Alibi Ike | Page 7

right dope from Cap. Dolly'd blew in from
Missouri and was goin' to make the trip with her sister.

V
Well, I want to alibi Carey and I for what come off in Boston. If we'd
of had any idear what we was doin', we'd never did it. They wasn't
nobody outside o' maybe Ike and the dame that felt worse over it than I
and Carey.
The first two days we didn't see nothin' of Ike and her except out to the
park. The rest o' the time they was sight-seein' over to Cambridge and
down to Revere and out to Brook-a-line and all the other places where
the rubes go.
But when we come into the beanery after the third game Cap's wife
called us over.
"If you want to see somethin' pretty," she says, "look at the third finger
on Sis's left hand."

Well, o' course we knowed before we looked that it wasn't goin' to be
no hangnail. Nobody was su'prised when Dolly blew into the dinin'
room with it--a rock that Ike'd bought off'n Diamond Joe the first trip to
New York. Only o' course it'd been set into a lady's-size ring instead o'
the automobile tire he'd been wearin'.
Cap and his missus and Ike and Dolly ett supper together, only Ike
didn't eat nothin', but just set there blushin' and spillin' things on the
table-cloth. I heard him excusin' himself for not havin' no appetite. He
says he couldn't never eat when he was clost to the ocean. He'd forgot
about them sixty-five oysters he destroyed the first night o' the trip
before.
He was goin' to take her to a show, so after supper he went upstairs to
change his collar. She had to doll up, too, and o' course Ike was through
long before her.
If you remember the hotel in Boston, they's a little parlor. where the
piano's at and then they's another little parlor openin' off o' that. Well,
when Ike come down Smitty was playin' a few chords and I and Carey
was harmonizin'. We seen Ike go up to the desk to leave his key and we
called him in. He tried to duck away, but we wouldn't stand for it.
We ast him what he was all duded up for and he says he was goin' to
the theayter.
"Goin' alone?" says Carey.
"No," he says, "a friend o' mine's goin' with me."
"What do you say if we go along?" says Carey.
"I ain't only got two tickets," he says.
"Well," says Carey, "we can go down there with you and buy our own
seats maybe we can all get together."
"No," says Ike. "They ain't no more seats. They're all sold out."

"We can buy some off'n the scalpers," says Carey.
"I wouldn't if I was you," says Ike. "They say the show's rotten."
"What are you goin' for, then?" I ast.
"I didn't hear about it bein' rotten till I got the tickets," he says.
"Well," I says, "if you don't want to go I'll buy the tickets from you."
"No," says Ike, "I wouldn't want to cheat you. I'm stung and I'll just
have to stand for it."
"What are you goin' to do with the girl, leave her here at the hotel?" I
says.
"What girl?" says Ike.
"The girl you ett supper with," I says.
"Oh," he says, "we just happened to go into the dinin' room together,
that's all. Cap wanted I should set down with 'em."
"I noticed." says Carey, "that she happened to he wearin' that rock you
bought off'n Diamond Joe."
"Yes." says Ike. "I lent it to her for a wile."
"Did you lend her the new ring that goes with it?" I says.
"She had that already," says Ike. "She lost the set out of it."
"I wouldn't trust no strange girl with a rock o' mine," says Carey.
"Oh, I guess she's all right," Ike says. "Besides, I was tired o' the stone.
When a girl asks you for somethin', what are you goin' to do?"
He started out toward the desk, but we flagged him.

"Wait a minute!" Carey says. "I got a bet with Sam here, and it's up to
you to settle it."
"Well," says Ike, "make it snappy. My friend'll be here any minute."
"I bet," says Carey, "that you and that girl was engaged to be married."
"Nothin' to it," says Ike.
"Now look here," says Carey, "this is goin' to cost me real money if I
lose. Cut out the alibi stuff and give it to us straight. Cap's wife just as
good as told us you was roped."
Ike blushed like a kid.
"Well, boys," he says, "I may as well own up. You win, Carey."
"Yatta boy!"