Cobb Irvin Shrewsbury
Sundry Accounts

"'To think,' he says, more in sorrow than in anger, 'to think that I should live to see this day! To think that me, who helped Canady Bill sell the first gold brick that ever was molded in this country, should in my declining years have a couple of wooden-fingered amatoors come along and try to slip me the oldest graft in the known world! It is too much,' he says, 'it is too much too much. You lower a noble pursuit,' he says, 'and I must respectfully but firmly request you to be on your way. I'll try to forgive you,' he says, 'but at this moment your mere presence offends me. On your way out,' he says, 'kindly latch the gate behind you – the chickens might stray off. Chickens,' he says, 'is not exciting for steady company,' he says, 'but in comparison with some humans I've met lately, chickens is absolutely gifted intellectually.

"'Furthermore,' he says, 'I would offer you a word of advice, although you don't really deserve it. Beware,' he says, 'of the constable in the village beyond. You'll recognize him by his whiskers,' he says. 'Alongside of him, I look like an onion in the face. Ten years ago,' he says, 'that constable swore a solemn oath not never to shave until he'd locked up a thousand bums, and,' he says, 'he's now on his last lap. Keep moving,' he says, 'till you feel like stopping, and then don't stop.'

"Them edifying smells has made me desperate. Besides, not counting the Chink, who don't count we outnumbers him two to one.

"'We don't go,' I says, 'until we gets a bite.'

"'Oh! I'll see that you get a bite,' he says. 'Sato,' he says, calling off-stage, 'kindly unchain Ophelia and Ralph Waldo. Ophelia,' he says, turning to us, 'is a lady Great Dane, standing four feet high at the shoulder and very morose in disposition. But Ralph Waldo is a crossbreed – part Boston bull and part snapping turtle. Sometimes I think they don't neither one of them care much for strangers. Here they come now! Sick 'em, pups!'

"Sweet Caps starts first but I beats him to the gate by half a length, Ophelia and Ralph Waldo finishing third and fourth, respectively. We fades away down the big road, and the last thing we sees as we turns a wistful farewell look over our shoulders is them two man-eaters raging back and forth inside the fence trying to gnaw down the palings, and the old guy standing on the steps laughing.

"So we pikes along, me frequently reproaching Sweet Caps for his precipitancy in spilling the beans. We passes through the village of Plentiful Valley without stopping and walks on and on and on some more, until we observes a large, prosperous-looking building of red brick, like a summer hotel with a lawn in front and a high stone wall in front of that. A large number of persons of both sexes, but mainly females, is wandering about over the front yard dressed in peculiar styles. Leaning over the gates is a thickset man gazing with repugnance upon a lettuce leaf which he is holding in his right hand. He sees us and his face lights up some, but not much.

"'What ho, comrades!' he says; 'what's the latest and newest in the great world beyond?'

"'Mister,' I says, disregarding these pleasantries, 'how's the prospects for a pair of footsore travelers to get a free snack of vittles here?'

"'Poor,' he says, 'very poor. Even the pay-patients, one or two of whom I am which, don't get anything to eat to speak of. The diet here,' says, 'is exclusively vegeterrible. You wouldn't scarcely believe it,' he says, 'but we're paying out good money for this. Some of us is here to get cured of what the docters think we've got, and some of us is here,' he says, 'because as long as we stay here they ain't so liable to lock us up in a regular asylum. Yes,' he says, pensively, 'we've got all kinds here. That lady yonder,' he says, pointing to a large female who's dressed all in white like a week's washing and ain't got no shoes on, 'she's getting back to nature. She walks around in the dew barefooted. It takes quite a lot of dew,' he says. 'And that fat one just beyond her believes in reincarnation.'

"'You don't say!' I says.

"'Yes,' he says, 'I do. She wont eat potatoes not under no circumstances, because she thinks that in her last previous existence she was a potato herself.'

"I takes a squint at the lady. She has a kind of a round face with two or three chins that she don't actually need, and little knobby features.

"'Well,' I says, 'if I'm any judge, she ain't entirely recovered yet. Might I ask,' I says, 'what is your particular delusion? Are you a striped cabbage worm or a pet white rabbit?'

"I was thinking about that lettuce leaf which he held in his mitt.

"'Not exactly,' he says, 'I was such a good liver that I developed a bad one and so I paid a specialist eighty dollars to send me here. At this writing,' he says, 'the beasts of the field have but little on me. We both browse, but they've got cuds to chew on afterwards. It's sickening,' he says in tones of the uttermost conviction. 'Do you know what we had for breakfast this morning? Nuts,' he says, 'mostly nuts, which it certainly was rank cannibalism on the part of many of those present to partake thereof,' he says. 'This here frayed foliage which I hold in my hand,' he says, 'is popularly known as the mid-forenoon refreshment. It's got imitation salad dressing on it to make it more tasty. Later on there'll be more of the same, but the big doings will be pulled off at dinner to-night. You just oughter see us at dinner,' he says with a bitter laugh. 'There'll be a mess of lovely boiled carrots,' he says, 'and some kind of chopped fodder, and if we're all real good and don't spill things on our bibs or make spots on the tablecloth, why, for dessert we'll each have a nice dried prune. I shudder to think,' he says, 'what I could do right this minute to a large double sirloin cooked with onions Desdemona style, which is to say, smothered.'

"'Mister,' I says, 'I never thought I'd fall so low as to be a vegeterrier, but necessity,' I says, 'is the mother of vinegar. Could you please, sir, spare us a couple of bites out of that there ensilage of yourn – one large bite for me and one small bite for my young friend there to keep what little life we have until the coming of the corned beef and cabbage?'

"'Fellow sufferer,' he says, 'listen here to me. I've got a dear old white-haired grandmother, which she was seventy-four her last birthday and has always been a life-long member of the First Baptist Church. I love my dear old grandmother, but if she was standing right here now and asked me for a nibble off my mid-day refreshment I'd tell her to go find a truck patch of her own. Yes sir, I'd turn her down cold; because if I don't eat enough to keep me alive to get out of here when the times comes I wont be alive to get out of here when the time comes. Anywhere else I could love you like a brother,' he says, 'and divide my last bite with you, but not here,' he says, 'not here! Do you get me?' he says.

"'Sir,' I says, 'I get you. Take care of yourself and don't get foundered on the green truck,' I says. 'A bran mash now and then and a wisp of cured timothy hay about once in so long ought to keep off the grass colic,' I says. 'Come on, little playmate,' I says to Sweet Caps, 'let us meander further into this here vale of plenty of everything except something to eat. Which, by rights,' I says, 'its real name oughter be Hungry Hollow.'

"So we meanders some more miles and pretty soon I'm that empty that I couldn't be no emptier than I am without a surgical operation. My voice gets weak, and objects dance before my eyes.

"After while they quits dancing, and I realizes that I'm bowing low before probably the boniest lady that ever lived. A gold watch has got more extra flesh on it than this lady has on her. She is looking out of the front window of a small cottage and her expression verges on the disapproving. As nearly as I can figure out she disapproves of everything in general, and a large number of things in particular. And I judges that if there is any two things in the world which she disapproves of more than any other two things, those two things is me and the Sweet Caps Kid.

"I removes my lid and starts to speak, but she merely waves her arm in a majestic manner, meaning, if I know anything about the sign language, 'Exit in case of dog.' So we exits without even passing the time of the day with her and continues upon our way through the bright sunshine. The thermometer now registers at least ninety-eight in the shade, but then of course we don't have to stay in the shade, and that's some consolation.

"The next female land-owner we encounters lives away down in the woods. She's plump and motherly-looking, with gold bows on her spec's. She is out in her front garden picking pansies and potato bugs and other flora and fauna common to the soil. She looks up as the gate-latch clicks, and beholds me on the point of entering.

"'Madam,' I says, 'pardon this here intrusion but in us you behold two weary travelers carrying no script and no purse. Might I ask you what the chances are of us getting a square meal before we perish?'

"'You might,' she says.

"'Might what?' I says.

"'Might ask me,' she says,'but I warn you in advance, that I ain't very good at conundrums. I'm a lone widder woman,' she says, 'and I've got something to do,' she says, 'besides standing out here in the hot sun answering riddles for perfect strangers,' she says. 'So go ahead,' she says.

"'Madam,' I says pretty severe, 'don't trifle with me. I'm a desperate man, and my friend here is even desperater than what I am. Remember you are alone, and at our mercy and – '

"'Oh,' she says, with a sweet smile, 'I ain't exactly alone. There's Tige,' she says.

"I don't see no Tige,' I says, glancing around hurriedly.

"'That ain't his fault,' she says. 'I'll call him,' she says, looking like it wont be no trouble whatsoever to show goods.

"But we don't wait. 'Sweet Caps,' I says to him as we hikes round the first turn in the road, 'this district ain't making no pronounced hit with me. Every time you ast 'em for bread they give you a dog. The next time,' I says,' anybody offers me a canine, I'm going to take him,' I says. 'If he can eat me any faster than I can eat him,' I says, 'he'll have to work fast. And,' I says, 'if I should meet a nice little clean boy with fat legs – Heaven help him!'

"And just as I'm speaking them words we comes to a lovely glade in the woods and stops with our mouths ajar and our eyes bulged out like push buttons. 'Do I sleep,' I says to myself, 'or am I just plain delirious?'

"For right there, out in the middle of the woods, is a table with a white cloth on it, and it's all covered over with the most lucivicious looking viands you ever see in your life, including a ham and a couple of chickens and a pie and some cool-looking bottles with long necks on 'em and gilt-foil crowns upon their regal heads. And a couple of flunkies in long-tailed coats and knee breeches and white wigs are mooning round, fixing things up ship shape. And just then a tall lady comes sauntering out of the bushes, and she strolls up close and the flunkies bow and fall back and she says something about everything being now ready for Lady Gwyndolin's garden party and departs the same way she came. And the second she's out of sight, me and Sweet Caps can't hold in no longer. We busts through the roadside thicket and tear acrost that open place, licketty-split. It seems too good to be true. And it is. When we gets up close we realizes the horrible truth.

"The ham is wood and the chickens is pasteboard and the pie is a prop pie and the bottles aint got nothing in 'em but the corks. As we pauses, stupefied with disappointment, a cheerful voice calls out: 'That's the ticket! Hold the spot and register grief – we can work the scene in and it'll be a knock-out!'

"And right over yonder at the other side of the clearing stands a guy in a checked suit grinding the handle of a moving-picture machine. We has inadvertently busted right into the drammer. So we kicks over his table and departs on the run, with a whole troupe of them cheap fillum troopers chasing after us, calling hard names and throwing sticks and rocks and things.

"After while, by superior footwork, we loses 'em and resumes our journey. Well, unless you've got a morbid mind you wont be interested in hearing about our continued sufferings. I will merely state that by the time five o'clock comes we have traveled upwards of nine hundred miles, running sometimes but mostly walking, and my feet is so full of water blisters I've got riparian rights. Nearly everything has happened to us except something to eat. So we comes to the edge of a green field alongside the road and I falls in a heap, and Sweet Caps he falls in another heap alongside of me, making two heaps in all.

"'Kiddo,' I says, 'let us recline here and enjoy the beauties of Nature,' I says.

"'Dern the beauties of Nature!' says Sweet Caps. 'I've had enough Nature since this morning to last me eleven thousand years. Nature,' he says, 'has been overdone, anyway.'

"'Ain't you got no soul?' I says.

"'Oh yes,' he says, 'I've got a soul, but the trouble is,' he says, 'I've got a lot of other vital organs, too. When I ponder,' he says, 'and remember how many times I've got up from the table and gone away leaving bones and potato peels and clam shells and lobster claws on the plate – when I think,' he says, 'of them old care-free, prodigal days, I could bust right out crying.'

"'Sh-h!' I says, 'food has gone out of fashion – the best people ain't eating any more. Put your mind on something else,' I says. 'Consider the setting sun,' I says, 'a-sinking in the golden west. Gaze yonder,' I says, 'upon that great yellow orb with all them fleecy white clouds banked up behind it.'

"'I'm gazing,' he says. 'It looks something like a aig fried on one side. That's the way I always uster take mine,' he says, 'before I quit eating – fried with the sunny side up.'

"I changed the subject.

"'Ain't it a remarkable fact,' I says, 'how this district is addicted to dogs? Look at that there little stray pup, yonder,' I says, 'jumping up and down in the wild mustard, making himself all warm and panty. That's an edifying sight,' I says.

"'You bet,' says the Sweet Caps Kid, kind of dreamy, 'it's a great combination,' he says, ' – hot dog with fresh mustard. That's the way we got 'em at Coney,' he says.

"'Sweet Caps,' I says, 'you are breaking my heart. Desist,' I says. 'I ask you to desist. If you don't desist,' I says, 'I'm going to tear your head off by the roots and after that I'll probably get right rough with you. Fellow me,' I says, 'and don't speak another word of no description whatsoever. I've got a plan,' I says, 'and if it don't work I'll know them calamity howlers is right and I wont vote Democratic never again – not,' I says, 'if I have to vote for Bryan!'

"He trails along behind me, and his head is hanging low and he mutters to hisself. Injun file we retraces our weary footsteps until we comes once more to the village of Plentiful Valley. We goes along Main Street – I know it's Main Street because it's the only street there is – until we comes to a small brick building which you could tell by the bars at the windows that it was either the local bank or the calaboose. On the steps of this here establishment stands a party almost entirely concealed in whiskers. But on his breast I sees a German silver badge gleaming like a full moon seen through thick brush.

"'The town constable, I believe?' I says to him.

"'The same,' he says. 'What can I do for for you?'

"'Lock us up,' I says, ' – him and me both. We're tramps,' I says, 'vagrants, derilicks wandering to and fro,' I says, 'like raging lions seeking whatsoever we might devour – and not,' I says, 'having no luck. We are dangerous characters,' I says, 'and it's a shame to leave us at large. Lock us up,' I says, 'and feed us.'

"'Nothing doing,' he says. 'Try the next town – it's only nine miles and a good hard road all the way.'

"'I thought,' I says, 'that you took a hidebound oath never to shave until you'd locked up a thousand tramps.'

"'Yep, he says, 'that's so; but you're a little late. I pinched him about an hour ago.'

"'Pinched who?' I says.

"'The thousandth one,' he says. 'Early to-morrow morning,' he says, 'I'm going to get sealed bids and estimates on a clean shave. But first,' he says, 'in celebration of a historic occasion, I'm giving a little supper to-night to the regular boarders in the jail. I guess you'll have to excuse me – seems to me like I smell the turkey dressing scorching.'

"And with that he goes inside and locks the door behind him, and don't pay no attention to us beating on the bars, except to open an upstairs window and throw a bucket of water at us.

"That's the last straw. My legs gives way, both at once, in opposite directions. Sweet Caps he drags me across the street and props me up against a building, and as he fans me with his hat I speaks to him very soft and faint and low.

"'Sweep Caps,' I says, 'I'm through. Leave me,' I says, 'and make for civilization. And,' I says, 'if you live to get there, come back sometime and collect my mortal remains and bury 'em,' I says, 'in some quiet, peaceful spot. No,' I says, 'don't do that neither! Bury me,' I says, 'in a Chinee cemetary. The Chinees,' I says, 'puts vittles on the graves of their dear departeds, instead of flowers. Maybe,' I says, 'my ghost will walk at night,' I says, 'and eat chop suey.'

"'Wait,' he says, 'don't go yet. Look yonder,' he says, pointing up Main Street on the other side. 'Read that sign,' he says.

"I looks and reads, and it says on a front window; 'Undertaking and Emba'ming In All Its Branches.'

"I rallies a little. 'Son boy,' I says, 'you certainly are one thoughtful little guy – but can't you take a joke? I talk about passing away, and before I get the words out of my pore exhausted vacant frame you begin to pick out the fun'el director. What's your rush?' I says. 'Can't you wait for the remains?'

"'Keep ca'm,' he says, 'and look again. Your first look wasn't a success. I don't mean the undertaker's,' he says; 'I mean the place next door beyond. It's a delicatessen dump,' he says, 'containing cold grub all ready to be et without tools,' he says. 'And what's more,' he says, 'the worthy delicatessener is engaged at this present moment in locking up and going away from here. In about a half an hour,' he says, 'he'll be setting in his happy German-American home picking his teeth after supper, and reading comic jokes to his little son August out of the Fleagetty Bladder. And shortly thereafter,' he says, 'what'll you and me be doing? We'll be there, in that vittles emporium, in the midst of plenty,' he says, 'filling our midsts with plenty of plenty. That's what we'll be doing,' he says.

"'Sweet Caps,' I says, reviving slightly, remember who we are? Remember the profession which we adorn? Would you,' I says, 'sink to burglary?'

"'Scandalous,' he says, with feeling, 'I'm so hollow I could sink about three feet without touching nothing whatsoever. Death before dishonor, but not death by quick starvation. Are you with me,' he says, 'or ain't you?'

"Well, what could you say to an argument like that? Nothing, not a syllable. So eventually night ensoos. And purty soon the little stars come softly out and at the same juncture me and the Sweet Caps Kid goes in. We goes into an alley behind that row of shops and after feeling about in the darkness for quite a spell and falling over a couple of fences and a lurking wheelbarrow and one thing and another, we finds a back window with a weak latch on it and we pries it open and we crawls in.

"Only, just as we gits inside all nice and snug, Sweet Caps he has to go and turn over a big long box that's standing up on end, and down it comes ker-blim! making a most hideous loud noise.

"Then we hears somebody upstairs run across the floor over our heads and hears 'em pile down the steps, which is built on the outside of the building to save building 'em on the inside of the building, and in about a half a minute a fire bell or some similar appliance down the street a piece begins to ring its head off.

"'The stuff's off,' says Sweet Caps to me in a deep, skeered whisper. 'Let's beat it.'

"'Nix,' I says. 'You fasten that there window! I'm too weak to run now, and if they'll give me about five minutes among the vittles I'll be too full to run. Either way,' I says, 'it's pinch, and,' I says, 'we'd better face it on a full stomach, than an empty one.'

"'But they'll have the goods on us,' he says.

"'Son,' I says, 'if they'll only hang back a little we'll have the goods in us. They won't have no trouble proving the corpus delicatessen,' I says, ' – not if they bring a stomach pump along. Bar that window,' I says, 'and let joy be unconfined.'

"So he fastens her up from the inside, and while we hears the aroused and infuriated populace surrounding the place and getting ready to begin to think about making up their minds to advance en massy, I pulls down the front shades and strikes a match and lights up a coal-oil lamp and reaches round for something suitable to take the first raw edge off my appetite – such as a couple of hams.

"Then right off I sees where we has made a fatal mistake, and my heart dies within me and I jest plum collapses and folds up inside of myself like a concertina. And that explains," he concluded, "why you ain't seen me for going on the last eighteen months."

"Did they give you eighteen months for breaking into the delicatessen shop?" I asked.

Mr. Doolan fetched a long, deep, mournful sigh.

"No," he said simply, "they gave us eighteen months for breaking into the undertaker's next door."