Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 270
“Listen, little Fu Manchu,” the fireman retorted. “Those flatties are about to chuck their dogs right in those windows. You’d better hide while you can.”
“If dogs of flatties smell no better than Mist’ Henry,” replied the Jap complacently, “we remain in obscurity to end of days.”
“Pardon the interruption,” spoke up Major Jaffey in a calm, informative voice, “but from a brief investigation of our whereabouts I should say we are now in the furniture department. There is also a suggestion of toys at the far end. It’s a jolly place for hiding. God only knows where we’ll be cuter.”
“Fine!” exclaimed Spray. “Lead me to a bed.”
“Hot invitation, that,” observed the voice of Nokashima. “Who you ask, madam?”
“Somebody hit that Jap,” said Spray. “He’s gone bad on our hands.”
“Am on hands and upper joint of legs,” the loquacious little yellow man informed them. “Like missionary fella, I progress amid encircling gloom.”
“What’s that!” exclaimed Spray as a violent commotion broke out near the windows.
“Flatties chucking in dogs,” hazarded Nokashima,
“Dogs not amused, nor this wormlike son of honorable house. In silence I seek a huddle.”
From the moment the little yellow man set forth to seek a huddle that floor of Crown’s Cosmopolitan became the center of dark confusion, occasionally relieved by the flashing of electric torches, the flame of a match and the momentary switching on of overhead lights. Cries of consternation echoed through the vast department. There were the sounds of running feet, of pursuing grunts, of painful collisions with unseen objects, of unexpected giggles and scattered conversation. There were shouts of surprise and mortification and some of mortal fear. It was no floor at all for nervous people, yet every person on it was more or less that way. It is almost safe to say that no group of frenzied bargain hunters on sales day ever conducted themselves on that floor as unbecomingly as did the police and the Pebble party.
The opening signal of distress came from Spray Summers, who had thoughtlessly concealed herself in the first bed she could find. Her fool’s paradise was suddenly and rudely shattered by the frantic arrival of two unknown figures caroming off her body from two different directions. They were received with a grunt of anguish which was the best the lady could offer at the moment. Painfully she reached out her left hand and felt a small semi-human face; then her fingers slipped down to the fabric of a starched jacket.
“Not that, madam,” Nokashima whispered tragically. “Not that! If do I push loud cries like Fifi.”
“You snake in the grass,” gritted Spray. “Do you realize you’re in bed with me?”
“Realization almost stupefying,” breathed the little servant. “I feel just like it”
“You do?” Spray whispered. “Take this, then, and tell me what you feel like.”
“Hardly can,” gasped Nokashima, taking what Spray had given him in the pit of his stomach. “I feel like small cherry blossom beneath foot of great giant.”
“This is no time to be talking about cherries,” retorted Spray.
“Cherries my dish,” the little man informed her. “I go mad for cherries.”
“You’ve gone mad without them,” Spray told him.
“Yes, madam,” he admitted. “That why I go mad.”
“Do you realize, small ounce of vileness, what a liberty you’ve taken?”
“If not take some liberty here,” declared Nocka, “I lose all liberty to dogs of flatties. Where are flatties’ dogs, madam? I hear no sniff-sniff nor patter of bounding feet.”
“One can’t hear anything above the roar of those policemen,” replied Spray. “Do you happen to know who belongs to this other body beside me?”
“Only vague surmise,” admitted Nokashima. “Madam may have caught cowardly flattie. Squeeze down on neck. Maybe he turn to fox.”
“I don’t want to be in bed with a fox,” declared Spray. “You’re bad enough.”
“If I turn into fox,” mused Nokashima, “I lure dogs on pursuit of untamed goose, then I go home and. offer myself to nose of Mist’ Henry. If he no smell, my broom droop with deep despond.”
“Not broom,” Spray corrected. “You mean your brush.”
“Is that what I have, madam, if I turn to fox? Brush on the end of me. How nice.”
“How awful,” murmured Spray Summers. “Please be quiet, snake in the grass.”
“One more thing done,” the little servant pleaded. “I not snake in grass, madam. I not even so funny as fox. Just small little Japanese feller in bed with lady and unknown body, and contorted with alarm.”
“I’m not altogether easy in my mind myself.”
“Why not tentatively finger opposite body?” the yellow one inquired. “Maybe encounter familiar object.”
In spite of herself, Spray laughed.
“What a fool you are, Nocka,” she said, then turned to the other object behind her. “Who are you?” she demanded sharply. “Speak up!”
“Pist!” came so suddenly and explosively from the unknown body on her right that she jumped almost a foot from the bed. While she was up Nokashima frantically burrowed under her. When she settled back she felt very much like a person who had unexpectedly sat on a cat.
“Pist!” once more popped irritably from the man beside her. “Pist!”
“Unidentified must have been restraining those for long time,” observed Nokashima in a muffled voice. “Your body, madam, is mutilating too many of my parts.”
“And this body over here has got me completely baffled,” replied Spray. “I don’t know how to open a conversation with it if it keeps on making those noises.”
“Pist!” uttered the body.
“Will you stop doing that!” cried Spray, blindly cuffing the body in the dark.
The pist was promptly turned to a grunt.
“My dear lady,” expostulated the voice of Major Jaffey. “Never do that again. As it is, I doubt if it will be necessary. You should have better sense.”
At this moment a light flashed blindingly in the eyes of the three occupants of the bed, and the voice of Pat Murphy cried loudly, “Here they are, boys! I’ve got ’em!”
From all parts of the floor heavy feet came crashing towards the center of attraction. The bodies on either side of Spray Summers were galvanized into desperate action as they melted into the darkness, their eager feet adding to the general din and confusion. Cursing all Japanese and majors from the bottom of her heart, Spray remained behind, struggling in the grasp of Pat Murphy. That lusty limb of the law unceremoniously dragged the furious woman from the bed, dropping his torch in so doing, then, with no definite object in mind, hurtled her along the floor.
“Say, Pat!” shouted a voice. “Where are you now, man? Is the lower half a lady?”
“Haven’t been able to find hide nor hair of a fireman yet,” Pat called back. “It seems to be all lady.”
“Well, don’t look any farther,” Spray protested. “You’re here to do your duty, not to amuse yourself.”
“If you’d only tell me whether you’re a lady or not,” the policeman panted. “I might know what to do with you.”
“And what would that be, may I ask?”
“Don’t exactly know,” said Pat, “but I wouldn’t handle you so rough, maybe.”
A body collided violently with the woman as a fresh pair of hands took hold of her.
“I’m with you, Pat,” said the newcomer. “Which half do you want?”
“Will you two men stop trying arbitrarily to divide me,” protested Spray. “I’m one continuous body, and if there’s any fireman about me I have yet to find it out.”
“You mean, you’re all lady?” breathed Pat.
“From head to toe,” said Spray.
“The sergeant said you were some fireman, lady,” said the other voice in disappointed tones.
“Well, you tell the sergeant,” she retorted, “that I’m not going to switch my body about just to please him. Where are we going, anyway? Are we just taking a walk in the dark?”
“We don’t know, lady,” Pat Murphy replied. “Haven’t had time to think. Hey, boys!” he shouted suddenly.”Round up the rest of the gang. We’ve got one of them. Dig the others out.”
From somewhere in the darkness came the quavering notes of “The Last Round-up.” Nocka was at it again.
“I don’t know where I’ve hidden myself,” a voice complained, “much less where the rest of ’em are.”
“Holy Saints!” breathed Pat. “What an awful sound! It’s like a ghost wailing for its lost soul.”
Spray felt herself suddenly seized from the rear and plucked from the grasp of her two astonished captors. She was dragged through an aperture, and a door slammed behind her.
“Who’s got me now?” she inquired pessimistically. “Not that it makes much difference.”
“You’re in the model home,” whispered the voice of Rex Pebble. “This is the bathroom.”
“Thank God for that,” said Spray. “How is it under the shower?”
“A bit stuffy,” replied Rex Pebble, “but at least it’s quiet and exclusive. You’re a public scandal.” -
“I’d be all of that,” she admitted, “if I had a public.”
“I say, old darling,” asked Mr. Pebble conversationally from the shower, “doesn’t this strike you as being rather an odd way to be spending the first night of our new lives?”
“It does. It does,” she assured him. “It’s one hell of a quaint way to be spending the first night of a new life or an old one. But we don’t seem to learn any better.”
“And,” observed Mr. Pebble, “if those policemen have their way with us we’ll be spending the last night of our new lives locked in the arms of the law.”
“I’ve been locked in those arms already,” said Spray.
“And you’d be locked in them still,” Rex Pebble assured her, “had I known what use you were going to make of your freedom.”
While this reunion of souls was progressing, Nokashima, that prince of Japanese house boys, had found his way by nervous fit after frantic start into the toy department, which was situated at the rear of the floor. Here it was his momentary bad luck to encounter the papier-maché head of an exceedingly dashing-looking lion, glorying in a pair of great malevolent eyes and a mane of tremendous vitality. It was a trying moment for the already hard-pushed little man. Although darkness saved him from savoring the full horror of the object con-fronting him, those parts of it which his groping hands had felt were more than enough to convince him he was standing unarmed in the presence of a deadly peril — possibly one of those dogs of the flatties, a strong, silent dog. Fortunately for himself as well as for others the little yellow man was too overcome by his emotions to push even so much as a squawk. Too terrified either to retreat or to advance, he remained static in the darkness, shuddering in all his Oriental limbs.
However, as time passed and no overtures of a hostile nature were manifested by the deadly peril, the inordinate curiosity which had made Nocka’s life one continuous calamity reasserted itself to such an extent that before the lapse of many minutes he was cheek and jowl with this effigy of the king of the jungle. At last, with some vaguely formulated plan in his peculiar little mind, he slipped the head of the lion over his own and went circulating aimlessly through the darkness to discover what fate held in store for him in his radically altered appearance.
A short time later Officer Pat Murphy was indelicate enough to switch a light on the retreat occupied by Mr. Pebble and his mistress. Officer Pat Murphy was thereby a very much startled policeman.
“What’s this?” he asked, for lack of anything better to say.
“A bathroom,” replied Spray, springing up. “What does it look like to you?”
“Say, lady,” he answered chidingly, when he had recovered a little from the shock of discovery, “you can think of the damnedest things to do when you’re being chased by the cops. First you go to bed, then you find a bathroom. Haven’t you got any better sense? This isn’t a private home.”
“It’s the only private home I’ve got at the moment,” the lady responded. “Be so good as to respect its privacy.”
“The devil I will,” said Pat. “I’m going to run you in.
“On what charge, may I ask?”
“On any one of fifty. You and your boy friends too. If I tell the judge what I just saw he’ll put you away for good.”
“Don’t be childish, Pat,” replied Spray. “How would you tell the judge that?”
“I’d whisper it to him,” said Pat meanly. “In his ear, I would.”
“Oh,” retorted Spray, sparring for time. “Not in his eyes, like most people.”
“Nobody whispers in other people’s eyes,” said Pat. “Don’t be funny. Come on and snap out of this.”
“I like it here,” she told him.
“You certainly made yourself at home,” he retorted. “Do you want me to put the bracelets on?”
“Do I have to look pretty to see the judge?”
“If he sees you the way you are, he’s going to look awful,” Pat assured her. “It might kill the old man.” “Then you will be charged with murder,” she said, “for showing me to the poor old man. Go away now and look for some of the boys.”
“I will not,” said Pat. “This is the nuttiest place to try to find anyone in. What did you want to come up here for?”
“I wanted to go shopping,” she answered.
“You sure do need some clothes,” he admitted. “All you’ve got on is a coat, and that isn’t yours.”
“How about fixing me up nice for the judge?” suggested Spray. “Slip downstairs and grab off a nice dress and a pair of passionate panties.” - -
“Lady, you’re bad,” said Pat. “You shouldn’t use such words. You’re after asking me to compound a felony.”
“You’ll be compounding another one if you don’t get me some clothes,” she threatened. “I’m going to take the coat off.”
“Don’t, lady,” Pat pleaded.
“Off comes the coat!” cried Spray.
“Button it up,” he urged her. “What will the boys think if they find us together like this?”
“What do you think they’ll think?”
“You know,” he replied.
“I do not,” retorted Spray. “I haven’t an evil mind. And if I can make myself heard above the din the boys are making, I’m going to scream for help. Off comes the coat.”
For the salvation of his own soul Pat Murphy sprang through the door and began to wrestle with the apparently furious woman. Unseen to the combatants, Rex Pebble thrust a curious head through the curtains and peered at the active scene, then hurriedly withdrew. To retain his poise he grasped the nearest tap, and a vicious deluge of icy water descended on his naked spine. A long, shuddering cry issued from the shower. The wrestlers immediately released each other and stood regarding the curtain with startled eyes.
“What’s that?” Pat gasped. “It sounded like a poor soul being murdered in cold blood.”
“Cold blood it is,” complained the shower wetly. “The damn fools didn’t have to make their confounded shower so all-fired realistic.”
“Turn on the hot,” suggested Spray, “and I’ll come on in with you. I’m getting sick of this dumb policeman.”
“You mustn’t do that,” admonished Murphy in a shocked voice. “You’ve gone far enough, lady. Who’s the guy in the shower?”
“I’m the guy in the shower,” the curtains announced. “And you’re a gone cop. Stand where you are.”
“What do you mean?” asked Pat.
“I’ve got you covered,” said the shower.
“I wish you’d cover this lady,” the officer answered moodily.
“Never mind the lady,” snapped the shower. “You back out of this room.”
At this moment a scream bearing all the earmarks of sincere distress came simultaneously from Spray and Pat Murphy. Popping his head through the curtains Rex Pebble made a scream of his own. Completely unstrung by this reception, Nokashima began to scream too, which made him all the worse. Three hurtling bodies bounded over his speedily flattened figure and became wedged in the door of the bathroom.
“Let me outta here!” gasped Murphy. “Holy Saint Patrick, the baleful eyes of the beast! Did you see them?”
“Shut up!” chattered Spray. “It might understand English.”
“That monster’s so awful,” declared Pat, “it doesn’t understand itself.”
“If you two want to stand here and discuss the thing to its face,” said Rex Pebble, “I don’t want to be included. Give me a chance to run.”
“Give me the strength,” muttered Spray.
From all points of the floor lights were flashing on and off, and excited voices were bellowing through the darkness.
“Have you got one, Pat?” a colleague called out.
“I haven’t,” he shouted, “but one has almost got me. And what a one it is!”
“You mean the half fireman and half lady?”
“No,” replied Pat. “It’s half monster and half man. And it’s all bad.”
“Then don’t arrest it,” urged the voice.
“Arrest it!” cried Pat hysterically. “I’m trying to leave it miles behind. The baleful eyes of the beast. Let me through, the both of you.”
As the deadlock was broken, Nokashima, bereft of his lion’s head, rose from the floor and, still screaming at the top of his lungs, dashed after the retreating figures. The fireman known as Hal, on his way to no place in particular, spied the abandoned head lying in the light of the bathroom, and promptly placing it over his own, ran after Nokashima. Pat Murphy, looking back over his shoulder, caught a horrified glimpse of the oncoming figure.
“Begod!” he cried in amazement. “It’s grown twice its size.”
Nokashima, far too busy to realize his loss, followed the policeman’s example, then turned his screams into speech.
“Dog of flattie,” he told an uninterested world, “is fox of evil magic.”
“Fox, me eye!” breathed Pat. “Take another look, you runt.”
“Not need another look,” Nocka assured him. “Didn’t enjoy last. Wait till it turns to serpent. Then watch out.”
