Ruggles of Red Gap. Harry Leon Wilson
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hats with the cabby, which he willingly did. It was a top-hat of some strange, hard material brightly glazed. Although many unjust things were said of me later, this is the sole incident of the day which causes me to admit that I might have taken a glass too much, especially as I undoubtedly praised Cousin Egbert’s appearance when the exchange had been made, and was heard to wish that we might all have hats so smart.
It was directly after this that young Mr. Elmer, the art student, invited us to his studio, though I had not before remarked his presence, and cannot recall now where we met him. The occurrence in the studio, however, was entirely natural. I wished to please my friends and made no demur whatever when asked to don the things—a trouserish affair, of sheep’s wool, which they called “chapps,” a flannel shirt of blue (they knotted a scarlet handkerchief around my neck), and a wide-brimmed white hat with four indentations in the crown, such as one may see worn in the cinema dramas by cow-persons and other western-coast desperadoes. When they had strapped around my waist a large pistol in a leather jacket, I considered the effect picturesque in the extreme, and my friends were loud in their approval of it.
I repeat, it was an occasion when it would have been boorish in me to refuse to meet them halfway. I even told them an excellent wheeze I had long known, which I thought they might not, have heard. It runs: “Why is Charing Cross? Because the Strand runs into it.” I mean to say, this is comic providing one enters wholly into the spirit of it, as there is required a certain nimbleness of mind to get the point, as one might say. In the present instance some needed element was lacking, for they actually drew aloof from me and conversed in low tones among themselves, pointedly ignoring me. I repeated the thing to make sure they should see it, whereat I heard Cousin Egbert say. “Better not irritate him—he’ll get mad if we don’t laugh,” after which they burst into laughter so extravagant that I knew it to be feigned. Hereupon, feeling quite drowsy, I resolved to have forty winks, and with due apologies reclined upon the couch, where I drifted into a refreshing slumber.
Later I inferred that I must have slept for some hours. I was awakened by a light flashed in my eyes, and beheld Cousin Egbert and the Tuttle person, the latter wishing to know how late I expected to keep them up. I was on my feet at once with apologies, but they instantly hustled me to the door, down a flight of steps, through a court-yard, and into the waiting cab. It was then I noticed that I was wearing the curious hat of the American Far-West, but when I would have gone back to leave it, and secure my own, they protested vehemently, wishing to know if I had not given them trouble enough that day.
In the cab I was still somewhat drowsy, but gathered that my companions had left me, to dine and attend a public dance-hall with the cubbish art student. They had not seemed to need sleep and were still wakeful, for they sang from time to time, and Cousin Egbert lifted the cabby’s hat, which he still wore, bowing to imaginary throngs along the street who were supposed to be applauding him. I at once became conscience-stricken at the thought of Mrs. Effie’s feelings when she should discover him to be in this state, and was on the point of suggesting that he seek another apartment for the night, when the cab pulled up in front of our own hotel.
Though I protest that I was now entirely recovered from any effect that the alcohol might have had upon me, it was not until this moment that I most horribly discovered myself to be in the full cow-person’s regalia I had donned in the studio in a spirit of pure frolic. I mean to say, I had never intended to wear the things beyond the door and could not have been hired to do so. What was my amazement then to find my companions laboriously lifting me from the cab in this impossible tenue. I objected vehemently, but little good it did me.
“Get a policeman if he starts any of that rough stuff,” said the Tuttle person, and in sheer horror of a scandal I subsided, while one on either side they hustled me through the hotel lounge—happily vacant of every one but a tariff manager—and into the lift. And now I perceived that they were once more pretending to themselves that I was in a bad way from drink, though I could not at once suspect the full iniquity of their design.
As we reached our own floor, one of them still seeming to support me on either side, they began loud and excited admonitions to me to be still, to come along as quickly as possible, to stop singing, and not to shoot. I mean to say, I was entirely quiet, I was coming along as quickly as they would let me, I had not sung, and did not wish to shoot, yet they persisted in making this loud ado over my supposed intoxication, aimlessly as I thought, until the door of the Floud drawing-room opened and Mrs. Effie appeared in the hallway. At this they redoubled their absurd violence with me, and by dint of tripping me they actually made it appear that I was scarce able to walk, nor do I imagine that the costume I wore was any testimonial to my sobriety.
“Now we got him safe,” panted Cousin Egbert, pushing open the door of my room.
“Get his gun, first!” warned the Tuttle person, and this being taken from me, I was unceremoniously shoved inside.
“What does all this mean?” demanded Mrs. Effie, coming rapidly down the hall. “Where have you been till this time of night? I bet it’s your fault, Jeff Tuttle—you’ve been getting him going.”
They were both voluble with denials of this, and though I could scarce believe my ears, they proceeded to tell a story that laid the blame entirely on me.
“No, ma’am, Mis’ Effie,” began the Tuttle person. “It ain’t that way at all. You wrong me if ever a man was wronged.”
“You just seen what state he was in, didn’t you?” asked Cousin Egbert in tones of deep injury. “Do you want to take another look at him?” and he made as if to push the door farther open upon me.
“Don’t do it—don’t get him started again!” warned the Tuttle person. “I’ve had trouble enough with that man to-day.”
“I seen it coming this morning,” said Cousin Egbert, “when we was at the art gallery. He had a kind of wild look in his eyes, and I says right then: ‘There’s a man ought to be watched,’ and, well, one thing led to another—look at this hat he made me wear—nothing would satisfy him but I should trade hats with some cab-driver——”
“I was coming along from looking at two or three good churches,” broke in the Tuttle person, “when I seen Sour-dough here having a kind of a mix-up with this man because of him insisting he must ride a kangaroo or something on a merry-go-round, and wanting Sour-dough to ride an ostrich with him, and then when we got him quieted down a little, nothing would do him but he’s got to be a cowboy—you seen his clothes, didn’t you? And of course I wanted to get back to Addie and the girls, but I seen Sour-dough here was in trouble, so I stayed right by him, and between us we got the maniac here.”
“He’s one of them should never touch liquor,” said Cousin Egbert; “it makes a demon of him.”
“I got his knife away from him early in the game,” said the other.
“I don’t suppose I got to wear this cabman’s hat just because he told me to, have I?” demanded Cousin Egbert.
“And here I’d been looking forward to a quiet day seeing some well-known objects of interest,” came from the other, “after I got my tooth pulled, that is.”
“And me with a tooth, too, that nearly drove me out of my mind,” said Cousin Egbert suddenly.
I could not see Mrs. Effie, but she had evidently listened to this outrageous tale with more or less belief, though not wholly credulous.
“You men have both been drinking yourselves,” she said shrewdly.
“We had to take a little; he made us,” declared the Tuttle person brazenly.
“He got so he insisted on our taking something every time he did,” added Cousin Egbert. “And, anyway, I didn’t care so much, with this tooth of mine aching like it does.”
“You come right out with me and around to that dentist I went to this morning,” said the Tuttle person. “You’ll suffer all night if you don’t.”
“Maybe I’d better,” said Cousin Egbert, “though I hate to leave this comfortable hotel and go out