Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 62
Observing the reluctance of her father to remain in an erect position, Hebe called the waiter and asked for the check. Presently he returned with a beaming face in anticipation of a heavy tip, but as he was on the point of proffering the final reckoning he suddenly became transfixed in his tracks, his eyes riveted themselves on the floor, and the beam slowly melted from his face giving place to an expression decidedly unnerving to behold. The party looked down and saw what the waiter saw — a long, large, tawny tail protruding from under the table. The waiter felt sure that even to look at such a thing was not included in his salary. He tiptoed away carrying the check with him. Let more intrepid spirits collect it if they could. His duty lay with his family.
The two girls looked at the one remaining man, who himself was not so crisp.
“What’s on the other end of it?” asked Sandra.
Hebe bent over and thoughtfully contemplated the tail.
“Search me,” she said at last, “I don’t rightly remember ever having had any dealings with a tail like that before.”
“Perhaps it’s an altogether new and better animal,” Mr. Long suggested enterprisingly.
He pulled a flask from his hip pocket and passed it to the ladies. The situation called for a drink.
“That,” said Hebe, sweeping the back of her hand across her mouth, “endears you to me for life.”
At this moment Mr. Lamb decided to relieve the tension of the situation. A long, sleek head with a pointed snout appeared above the table, slid onto the rumpled cloth and looked moistly at the three young people. In the due course of time the head was followed by a body, which slumped back awkwardly in its chair.
“I don’t want to be hasty,” said Hebe, “but roughly speaking, I think my father and our host leans toward kangaroo. What will we use for money now that he has gone?”
Once more Mr. Long was enterprising.
“Mightn’t he have a pouch?” he asked. “I seem to remember something about kangaroos and pouches.”
The kangaroo laughed foolishly and beat on the table with his short but powerful forelegs. Hebe cast her lover a smile of infinite commiseration.
“For one I’d prefer not to look for it,” she remarked. “You see, darling, he’s not that sort of a kangaroo.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Long. “It was merely a suggestion.”
“Rather an indelicate one,” observed the girl.
For some minutes Sandra had been looking with growing disgust at the obviously inebriated kangaroo, who had been fatuously crying to hold her hand.
“Now, I ask you,” she demanded. “What are we going to do with that? You just can’t leave a kangaroo to shift for himself in a city like this.”
“He’d be safe so far as women are concerned,” observed Melville Long, surpassing himself in optimism.
The kangaroo received this remark with a giggle of appreciation.
“I don’t know,” said Hebe. “He’s not such a bad-looking kangaroo.”
“He’s a terrible-looking kangaroo,” declared Sandra. “Look at him there, all slouched over. Why can’t he sit up properly?”
Mr. Lamb favored her with a scowl.
It seems unfortunate that at this stage of the conversation a gentleman in executing an ambitious dance step should have descended heavily on Mr. Lamb’s tail. It seems doubly unfortunate that Mr. Lamb had not sufficient restraint to withhold the vicious upper cut he immediately delivered upon the point of the gentleman’s chin. From that time on everything seemed increasingly unfortunate.
The dancer retaliated with a left hook to Mr. Lamb’s jaw, and Sandra, as if guided by an infallible sense of balance, sprang upon the man’s partner and partially disrobed her.
“Touch a hair of his head,” she shouted, “and I’ll strip you clean.”
Several ladies rushed to the assistance of the assaulted woman, and this quite naturally brought Hebe into the fray. One thing led to another, and presently Melville Long found himself engaged in biting the ear of a perfect stranger while kicking another diligently in the stomach. On all sides it was an earnest, hard-breathing little engagement that did not lose one whit of interest because of the fact that only a few of its participants had the vaguest idea of what it was all about.
In the meantime the kangaroo, highly excited by all that was going on, was leaping from table to table and impartially smiting both friend and foe whenever the occasion offered.
The room was not quiet nor the scene restful. Several men, as if preferring not to trust the evidence of their eyes, were sitting motionless at their tables, their heads buried in their arms. When Mr. Lamb’s head managed to get itself through a snare drum, retaining the frame round his neck, it seemed high time to think about going home.
Hebe, Sandra, and a shockingly tattered Mr. Long cut a path through the whirling mass and joined the kangaroo at the door.
“Cut and run!” cried Sandra. “The car’s round the corner.”
The four of them burst so compactly from the place that two arriving policemen were heavily borne to the pavement. There they sat and blew their whistles, then lurched in the direction of the flying wedge. They were trailed by a waiter wildly waving a check.
“Off again,” thought Lamb to himself, as he leaped along beside Sandra. “My universe of late seems to be in a disconcertingly unsettled condition.”
As they swarmed into the automobile a motorcycle policeman came into view and calmly took the number of the car, which by this time was gathering speed, then with a satisfied grin, settled himself down on his machine to show these people exactly where they got off.
At Columbus Circle another officer tried to hold them up when they were forced to slow down in traffic, but a hairy arm shooting out unexpectedly from the rear seat of the car, landed him in the gutter.
“What sort of a mob is that?” he wondered, vividly recalling the strange-looking arm that had so bewilderingly altered his plans.
Melville Long was at the wheel, and Hebe was sitting beside him. On the back seat Sandra was clinging to the kangaroo and laughing softly at the festive appearance he made with the rim of the drum round his neck.
When they were well out of the city the motorcycle policeman, who had not forgotten them for a moment, telephoned ahead to the next fair-sized town and gave full particulars and an adequate description of the merry little party. They were all laughing now, save Mr. Lamb, who showed a strong inclination to doze off on Sandra’s shoulder. Melville Long’s merriment was the greater because of the skilful manner in which he believed he had eluded pursuit.
The flight came to an end at the railroad tracks of the next town. The bars were down, and it was here that the reception committee waited.
“Damn,” said Melville Long under his breath as several dark figures emerged from the shadows and manifested their presence in other unpleasant ways.
“You big stiffs,” said Hebe. “Why didn’t you call out the army?”
“That’s all they are,” agreed Sandra unhesitatingly. “They’re just great, big, liver-footed stiffs — morons!”
“That talk ain’t going to help you a bit,” one of the officers warned the ladies.
“Aw, shut up,” said Mr. Long. “We’re not asking you for a lesson in polite conversation.”
The officer was about to attend to the young man for this remark, when a terrible, grinning face was suddenly thrust into his. He started back with a cry and had to be supported by two of his brother officers. But this was Mr. Lamb’s last effort that night. He had no recollection of being driven to a station house and half carried to a cell in which he was locked up in company with his prospective son-in-law. The two girls, still busily insulting every uniform in sight, were given a barred apartment of their own where they sang and jeered themselves to sleep.
When Judge Gibson arose next morning he made up his mind to give all prisoners brought before him whom he could not sentence to painful death at least a life term at revolting labor. In this cheerful frame of mind he repaired to his court and proceeded to spread dread and dismay among the ranks of evil-doers. When Sandra, Hebe and Melville Long were lined up against the rail he kept them waiting a considerable time before he looked up from a paper he had been studying with growing interest. When he did look up his expression was almost happy. Here was something he could get thoroughly enraged about. Convulsing his face into a small bunch he slowly considered in turn each youthful face looking bravely up into his.
“Good morning,” he said in a suspiciously pleasant voice. “Can you think of anything you haven’t done?”
“Rape,” replied Sandra promptly.
“Arson and pillage,” added Hebe.
“Treason,” was the best that Long could achieve.
The Judge was a little taken back by the nature of the snappy replies. Evidently these young people were not so soft as they looked. He would have to deal with them astutely.
“Well, I have you down here for about everything else,” he continued, referring to the paper. “I’ll select a few charges at random just to give you an approximate idea of how very long you are going to be with us.”
He cleared his throat efficiently and carefully adjusted his glasses.
“A mention is made here of driving while under the influence of spirituous liquor, of demolishing a restaurant and refusing to pay the check, of assaulting, maiming, and wounding upwards of half a hundred innocent persons, of speeding and violating every known traffic regulation in the most flagrant and callous manner, of having in your company and possession a dangerous wild beast, of attacking several officers of the law, and of being in possession of a flask of whisky. Your evening seems to have been industriously spent in disturbing the world at large.”
“I’ll bet you love to read the weather reports that say ‘Rain and increasing cold,’ ” observed Sandra with her most disarming smile.
The judge was not annoyed. He looked at the girl a long time as if trying to fix her image forever in his memory.
“Where you are going,” he told her distinctly, “you won’t have to worry about the weather. It will be all overcast to you.”
In spite of herself Sandra shuddered at this unemotional announcement.
“Your honor,” put in one of the policemen. “They also used bad language and called us a bunch of big stiffs.”
The judge looked at the policeman with a shocked expression, then turned his eyes to the prisoners.
“How did you find that out?” he asked.
“You can see for yourself, your honor,” replied Hebe.
“I know,” agreed the judge, “but we’ve been trying to hush it up. Don’t go giving us away every time you get run in.”
The judge paused and once more considered the document.
“It refers here,” he continued with a new note of interest in his voice, “to a dangerous wild beast. Where is this wild beast at present, Donovan?”
“He’s locked up,” replied that worthy.
“Did you capture it last night?” asked the judge.
“The four of us, your honor,” said Donovan modestly. “Officers O’Boyle, Burk—”
“Quite right,” the judge interrupted. “Then I assume the beast was neither dangerous nor wild.”
“It gave us a terrible start, your honor,” Donovan got in. “An awful sight it was with the drum around its neck, and all.”
The judge looked up quickly. This was all news to him.
“It must have been dreadful,” he remarked with elaborate solicitude. “But what’s this about a drum? It says nothing here about a drum.”
“Yes, sir, it was wearing a drum,” said Donovan.
“And you say this drum was around the neck of this alleged wild beast?” continued Judge Gibson. “What sort of wild beast does it happen to be?”
“The doctor just came in on a case, sir, and claims it’s a kingaroo,” the officer replied.
“Kangaroo, Donovan,” corrected the judge.
“Yes, your honor,” Donovan continued, “but Sergeant Brophy says it ain’t a kingaroo, because kingaroos don’t act that way.”
“In what lies the eccentricity of this unknown wild beast’s behavior?” demanded the judge now thoroughly interested.
“Didn’t get your honor,” said Donovan.
“What’s wrong with the thing?” snapped the judge, then turning to his prisoners added politely, “You’ll pardon me I hope before I put you away. I must get Donovan to tell me all about this kingaroo.”
“Certainly, your honor, we’ll pardon you if you will pardon us,” replied Hebe.
“Very good,” said the judge with a ghastly grin. “You were going to say, Donovan?”
“I hadn’t intended saying anything,” replied Donovan.
“Well, go right ahead and say it,” urged the judge patiently. “I think you can confide in us. What’s wrong with this wild beast?”
“Well, your honor,” replied the officer with every sign of hesitancy. “The last I saw of the thing it was humming ‘Me and My Shadow’ and dancing around in its cell.”
“What!” the judge almost shouted, leaning far over his desk; then, sinking back, he added, “Don’t say any more for a moment, Donovan. I need to think.”
The prisoners before him were leaning on the rail, their faces hidden from view.
“I wish I could laugh,” said the judge gloomily. “Never have I been forced to listen to such an involved and successfully obscured narrative.”
He picked up a newspaper and read for several minutes, occasionally stopping to look penetratingly at Donovan until that intrepid limb of the law began to grow more than a little reflective.
“What did you say the name of that song was?” the judge asked at last.
“ ’Me and My Shadow,’ ” Donovan replied.
“Is it a pretty song?” continued the judge. “Do you know it?”
“I couldn’t sing it myself, your honor,” said Donovan, fearing the judge’s next request, “but I know it when I hear it.”
“I’ll buy you a record, your honor,” offered Sandy. “It’s sweetly wistful like so many of your clients.”
“You won’t be near any store,” said the judge.
“Oh,” said Sandy, “that’s too bad!”
“Sounds like a criminal record,” observed the judge. “ ’Me and My Shadow’ — shadow, you see. Good! Everyone gets 100 but Officer Donovan.”
The judge folded his papers with a snap and sat up abruptly.
“Enough of this,” he said briskly. “Donovan, bring in that singing kangaroo. Let’s all have a look at it. Perhaps we’ll be able to agree on a name.”
“He’s not such a poisonous judge,” murmured Hebe to Sandra.
“Not at all,” said Sandra. “Quite a human being.”
“Wait till you see what he does with us,” Melville Long whispered behind his hand, his optimism vanished.
The kangaroo was not entirely sober when Donovan, holding a rope, the other end of which was secured around his neck, brought him before the judge. The animal covered the ground with a peculiar gliding motion that gave him the appearance of skating. He was still humming under his breath in a preoccupied manner. Greeting his friends with a casual wave of a relatively short foreleg, he bowed to the judge.
At this point several sleepy reporters came back to life and began to ask each other questions. Here was a good story. They collared an attendant and obtained full details. The few remaining spectators also displayed signs of returning interest. The judge leaned forward and listened intently, one hand held up for silence. A strange noise was issuing from the kangaroo’s lips. Observing the judge’s strained attitude the kangaroo obligingly increased the volume of his humming, and the room was filled with what the kangaroo fondly believed to be a song.
“You’ve a better ear for music than I have, Donovan,” said the judge, settling back in his chair. “Is he still harping on his favorite song?”
“That’s what he thinks he’s doing,” answered the officer. “It ain’t so bad, your honor, considering he’s a poor, dumb, soulless beast.”
Mr. Lamb looked pensively at Donovan.
“Where’s his drum?” asked the judge suddenly.
“He refused to come out of his cell until I’d taken it off for him,” Donovan replied.
“Too bad,” observed the judge. “I’d like to have seen that.” Then turning to Hebe, he asked, “Miss Lamb, where did you get this singing kangaroo?”
“My uncle found him in the bush,” said Hebe.
“What bush?” asked the judge. “Try to be specific.”
“The Australian bush,” replied Hebe. “He’s been in our family ever since he was a pup.”
The judge continued to question the girl about the kangaroo until Mr. Lamb grew bored. He was also becoming extremely sleepy. The liquor was wearing off. Slowly he sank down and fell into a gentle slumber. The judge looked over the edge of his desk.
“Donovan,” he ordered, “wake that kangaroo up. Neither man nor beast sleeps in this court.”
A violent jerk on the noose brought the kangaroo erect like a released spring. He made a side swipe at Donovan, but, luckily for that officer, failed to land. Then, as if suddenly realizing his surroundings, he looked apologetically at the judge.
A strange feeling was taking possession of Mr. Lamb, a feeling not entirely due to his overindulgence. Some sort of chemical revolution was taking place within him. He was unable to shake off his drowsiness and confusion. As he drifted off to sleep again he had a vague idea that the judge was asking Donovan whether the poor soulless beast had been given a cup of coffee that morning.
A loud discussion in the back of the courtroom between two heavy-faced, unhatted ladies stoutly defending the smirched reputation of their respective husbands presently to be tried on a charge of jointly attempting to put an end to each other’s lurid careers, created a momentary diversion. All eyes were turned in their direction, and by the time the belligerent ladies had been voluminously ejected, another diversion had arisen to mar the tranquillity of the judge’s morning. When he next peered at the kangaroo he found himself looking into the dark eyes of a tall, fashionably clad gentleman of distinguished manner and sober bearing.
