You Should Worry Says John Henry | Page 4

started to follow the family parade, "I'm hep to the situation. It's a cutey, take it from little Ikey. I'll have to charge you $8 for the sudden attack of deafness; then there's $19 for hardships sustained by my finger joints while conversing. The rest of the 100 iron men I'm going to keep as a souvenir of two good-natured ginks who wouldn't know what to do with a Tango if they had one."
As we pulled out of the Mayonnaise Mansion I looked back at Ikey to thank him with a farewell nod.
He was halfway under the table, holding both hands to his sides and making funny faces at the carpet.
CHAPTER II
YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT AN AUTOMOBILE
Say! did you ever have to leave the soothing influence of your own rattling radiators in the Big City and go romping off to a rich relation's for the week-end?
Well, don't do it, if you can help it, and if you can't help it get back home as soon as possible.
When Uncle Gilbert Hawley sent us an invitation to run up to Hawleysville for a day or two I looked at Peaches and she looked at me--then we both looked out the window.
We knew what a wildly hilarious time we'd have splashing out small talk to the collection of human bric-a-brac always to be found at Uncle Gilbert's, but what is one going to do when the richest old gink in the family waves a beckoning arm?
I'll tell you what one is going to do--one is going to take to one's o'sullivans, beat it rapidly to a choo-choo, and float into Uncle Gilbert's presence with a business of being tickled to death--that's what one is going to do.
You know Nature has a few immutable laws, and one is that even a rich old uncle must in the full course of time pass on and leave nephews and nieces. Leave them what? Ah! that's it! Where's that timetable?
Hawleysville is about forty miles away on the P. D. & Q., and it is some burg. Uncle Gilbert wrote it all himself.
Uncle Gilbert has nearly all the money there is in the world. Every time he signs a check a national bank goes out of existence. He tried to count it all once, but he sprained his wrists and had to stop.
On the level, when he goes into a bank all the government bonds get up and yell, "Hello, Papa!"
When he cuts coupons it's like a sheep shearing.
He has muscles all over him like a prizefighter just from lifting mortgages.
When Peaches and I finally reached the Hawley mansion on the hill we found there a scene of great excitement. Old and distant relations were bustling up and down the stone steps, talking in whispers; servants with scared faces and popping eyes were peeping around the corner of the house, and in the roadway in front of a sobbing automobile stood Uncle Gilbert and Aunt Miranda, made up to look like two members of the Peary expedition at the Pole.
After the formal greetings we were soon put hep to the facts in the case.
"You see, John," bubbled Aunt Miranda, while a pair of green goggles danced an accompaniment on her nose, "your Uncle Gilbert loaned the money to a man to open a garage in Hawleysville. But automobilists never got any blowouts or punctures going through here because there isn't a saloon in the town, so the garage failed and the man left town in an awful hurry, and all your Uncle Gilbert got for the money he loaned was this car. We've been four years making up our minds to buy one and now we have one whether we want it or not."
"Fine!" I said; "going out for a spin, Uncle Gilbert?"
"Possibly," he answered, never taking his eyes off the man-killer in front of him, which stood there trembling with anger.
"What car is it?" I inquired politely.
"It's a Seismic," Uncle Gilbert said.
"Oh, yes, of course; made by the Earthquake Brothers in Powderville--good car for the hills, especially coming down," I volunteered. "Know how to run it?"
"I guess so; I was always a good hand at machinery," Uncle Gilbert answered.
"Don't you think you should have a chauffeur?" Peaches suggested.
"Chauffeur! Why?" Uncle Gilbert snapped back; "what do I want with one of those fellows sitting around, eating me out of house and home."
Now you know why he has so much money.
"We'll be back in a little while," Aunt Miranda explained; "just make yourselves at home, children."
Uncle Gilbert continued to eye the car for another minute, then he turned to me and said, "Want to try it, John?"
"Nix, Uncle Gilbert," I protested; "what would the townspeople say? You with a new motor car, afraid to run it yourself, had to send to New York for your nephew--nix! Where's your family