Torchy and Vee

Sewell Ford

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• Publié par: muthig
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 37
• Langue: English

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Title: Torchy and Vee
Author: Sewell Ford
Release Date: February 19, 2007 [EBook #20628]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TORCHY AND VEE ***
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TORCHY
AND VEE
BY
SEWELL FORD
AUTHOR OF
TORCHY, THE HOUSE OF TORCHY
SHORTY McCABE, Etc.G R O S S E T & D U N L A P
P U B L I S H E R S N E W Y O R K
Copyright, 1918, 1919, by
SEWELL FORD
Copyright, 1919, BY
EDWARD J. CLODE
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOREWORD
In the Nature of an Alibi
Some of these stories were written while the Great War was still on. So the
setting and local coloring and atmosphere and all that sort of thing, such as it
is, came from those strenuous days when we heroic civilians read the war
extras with stern, unflinching eye, bought as many Liberty bonds as we were
told we should, and subscribed to various drives as cheerfully as we might.
Have you forgotten your reactions of a few short months ago? Perhaps then,
these may revive your memory of some of them.
You may note with disappointment that Torchy got no nearer to the front-line
trenches than Bridgeport, Conn. That is a sentiment the writer shares with you.
But the blame lies with an overcautious government which hesitated, perhaps
from super-humane reasons, from turning loose on a tottering empire a middle-
aged semi-literary person who was known to handle a typewriter with such
reckless abandon. And where he could not go himself he refused to send
another. So Torchy remained on this side, and whether or not his stay was a
total loss is for you to decide.
S. F.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE QUICK SHUNT FOR PUFFY 1
II OLD HICKORY BATS UP ONE 19
III TORCHY PULLS THE DEEP STUFF 37IV A FRAME-UP FOR STUBBY 56
V THE VAMP IN THE WINDOW 73
VI TURKEYS ON THE SIDE 91
VII ERNIE AND HIS BIG NIGHT 108
VIII HOW BABE MISSED HIS STEP 126
IX HARTLEY AND THE G. O. G.'S 145
X THE CASE OF OLD JONESEY 164
XI AS LUCY LEE PASSED BY 182
XII TORCHY MEETS ELLERY BEAN 200
XIII TORCHY STRAYS FROM BROADWAY 222
XIV SUBBING FOR THE BOSS 238
XV A LATE HUNCH FOR LESTER 256
XVI TORCHY TACKLES A MYSTERY 272
XVII WITH VINCENT AT THE TURN 290
TORCHY AND VEE
1
CHAPTER I
THE QUICK SHUNT FOR PUFFY
I must say I didn't get much excited at first over this Marion Gray tragedy. You
see, I'd just blown in from Cleveland, where I'd been shunted by the Ordnance
Department to report on a new motor kitchen. And after spendin' ten days
soppin' up information about a machine that was a cross between a road roller
and an owl lunch wagon, and fillin' my system with army stews cooked on the
fly, I'm suddenly called off. Someone at Washington had discovered that this
flying cook-stove thing was a problem for the Quartermaster's Department, and
wires me to drop it.
So I was all for enjoyin' a little fam'ly reunion, havin' Vee tell me how she's
been gettin' along, and what cute little tricks young Master Richard had
developed while I'm gone. But right in the midst of our intimate little domestic
sketch Vee has to break loose with this outside sigh stuff.
"I can't help thinking about poor Marion," says she.
"Eh?" says I, lookin' up from the crib where young Snookums has just settled
2himself comfortable and decided to tear off a few more hours of slumber.
"Which Marion?"
"Why, Marion Gray," says she.
"Oh!" says I. "The old maid with the patient eyes and the sad smile?"
"She is barely thirty," says Vee."Maybe," says I; "but she's takin' it hard."
"Who wouldn't?" says Vee.
And havin' got that far, I saw I might as well let her get the whole story off her
chest. She's been seein' more and more of this Marion Gray person ever since
we moved out here to Harbor Hills. Kind of a plump, fresh-colored party, and
more or less bright and entertainin' in her chat when she was in the right
mood. I'd often come in and found Vee chucklin' merry over some of the things
Miss Gray had been tellin' her. And while she was at our house she seemed
full of life and pep. Just the sort that Vee gets along with best. She was the
same whenever we met her up at the Ellinses. But outside of that you never
saw her anywhere. She wasn't in with the Country Club set, and most of the
young married crowd seemed to pass her up too.
I didn't know why. Guess I hadn't thought much about it. I knew she'd lost her
father and mother within the last year or so, so I expect I put it down to that as
the reason she wasn't mixin' much.
3But Vee has all the inside dope. Seems old man Gray had been a chronic
invalid for years. Heart trouble. And durin' all the last of it he'd been promisin'
to check out constant, but had kept puttin' it off. Meanwhile Mrs. Gray and
Marion had been fillin' in as day and night nurses. He'd been a peevish,
grouchy old boy, too, and the more waitin' on he got the more he demanded.
Little things. He had to have his food cooked just so, the chair cushions
adjusted, the light just right. He had to be read to so many hours a day, and
played to, and sung to. He couldn't stand it to be alone, not for half an hour.
Didn't want to think, he said. Didn't want to see the women folks knittin' or
crocheting: he wanted 'em to be attending to him all the while. He had a little
silver bell that he kept hung on his chair arm, and when he rang it one or the
other of 'em had to jump. Maybe you know the kind.
Course, the Grays traveled a lot; South in the winter, North in summer—
always huntin' a place where he'd feel better, and never findin' it. If he was at
the seashore he'd complain that they ought to be in the mountains, and when
they got there it wouldn't be a week before he had decided the air was bad for
him. They should have known better than to take him there. Most likely one
more week would finish him. Another long railroad trip would anyway. So he
might as well stay. But wouldn't Marion see the landlord and have those
4fiendish children kept quiet on that tennis court outside? And wouldn't Mother
try to make an eggnog that didn't taste like a liquid pancake!
Havin' been humorin' his whims a good deal longer than Marion, and not
being very strong herself, Mrs. Gray finally wore out. And almost before they
knew anything serious was the matter she was gone. Then it all fell on Marion.
Course, if she'd been a paid nurse she never would have stood for this
continuous double-time act. Or if there was home inspectors, same as there
are for factories, the old man would have been jacked up for violatin' the labor
laws. But being only a daughter, there's nobody to step in and remind him that
slavery has gone out of style and that in most states the female of the species
was gettin' to be a reg'lar person. In fact, there was few who thought Marion
was doin' any more'n she had a right to do. Wasn't he her father, and wasn't he
payin' all the bills?
"To be sure," adds Vee, "he didn't realize what an old tyrant he was. Nor did
Marion. She considered it her duty, and never complained."
"Then I don't see who could have crashed in," said I."No one could," said Vee. "That was the pity."
And it seems for the last couple of years the old boy insisted on settlin' down in
5his home here, where he could shuffle off comfortable. He'd been mighty slow
about it, though, and when he finally headed West it was discovered that,
through poor managin' and war conditions, the income they'd been livin' on
had shrunk considerable. The fine old house was left free and clear, but there
was hardly enough to keep it up unless Marion could rustle a job somewhere.
"And all she knows how to do is nurse," says Vee. "She's not even a trained
nurse at that."
"Ain't there anybody she could marry?" I suggests.
"That's the tragic part, Torchy," says Vee. "There is—Mr. Biggies."
"What, 'Puffy' Biggles!" says I. "Not that old prune face with the shiny dome
and the baggy eyes?"
Vee says he's the one. He's been hoverin' 'round, like an old buzzard, for three
or four years now, playin' chess with the old man while he lasted, but always
with his pop-eyes fixed on Marion. And since she's been left alone he'd been
callin' reg'lar once a week, urging her to be his tootsy-wootsy No. 3. He was
the main wheeze in some third-rate life insurance concern, I believe, and fairly
well off, and he owned a classy place over near the Country Club. But he had
6a 44 belt, a chin like a pelican, and he was so short of breath that everybody
called him "Puffy" Biggles. Besides, he was fifty.
"A hot old Romeo he'd make for a nice girl like that," says I. "Is he her best
bet? Ain't there any second choice?"
"There was anoth