Our Mr Wrenn | Page 8

How gallantly the train dashed toward the robbers, to
the spirit-stirring roll of the snare-drum. The rush from the bushes
followed; the battle with detectives concealed in the express-car. Mr.
Wrenn was standing sturdily and shooting coolly with the slender
hawk-faced Pinkerton man in puttees; with him he leaped to horse and
followed the robbers through the forest. He stayed through the whole
program twice to see the train robbery again.
As he started to go out he found the ticket-taker changing his long
light-blue robe of state for a highly commonplace sack-coat without
brass buttons. In his astonishment at seeing how a Highness could be
transformed into an every-day man, Mr. Wrenn stopped, and, having
stopped, spoke:
"Uh--that was quite a--quite a picture--that train robbery. Wasn't it."
"Yuh, I guess--Now where's the devil and his wife flew away to with
my hat? Them guys is always swiping it. Picture, mister? Why, I didn't
see it no more 'n--Say you, Pink Eye, say you crab-footed usher, did
you swipe my hat? Ain't he the cut-up, mister! Ain't both them ushers
the jingling sheepsheads, though! Being cute and hiding my hat in the
box-office. _Picture?_ I don't get no chance to see any of 'em. Funny,
ain't it?--me barking for 'em like I was the grandmother of the guy that
invented 'em, and not knowing whether the train robbery--Now who
stole my going-home shoes?... Why, I don't know whether the train did
any robbing or not!"
He slapped Mr. Wrenn on the back, and the sales clerk's heart bounded
in comradeship. He was surprised into declaring:
"Say--uh--I bowed to you the other night and you--well, honestly, you
acted like you never saw me."
"Well, well, now, and that's what happens to me for being the dad of
five kids and a she-girl and a tom-cat. Sure, I couldn't 've seen you. Me,
I was probably that busy with fambly cares--I was probably thinking
who was it et the lemon pie on me--was it Pete or Johnny, or shall I lick
'em both together, or just bite me wife."
Mr. Wrenn knew that the ticket-taker had never, never really
considered biting his wife. He knew! His nod and grin and "That's the
idea!" were urbanely sophisticated. He urged:

"Oh yes, I'm sure you didn't intend to hand me the icy mitt. Say! I'm
thirsty. Come on over to Moje's and I'll buy you a drink."
He was aghast at this abyss of money-spending into which he had
leaped, and the Brass-button Man was suspiciously wondering what
this person wanted of him; but they crossed to the adjacent saloon, a
New York corner saloon, which of course "glittered" with a large
mirror, heaped glasses, and a long shining foot-rail on which, in
bravado, Mr. Wrenn placed his Cum-Fee-Best shoe.
"Uh?" said the bartender.
"Rye, Jimmy," said the Brass-button Man.
"Uh-h-h-h-h," said Mr. Wrenn, in a frightened diminuendo, now
that--wealthy citizen though he had become--he was in danger of
exposure as a mollycoddle who couldn't choose his drink properly.
"Stummick been hurting me. Guess I'd better just take a lemonade."
"You're the brother-in-law to a wise one," commented the Brass-button
Man. "Me, I ain't never got the sense to do the traffic cop on the booze.
The old woman she says to me, `Mory,' she says, `if you was in heaven
and there was a pail of beer on one side and a gold harp on the other,'
she says, `and you was to have your pick, which would you take?' And
what 'd yuh think I answers her?"
"The beer," said the bartender. "She had your number, all right."
"Not on your tin-type," declared the ticket-taker.
"`Me?' I says to her. `Me? I'd pinch the harp and pawn it for ten
growlers of Dutch beer and some man-sized rum!'"
"Hee, hee hee!" grinned Mr. Wrenn.
"Ha, ha, ha!" grumbled the bartender.
"Well-l-l," yawned the ticket-taker, "the old woman'll be chasing me
best pants around the flat, if she don't have me to chase, pretty soon.
Guess I'd better beat it. Much obliged for the drink, Mr. Uh. So long,
Jimmy."
Mr. Wrenn set off for home in a high state of exhilaration which, he
noticed, exactly resembled driving an aeroplane, and went briskly up
the steps of the Zapps' genteel but unexciting residence. He was much
nearer to heaven than West Sixteenth Street appears to be to the
outsider. For he was an explorer of the Arctic, a trusted man on the job,
an associate of witty Bohemians. He was an army lieutenant who had,
with his friend the hawk-faced Pinkerton man, stood off bandits in an

attack on a train. He opened and closed the door gaily.
He was an apologetic little Mr. Wrenn. His landlady stood on the
bottom step of the hall