And then again, you can't always tell. I forget whether it was Bill Shakespeare first sprung that line, or Willie Collier; but whoever it was he said a whole bookful at once. Wise stuff. That's it. And simple, too. Yet it's one of the first things we forget.
But to get the point over I expect I'll have to begin with this bond-room bunch of ours at the Corrugated. They're the kind of young sports who always think they can tell. More'n that they always will, providin' they can get anybody to listen. About any subject you can name, from whether the government should own the railroads to describin' the correct hold in dancin' the shimmy.
This particular day though it happens to be babidolls. Maybe it wasn't just accident, either. I expect the sudden arrival of spring had something to do with the choice of topic. For out in Madison Square park the robins were hoppin' busy around in the flower beds, couples were twosing confidential on the benches, lady typists were lunchin' off ice cream cones, and the Greek tray peddlers were sellin' May flowers.
Anyway, it seemed like this was a day when romance was in the air, if you get me. I think Izzy Grunkheimer must have started it with that thrillin' tale of his about how he got rung in on a midnight studio supper down in Greenwich Village and the little movie star who mistook him for Charley Zukor. Izzy would spin that if he got half an openin'. It was his big night. I believe he claims he got hugged or something. And he always ends up by rollin' his eyes, suckin' in his breath and declarin' passionate: "Some queen, yes-s-s!"
But the one who had the floor when I strolls into the bond room just before the end of the noon hour is Skip Martin, who helped win the war by servin' the last two months checkin' supplies for the front at St. Nazaire. He was relatin' an A. W. O. L. adventure in which a little French girl by the name of Mimi figured prominent, when Budge Haley, who was a corporal in the Twenty-seventh and got all the way to Coblenz, crashed in heartless.
"Cheap stuff, them base port fluffs," says Budge. "Always beggin' you for chocolate or nickin' you for francs some way. And as for looks, I couldn't see it. But say, you should have seen what I tumbled into one night up in Belgium. We'd plugged twenty-six kilometers through the mud and rain that day and was billeted swell in the town hall. The mess call had just sounded and I was gettin' in line when the Loot yanks me out to tote his bag off to some lodgin's he'd been assigned five or six blocks away.
"Maybe I wasn't good and sore, too, with everything gettin' cold and me as a refugee. I must have got mixed up in my directions, for I couldn't find any house with a green iron balcony over the front door noway. Finally I takes a chance on workin' some of my French and knocks at a blue door. Took me some time to raise anybody, and when a girl does answer all I gets out of her is a squeal and the door is slammed shut again. I was backin' off disgusted when here comes this dame with the big eyes and the grand duchess airs.
"'Ah le bon Dieu!' says she gaspy. 'Le soldat d'Amerique! Entrez, m'sieur.' And say, even if I couldn't have savvied a word, that smile would have been enough. Did I get the glad hand? Listen; she hadn't seen anything but Huns for nearly four years. Most of that time she'd spent hidin' in the cellar or somewhere, and for her I was the dove of peace. She tried to tell me all about it, and I expect she did, only I couldn't comprenez more'n a quarter of her rapid fire French. But the idea seemed to be that I was a he-angel of the first class who deserved the best there was in the house. Maybe I didn't get it, too. The Huns hadn't been gone but a few hours and the peace dinner she'd planned was only a sketchy affair, as she wasn't dead sure they wouldn't come back. When she sees me though, she puts a stop order on all that third-rate stuff and tells the cook to go the limit. And say, they must have dug up food reserves from the sub-cellar, for when me and the Countess finally sits down----"
"Ah, don't pull that on us!" protests Skip Martin. "We admit the vintage champagne, and the pâté de foie gras, but that Countess stuff has been overdone."
"Oh, has it?" says Budge. "You mean you didn't see any hangin' 'round the freight sheds. But this is in Bastogne, old son, and there was her Countess mark plastered all over everything, from the napkins to the mantelpiece. Maybe I don't know one when I get a close-up, same as I did then. Huh! I'm telling you she was the real thing. Why, I'll bet she could sail into Tiffany's tomorrow and open an account just on the way she carries her chin."
"Course she was a Countess," says Izzy. "I'll bet it was some dinner, too. And what then?"
"It didn't happen until just as I was leavin'," says Budge. "'Sis,' says I, 'vous etes un-un peach. Merci very much.' And I was holdin' out my hand for a getaway shake when she closes in with a clinch that makes this Romeo and Juliet balcony scene look like an old maid's farewell. M-m-m-m. Honest, I didn't wash it off for two days. And, countess or not, she was some grand little lady. I'll tell the world that."
"Look!" says one of our noble exempts. "You've even got old Jonesey smackin' his lips."
That gets a big laugh from the bunch. It always does, for he's one of our permanent jokes, old Jones. And as he happens to be sittin' humped over here in the corner brushin' traces of an egg sandwich from his mouth corners, the josh comes in kind of pat.
"Must have been some lady killer in his time, eh?" suggests Skip Martin.
That gets across as a good line too, and Skip follows it up with another. "Let's ask him, fellers."
And the next thing old Jones knows he's surrounded by this grinnin' circle of young hicks while Budge Haley is demandin': "Is it so, Jonesey, that you used to be a reg'lar chicken hound?"
I expect it's the funny way he's gone bald, with only a fringe of grayish hair left, and the watery blue eyes behind the dark glasses, that got us callin' him Old Jones. Maybe the bent shoulders and his being deaf in one ear helps. But as a matter of fact, I don't think he's quite sixty. To judge by the fringe, he once had a crop of sandy hair that was more or less curly. Some of the color still holds in the bristly mustache and the ear tufts. A short, chunky party with a stubby nose and sort of a solid-lookin' chin, he is.
But there never is much satisfaction kiddin' Jonesey. You can't get his goat. He just holds his hand up to his ear and asks kind of bored: "Eh, what's that?"
"How about them swell dames that used to go wild over you?" comes back Skip.
Old Jones gazes up at Skip kind of mild and puzzled. Then he shakes his head slow. "No," says he. "Not me. If--if they did I--I must have forgot."
Which sets the bunch to howlin' at Skip. "There! Maybe that'll hold you, eh?" someone remarks. And as they drift off Jonesey tackles a slice of lunch-room pie placid.
It struck me as rather neat, comin' from the old boy. He must have forgot! I had a chuckle over that all by myself. What could Jonesey have to forget? They tell me he's been with the Corrugated twenty years or more. Why, he must have been on the payroll before some of them young sports was born. And for the last fifteen he's held the same old job--assistant filin' clerk. Some life, eh?
About all we know of Old Jones is that he lives in a little back room down on lower Sixth Avenue with a mangy green parrot nearly as old as he is. They say he baches it there, cookin' his meals on a one-burner oil stove, never reportin' sick, never takin' a vacation, and never gettin' above Thirty-third Street or below Fourteenth.
Course, so far as the force is concerned, he's just so much dead wood. Every shake-up we have somebody wants to fire him, or pension him off. But Mr. Ellins won't have it. "No," says he. "Let him stay on." And you bet Jonesey stays. He drills around, fussin' over the files, doing things just the way he did twenty years ago, I suppose, but never gettin' in anybody's way or pullin' any grouch. I've got so I don't notice him any more than as if he was somebody's shadow passin' by. You know, he's just a blank. And if it wasn't for them bond-room humorists cuttin' loose at him once in a while I'd almost forget whether he was still on the staff or not.
It was this same afternoon, along about 2:30, that I gets a call from Old Hickory's private office and finds this picturesque lookin' bird with the three piece white lip whiskers and the premature Panama lid glarin' indignant at the boss.
"Torchy," says Mr. Ellins, glancin' at a card, "this is Señor Don Pedro Cassaba y Tarragona."
"Oh, yes!" says I, just as though I wasn't surprised a bit.
"Señor Don Pedro and so on," adds Old Hickory, "is from Havana, and for the last half hour he has been trying to tell me something very important, I've no doubt, to him. As it happens I am rather busy on some affairs of my own and I--er--Oh, for the love of soup, Torchy take him away somewhere and find out what it's all about."
"Sure!" says I. "This way, Seenor."
"Perdone," says he. "Say-nohr."
"Got you," says I, "only I may not follow you very far. About all the Spanish I had I used up this noon orderin' an omelet, but maybe we can get somewhere if we're both patient. Here we are, in my nice cozy corner with all the rest of the day before us. Have a chair, Say-nohr."
He's a perky, high-colored old boy, and to judge by the restless black eyes, a real live wire. He looks me over sort of doubtful, stroking the zippy little chin tuft as he does it, but he ends by shruggin' his shoulders resigned.
"I come," says he, "in quest of Señor Captain Yohness."
"Yohness?" says I, tryin' to look thoughtful. "No such party around here that I know of."
"It must be," says he. "That I have ascertained."
"Oh, well!" says I. "Suppose we admit that much as a starter. What about him? What's he done?"
"Ah!" says the Señor Don Pedro, spreadin' out his hands eloquent. "But that is a long tale."
It was, too. I expect that was what had got him in wrong with Old Hickory. However, he tackles it once more, using the full-arm movement and sprinklin' in Spanish liberal whenever he got stuck. Course, this fallin' back on his native tongue must have been a relief to him, but it didn't help me out much. Some I could guess at, and when I couldn't I'd get him to repeat it until I worked up a hunch. Then we'd take a fresh start. It's surprisin', too, how well we got along after we had the system doped out.
And accordin' to the Hon. Pete this Cap. Yohness party is an American who hails from New York. Don't sound reasonable, I admit, with a monicker like that, but I let the old boy spin along. Yohness had gone to Cuba years ago, way back before the Spanish-American war. I take it he was part of a filibusterin' outfit that was runnin' in guns and ammunition for the Cubans to use against the Spaniards. In fact, he mentions Dynamite Johnny O'Brien as the leader of the crowd. I think that was the name. Listens like it might have been, anyway.
Well, he says this Señor Yohness is some reckless cut-up himself, for he not only runs the blockade of Spanish warships and lands his stuff, but then has the nerve to stick around the island and even take a little trip into Havana. Seems that was some stunt, too, for if he'd been caught at it he'd have found a swift finish against the nearest wall.
Course, he had to go in disguise, but he was handicapped by havin' red hair. Not so vivid as mine, the Señor assures me, but red enough so he wouldn't be mistaken easy for a Spaniard. He'd have gotten away with the act, too, if he hadn't capped it by takin' the wildest chances anybody could have thought up.
While he's ramblin' around Havana, takin' in all the sights and rubbin' elbows every minute with men who'd ask no better sport than giving him a permanent chest puncture if they'd known who he was, what does he do but get tangled up in a love affair. Even if his head hadn't been specially priced for more pesos than you could put in a sugar barrel, this was a hot time for any American to be lallygaggin' around the ladies in that particular burg. For the Spanish knew all about where the reconcentrados were getting their firearms from and they were good and sore on us. But little details like that don't seem to bother El Capitan Yohness a bit. When he gets in line with an oh boy! smile from behind a window grill he smiles back and comes around for an encore. That's the careless kind of a Yank he is.
What makes it worse, though, is the fact that this special window happens to be in the Governor's Palace. And the lady herself! The Honorable Pedro shudders as he relates it. She is none other than la Señorita Mario, a niece of the Governor General.
She must have had misbehavin' eyes and a kittenish disposition, for she seems to fall for this disguised New Yorker at first sight. Most likely it was on account of his red hair. Anyway, after one or two long distance exchanges she drops out a note arranging a twosome in the palace gardens by moonlight. It's a way they have, I understand. And this Yohness guy, he don't do a thing but keep the date. Course, he must have known that as a war risk he'd have been quoted as payin' about a thousand per cent. premium, but he takes the chance.
It ain't a case of bein' able to stroll in any time, either. In order to make it he has to conceal himself in the shrubbery before sundown, when the general public is chased out of the grounds and a guard set at the gates. Perhaps it was worth it, though, for Don Pedro says the Señorita Donna Mario is a lovely lady; at least, she was then.
Anyway, the two of 'em pulled it off successful, and they was snuggled up on a marble bench gettin' real well acquainted--maybe callin' each other by their first names and whisperin' mushy sentiments in the moonshine--when the heavy villain enters with stealthy tread.
It seems that Donna Mario had been missed from the Palace. Finally the word gets to Uncle, and although he's a grizzly old pirate, he can remember back when he was young himself. Maybe he had one of his sporty secretaries in mind, or some gay young first lieutenant. However it was, he connected with a first-class hunch that on a night like this, if the lovely Donna Mario had strayed out anywhere she would sooner or later camp down on a marble bench.
Whether he picked the right garden seat first rattle out of the box, or made two or three misses, I don't know. But when he does crash in he finds the pair just going to a clinch. He ain't the kind of an uncle, either, who would stand off and chuckle a minute before interruptin' with a mild "Tut--tut, now, young folks!" No. He's a reg'lar movie drama uncle. He gets purple in the gills. He snorts through his mustache. He gurgles out the Spanish for "Ha, ha!". Then he unlimbers a sword like a corn-knife, reaches out a rough hairy paw, and proceeds to yank our young hero rudely from the fond embrace. Just like that.
And here again I missed a detail or two. I couldn't make out if it was the pink thatch of Yohness that gave him away, or whether Uncle could tell an American just by the feel of his neck. But the old boy got wise right away.
"What," says he, like he was usin' the words as a throat gargle. "A curs-ed Gr-r-ringo! For that you shall both die."
Which was just where, like most movie uncles, he overdid the part. Yohness might not have been particular whether he went on livin' or not. He hadn't acted as though he cared much. But he wasn't going to let a nice girl like the Donna Mario get herself carved up by an impulsive relative who wore fuzzy face whiskers and a yellow sash instead of a vest.
"Ah, ditch the tragic stuff, Old Sport, while I sketch out how it was all my fault," says he, or words to that effect.
"G-r-r-r!" says Uncle, slashin' away enthusiastic with his sword.
If our hero had been a second or so late in his moves there would be little left to add. But heroes never are. And when this Cap. Yohness party got into action he was a reg'lar bear-cat. The wicked steel merely swished through the space he'd just left and before Uncle could get in another swing something heavy landed on him and he was being gripped in four places. Before the old boy knew what was happening, too, that yellow sash had been unwound and he'd been tied up as neat as an express package. All he lacked to go on the wagon was an address tag and a "Prepaid" label gummed on his tummy.
"Sorry," says Yohness, rollin' him into the shrubbery with his toe, "but you mustn't act so mussy when the young lady has a caller."
"Ah! Eso es espantoso!" says Donna Mario, meaning that now he had spilled the beans for fair. "You must fly. I must--we must both flee."
"Oh, very well," says Yohness. "That is, if the fleeing is good."
"Here! Quick!" says she, grabbin' up the long cloak Uncle had been wearing before he started something he couldn't finish. "And this also," she adds, handin' Yohness a military cap with a lot of gold braid on it. "We will go together. The guards know me. They will think you are my uncle. Wait! I will call the carriage, as if for our evening drive."
"Now that," says I, as Don Pedro gets to this part of the yarn, "was what I call good work done. Made a clean getaway, did they?"
He nods, and goes on to tell how, when they got to the city limits, El Capitan chucked the driver and footman off the box, took the reins himself and drove until near daybreak, when he dropped the fair Donna Mario at the house of an old friend and then beat it down the pike until he saw a chance to leave the outfit and make a break into the woods.
"And I expect he was willin' to call it a night after that, eh?" says I. "Reg'lar thrill hound, wasn't he? What became of him?"
"Ah!" says Don Pedro. "It is for that I come to you."
"Oh, yes, so you have," says I. "I'd most forgotten. Yes, yes! You still have the idea I can trace out Yohness for you? Suppose I could, though, how would you be sure it was the same one, after so many years? Got any mark on him that----"
"Listen," says Don Pedro. "El Capitan Yohness possesses a ring of peculiar setting--pale gold--a large dark ruby in it. This was given him that night by the Señorita Donna Mario. He swore to her never to part with it until they should meet again. They never have, nor will. She is no more. For years she lived hidden, in fear of her life. Then the war came. Her uncle was driven back to Spain. Later her friend died, but she left to Donna Mario her estate, many acres of valuable sugar plantation, and the house, Casa Fuerta. It is this estate which Donna Mario in turn has willed to her valiant lover. I am one of the executors. So I ask you where is El Capitan Yohness?"
"Yes, I know you do," says I. "But why ask me? How do you hook up the Corrugated Trust with any such wild----"
"See," says Don Pedro, producin' a yellow old letter. "This came to Donna Mario just before the war. It is on the note paper of your firm."
"Why, that's so!" says I. "Must have been when we were in the old building, long before my time. But as far as--Say, the name ain't Yohness. It's Jones, plain as day."
"Yes, Yohness," says Don Pedro, spellin' it out loud, "Y-o-n-e-s. You see, in Spanish we call it Yohness."
He don't say it just like that, either, but that's as near as I can get it. Anyway, you'd never recognize it as Jones.
"Well," I goes on, "I don't know of anybody around the place now who would fit your description. In fact, I don't believe there's anybody by the name of--Yes, there is one Jones here, but he can't be the party. He isn't that kind of a Jones."
"But if he is Señor Jones--who knows?" insists Don Pedro.
Then I has to stop and grin. Huh! Old Jonesey bein' suspected of ever pullin' stuff like that. Say, why not have him in and tax him with it. "Just a sec.," says I. "You can take a look yourself."
I finds Jonesey with his head in a file drawer, as usual, and without spillin' anything of the joke I leads him in and lines him up in front of Don Pedro.
"Listen, Jonesey," says I. "This gentleman comes from Havana. Were you ever there?"
"Why, ye-e-e-es. Once I was," says Jonesey, sort of draggy, as if tryin' to remember.
"You were?" says I. "How? When?"
"It--it was a long time ago," says Jonesey.
"Perdone," breaks in Don Pedro. "Were you not known as Señor El Capitan?"
"Me?" says Jonesey. "Why--I--some might have called me that."
"Great guns!" I gasps. "See here, Jonesey; you don't mean to say you've got the ring too?"
"The ring?" says he, tryin' to look blank. But at the same time I notice his hand go up to his shirt front sort of jerky.
"The ring of the Señorita Donna Mario," cuts in Don Pedro eager.
That don't get any hysterical motions out of him, though. He just stands there, lookin' from one to the other of us slow and dazed, as if something was tricklin' down into his brain. Once or twice he rubs a dingy hand over his bald head. It seemed to help.
"Donna Mario, Donna Mario," he repeats, half under his breath.
"Yes," says I. "And isn't that something like the ring you're coverin' up there under your shirt bosom? Let's see."
Without a word he unbuttons his collar, slips a looped string over his head, and holds out a ring. It's a big ruby set in pale gold.
"That is the ring of Donna Mario," says Don Pedro.
"Hal-lup," says I. "Jonesey, do you mean to say you're the same one who sailed with Dynamite Johnny, risked your neck to go poking around Havana, made love to the Governor General's niece, trussed him up like a roasting turkey when he interfered, and escaped with her in the palace coach through whole rafts of soldiers who'd have been made rich for life if they'd shot you on sight? You!"
"That--that was a long time ago," says Jonesey.
And if you will believe me, that's about all he would say. Wasn't even much excited over the fact that a hundred thousand dollar sugar plantation was about to be wished on him. Oh, yes, he'd go down with Don Pedro and take possession. Was the grave of Donna Mario there? Then he would go, surely.
"I--I would rather like to," says Old Jonesey.
"Huh," says I. "You better stick around until tomorrow noon. I want you to hear what I've got to feed to that bond-room bunch."
Jonesey shakes his head. No, he'd rather not. And as he shuffles back to his old files I hears him mumblin', sort of soft and easy: "Donna Mario. Ah, yes! Donna Mario!"
Which proves, don't it, that you can't always tell. Even when the party has such a common name as Jones.
