Ptomaine Street | Page 3

with the highboys and cradles and things, and they founded the branch of Connecticut Petticoats--than which, of course, there is nothing more so.
Of course, the Petticoats were not in the very upper circles of society, not in the Dress Circle, so to speak, but they formed a very necessary foundation, they stood for propriety and decency, and the Petticoats were stiff enough to stand alone.
Another fine old New England family, the Cottons.
Intermarriage linked the two, and the Cotton-Petticoats crowded all other ancient and honorable names off the map of Connecticut and nodded condescendingly to the Saltonwells and Hallistalls. Abbotts and Cabots tried to patronize them, but the plain unruffled Cotton-Petticoats held their peace and their position.
The present scion, Dr. Petticoat, was called Big Bill, not because of his name or stature, but because of the size of his bills. He presented them quarterly, and though his medicine was optional--the patient could take it or leave it--the bills had to be paid.
Wherefore Dr. Petticoat was at the head of his profession financially. Also by reputation and achievement, for he had the big idea.
He was a specialist, and, better yet, a specialist in Ptomaine Poisoning.
Rigidly did he adhere to his chosen line, never swerving to right or left. People might die on one side of him from water on the brain and on the other side from water on the palate, not a prescription could they get out of Big Bill Petticoat unless they could put up unmistakable symptoms of ptomaine poisoning.
And he was famous. People brought their ptomaines to him from the far places, his patients included the idlest rich, the bloatedest aristocrats, the most profitable of the profiteers. His Big Bill system worked well, and he was rich beyond the most Freudian dreams of avarice.
As to appearance, Petticoat was very pretty, with that fresh rosy beauty that is so attractive. His walnut hair was fine and silky, but a permanent wave made it fuzz forth in a bushy crinkle that was distractingly lovely. His tweezed eyebrows were arched to a perfect span and his finger nails showed a piano polish.
His features were cold-chiseled and his coloring was exquisite. In fact, his coloring was too good to be true, and no wonder, for it came out of a very modern and up-to-date six-cylinder makeup box.
His lips looked as if they were used to giving orders in restaurants, and he wore clothes which you could never quite forget.
Warble edged toward the stranger, and murmured nothing in particular, but somehow he drifted into the last and only vacant seat at her table.
She whisked him a 2 x 2 napkin, dumped a clatter of flatware at him, and stood, awaiting his order.
The pause becoming lengthy, she murmured with her engaging smile, "Whatcha want to eat?"
"Pleased to eat you," he responded, looking at her as though she was an agreeable discovery.
Small wonder, for Warble was so peachy and creamy, so sweet and delectable that she was a far more appetizing sight than most viands are. She smiled again--engagingly this time, too.
Thus in the Painted Vale of Huneker, Vamp and Victim beguiled the hours. Thus, and not in treacled cadences, intrigued Mariar and Sir Thomas in the back alley.
"Do you like it here?" asked the doctor.
"Yop. But sometimes I feel wasted--"
"You don't look wasted--" "No--" after a hasty glance in the wall mirror.
"Don't you get sick of the sight of food?"
"Here, oh, no! I don't know any lovelier sight than our kitchens--yes, yes, sir, I'll get your pied frotatoes at oneth."
When Warble was a bit frustrated or embarrassed, she often inverted her initials and lisped. It was one of her ways.
The other clients at her table had no intention of being neglected while their Pickfordian waitress smiled engagingly on a newcomer.
It was the iceman who had hollered. He seemed to be merely a red-faced inanimate object, that worked by strange and compound levers.
Next him was a hat-check girl, a queenly person who communed with something set in the lid of her vanity case, and fed on chicken à la king.
Then there was a newsboy, whose all-observant eyes darted about everywhere, the while he absorbed baked beans and ketchup.
An old maid shopper. She merely brooded over her worn and pencil-scored memorandum, and muttered of fringe and buttons as she spilled tea on her samples of Navy blue foulard.
A blind man. Of no interest save that he had a calm and gentle demeanor and was the only one who didn't spill things. His face wore a grieved but resigned look, as if something had died in his scrambled eggs. The iceman, who had the hard, set jaw of a prize fighter was successfully eating steak, and he welcomed the incoming fried potatoes, as one greets a new instalment of a serial.
It was a fat and pink and lovely