The Man Who Knew Coolidge/Part 4
Well, by golly, it's good to be back. How'd everything go, Mame? Say, how's your brake been acting? That's fine.
Huh? Yuh, sure, I'm fairly certain Walt'll make the loan. But you know how relatives are. I could see he was crazy to make a loan on security like I can give him, but he tried to pretend like he was holding off, and I had to sit around a whole evening listening to his wife and him chewing the rag.
God, how that woman does talk, and say, Walt ain't much better. He insisted on telling me all about a fishing trip he'd made, and of course I wasn't interested—
And curious—say, I never did run into anybody as inquisitive as Walt is, but you know how relatives are. My God, the questions he asked and the hints he threw out! He wanted to know whether you and I ever scrapped or not—
Well, just take an example. I happened to mention Jackie, and he says, "Does Mame allow you to keep him in the house?"
Well, I just looked at him, and I said, kind of cold, "Mame and I have both agreed that the house is no place for a dog, for his own sake, and that he's much better off where he is, out in a doghouse by the garage."
And one thing almost got my goat. He said, "Say, on all these trips you make to New York, haven't you ever picked up a nice little piece of fluff?"
Well, I just looked at him, quietly, and I said, "Walt," I said, "I never could see the necessity for a man that's married to the finest little woman God ever made to even look at any other woman. A fellow like that," I said, "he naturally wants to keep all that's finest in him for the one woman who has consented to share his fortunes and keep him happy."
And you might remember that I told Walt that, too—here the way you hint around sometimes and wonder if I don't go taking girls out to dinner when I'm in New York.
And when you consider what I told Walt about Jackie, I'm damned if I can see any reason why just once in a while you can't shut that cat in the kitchen and allow Jackie in the house. But what I'm getting at: I wish you could have listened in and heard me when I was talking to Walt about you. If you heard some men gassing about their wives—
But let that pass. I'll just tell you briefly about the trip.
I caught the train all right, with three good minutes to spare, and I had my dinner on the diner—it wasn't such a bad dinner—I remember I had vegetable soup and fried chicken and fried potatoes and corn and a wedge of apple pie with whipped cream on it—say, I wish you could get that Lithuanian to stir her stumps and whip some cream for us once in a while—my God, what does that girl think we're paying her sixty-five good dollars a month for!—and then I went up in the club car and sat down to smoke a cigar, and I got to talking to a gentleman, and he'd been reading a book about "Microbe Hunters," and he told me a lot about germs and bacteria that was very interesting.
Did you know that bacteria multiply at the rate of—I think it's ten thousand an hour—no, a million an hour it is, if I remember; anyway, at a rate of speed that would simply surprise you, and that, you see, explains about a lot of diseases.
And I got to talking to this gentleman, seems he was a lawyer, and he just happened to mention that he came from Brainerd, Minnesota, and I asked him if he happened to know Alec Duplex, of Saint Cloud, Minnesota—you remember the gentleman that we met in California—and say, come to find out, this gentleman was a second cousin of Alec's! Can you beat it!
"Well sir," I says to him, "the world's a pretty small place after all, isn't it!"
Well, along about nine o'clock I thought I'd turn in and try to get a good night's sleep—though it's a funny thing about me; as I may have told you, first night on a sleeper I can't hardly sleep at all; but I thought I'd turn in and try it, and come to find out, the porter had my bed all made up and so I crawled out of my clothes and wound my watch and crawled in between the sheets—
But I won't go into details of the trip—there was nothing of especial interest except this remarkable coincidence about this gentleman, a Mr. McLough his name was, that was a cousin of Alec Duplex's, but say, there was one thing:
At breakfast in the morning, I thought I'd try some buckwheat cakes, and I said to the waiter, "I think I'll have some buckwheat cakes," I said. "And syrup."
"Sorry, sir, we ain't got any buckwheat cakes this morning," he says.
"You haven't got any buckwheat cakes?" I says.
"No sir, there ain't any buckwheat cakes on the menu this morning," he says, "but we got corn cakes."
"Well," I says to him, "if you haven't got any buckwheat cakes—"