His astonishing garments first caught my eye, as he stood head and shoulders above the crowd; then recognizing the brown and leathery face I felt a breath of the hills again, for I had last seen him in faded flannel, with hip boots red from the rusty soil of the mines. Now I watched him for a time unnoticed.
“Chimoyee,” said I, in the tongue of the Siwash.
Whirling, he seized me with avidity.
“Well, if it ain't the Kid!” he cried. “I thought you was on the Coast with the Native Sons. Say! but I'm glad to see you.”
“I'm on the road,” said I.
“You're welcomer than four aces, for I'm emaciated with desires for society. I've been lost on the desert and snow-bound in the Arctics, but they was both sociable and overcrowded compared to the isolation of this here tomb.” He indicated the rushing, throbbing Chicago throng.
“The talk in me is expanding fast. Come away from the noise of this desolation, for I'm cramping with conversation.”
“'Tug,'” said I, when the waiter had our orders, “how can you justify the color of those clothes? What if the Klondyke boys heard that 'Tug' McCabe was incriminated with red vests and dove-colored frock coats?”
“I guess they'd call a meeting on me,” he said, “but it's my love of the refined and cropping. I've got it strong; regular four-foot vein of free-milling aesthetics. I never had a chance to throw myself in Dawson, 'cause styles in Mackinaws don't flicker much, but when I came out this fall, with a $40,000 'poke,' says I:
“'It's McCabe to the bat; he'll gorge on the refinements of art, literature and the table de hote.' So the first night in Frisco I went to the Orpheum—continuous variety. A guy 'mushed' onto the stage to sing, and I says:
“'Me for those clothes.' More I watched, better he looked. He could sing, too; none of your decrepit little noises out of him. No, sir! I'll bet you could hear him four blocks—with the piano going.
“Next day I found the highest-priced tailor on Market Street. Says I, 'Have you the inclinations to make clothes?'
“'Certainly,' says the little man.
“'Then come on,' and I dragged him down the street, kicking like a frog, thinking he was abducted. I sat him in my box at the theater, where he shivered and rolled his eyes, till the overgrown voice came on. Then says I, 'Get a blue-print of that sketch, for he looks good to me, and I have it in mind to dress up likewise!'
“It was hard to entice him till I showed my mint receipts, and said I was from Dawson. I think he did a fair job, don't you?” He eyed himself with modest approbation.
“What brings you so far east?” I enquired evasively, not caring to go on record.
“Well, it's a long story, tinged with pathos and figured with love and automobiles, broken hearts and Irish stew, full of unexpected aimlessness and a kind of misfortune.
“Girl, did you say? You win. By name, Margharita Olivia Shortz. She soloed on a Remington at the Palace Hotel, and when it came to taking dictation she assayed about 21.60 to the ounce. I decided from a distance to marry her, but getting tired of this profile acquaintance I tried to reduce the range and explode a few bits of Klondyke repartee. No go. She'd track my conversations down in a little book and send 'em up to the room at twenty cents a page. I tried all the modern methods; finally followed her to her boarding-house. The next day I was ingratiated into a front room and had rented the landlady's confidence so that she plugged for me—again, no go.
“On the third day I met her in the hall and took a strangle-hold on her arm.
“'Let me go!' says she.
“'Not in this world,' says I. 'For why? Because I've got a hunch that indicates we're a-going to be married. Let's settle the details.'
“'How dare you!' says she, quite pale and shaky. 'Let me go! What do you mean by dogging me this way?'
“'That's all,' says I, 'just matrimony. 'You might as well get it over with.'
“She stood for a minute undecided, and then she smiled. That night we argued it in the parlor. I presented my pedigree, vaccination mark, and the mint receipts for a couple of thousand ounces of fresh Dawson gold, which last would have cinched the deal in our country, but she couldn't see it my way.
“However, after wasting a week getting acquainted, she came round—on conditions.
“'I won't marry without papa's consent,' says she, blushing a kind of light blue or pink, I forget which, being as they're about alike. 'If he'll come to the wedding, and give us his blessing, I'll do it.'