How did He Know That?
How Did He Know That?
Everybody who dragged the dogs along Broadway knew that Tony Spagoni was a hound with the scissors and a shark at the blade.
The crowd that patronized the Longacre Tonsorial Parlors always made a play for Tony's chair. He could do more with a comb and a pair of clippers than a chorus doll could with a dollar's worth of rouge.
Tony was a Beast when it came to shaving a neck and trimming around the ears.
For a son of sunny It, he was pretty well Gothamized. He could dish all the latest Alley dirt, knew what kind of garters the girls up on the Roof wore, and was a pig for the chicken stuff. The bunch had Tony tabbed for a pretty wise wop. The light of Sicilian skies was in his glance, he featured a fur-bearing upper lip and disposed of more salve than a drug store.
Tony's peace of mind was rudely shattered one April morning. When the barber shop opened, he blew in and found a new frail at the first manicure table near the door. This was an eye-arresting skirt. She had looks enough for a dozen and a shape that would have made the King of Siam break his crown in half.
"Keep off the grass," the barber at the next chair warned. "This wren is a particular friend of the boss. Get me? He brung her here and he's going to keep her here!"
The boss, Mike O'Shea, was a red-headed mick and a hard egg. He was as tight as a union suit in August and had been in jail twice for beating up innocent citizens.
Tony learned the vision's name was Flo Lewis and thereafter sighed every other minute.
For the next week he contented himself with longing looks. There was no doubt that Flo had all the other blondes nailed to the deck. There was music in her walk, poetry in her glance, romance in the way she shook an orange-stick and Paradise on her red, red lips.
Every time Tony looked at her, he shivered. Every time he looked at O'Shea, he shook.
"Dis make-a me go craz' insane!" he moaned.
When the barber shop closed O'Shea walked Flo out on his arm. Tony had a habit of going home and sharpening a couple of stilettos. After he tested them he threw them aside.
He could give O'Shea a ride in a glass carriage but that wouldn't win him Flo Lewis. For all the notice she took of him he might have been a leopard alive with eczema.
One month later O'Shea announced his engagement to Flo. The girl wore a four carat hock-rock and was as pleased as a baby with a box of matches. Meanwhile, Tony heard that before she became interested in cuticle she had been an artist's model. He also heard O'Shea was spending good jack buying up all the paintings he could get of her.
One evening, two weeks before the wedding day, Tony was limping down Sixth Avenue when he saw a familiar figure wandering south. There was only one shape like that in all the world and no sign of the boss around. He stopped, looked, grabbed another eyeful, licked his lips like a hungry wolf and threw his brogans into high.
"Why, hello, Wop," Flo Lewis cried pleasantly when he touched her arm. "What are you doing way over here by yourself?"
"I take-a da walk," Tony mumbled.
"That's nice," the girl cooed. "Suppose we take-a da walk together?"
The day before Mike O'Shea got married he drew Tony aside during the noon hour.
"I hear you're a wiz on Art," O'Shea said.
"Sure," Tony replied modestly.
The owner of the barber shop conducted him to a back room and indicated a tall paper package with a gesture.
"Listen," he explained. "I've been buying up Miss Lewis' pictures and sticking them in the stove. This here one I picked up this morning. It looks pretty good to me. But I don't know whether it's Art or not. I can't ask everybody's opinion. I'm asking you because you're only a dumb Greek. I want you to tell me if the picture is good enough to keep. Don't be afraid to tell me if it's Art or if it ain't."
"I tell-a da truth," Tony replied. "Art she's like-a sis' to me. I love her—um, um!"
O'Shea tore the brown paper from the canvas. Revealed was Flo Lewis, clad in a smile, pivoted on one foot with hands outstretched to catch a butterfly.
O'Shea looked at Tony.
"Well, what about it, Nuisance? Is it Art?"
Tony appeared to become violently excited.
"Moderato andantino!" he screamed. "Dis pitch' he's-a damn fake! He's-a lie! Molto animato! Dis is what-a you call-a da humbugs!"
"Wait a minute!" O'Shea ordered. "What do you mean?"
The barber filled his lungs with air.
"I mean it's-a da lie—a fake! Da gooda artist he paint true to da life! Dis wan he's-a da loafer. It's no-a da true to da life!"
"Why ain't it true to life?" O'Shea bellowed.
Running his hands through his hair, Tony walked over to the picture and laid a finger on the pink hip of the painted Miss Lewis.
"Where's da mole dat's here?" he shrieked.
There was quite a crowd around the Longacre Tonsorial Parlors when the ambulance arrived.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1948, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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