had come through without gettin' sour.

While we was arguin', in drifts Mr. Dawes himself.  I gets a glimpse of
his face when he first spots the old girl, and if ever I see a mouth
shut like a safe door, and a jaw stiffen as if it had turned to
concrete, his did.

"What does this mean, Maria?" he says between his teeth.

"I couldn't help it, Fletcher," says she.  "I wanted to see you about
little Bertie."

"Huh!" grunts Fletcher.  "Well, step in this way.  McCabe, you can come
along too."

I wa'n't stuck on the way it was said, and didn't hanker for mixin' up
with any such reunions; but it didn't look like Maria had any too many
friends handy, so I trots along.  When we're shut in, with the
draperies pulled, Mr. Dawes plants his feet solid, shoves his hands
down into his pockets,