Tutt and Mr. Tutt - Arthur Train
Therefore he was surprised to hear himself say in soothing, almost
cooing tones:
"Well, my dear, what can I do for you?"
Shades of Abigail! "Well, my dear!" Tutt--Tutt! Tutt!
"I am in great trouble," faltered Mrs. Allison, gazing in misty
helplessness out of her blue grottoes at him while her beautiful red
lips trembled.
"I hope I can help you!" he breathed. "Tell me all about it! Take your
time. May I relieve you of your wrap?"
She wriggled out of it gratefully and he saw for the first time the
round, slender pillar of her neck. What a head she had--in its nimbus of
hazy gold. What a figure! His forty-eight-year-old lawyer's heart
trembled under its heavy layer of half-calf dust. He found difficulty in
articulating. He stammered, staring at her most shamelessly both of
which symptoms she did not notice. She was used to them in the other
sex. Tutt did not know what was the matter with him. He had in fact
entered upon that phase at which the wise man, be he old or young, turns
and runs.
But Tutt did not run. In legal phrase he stopped, looked and listened,
experiencing a curious feeling of expansion. This enchanting creature
transmuted the dingy office lined with its rows of calfskin bindings
into a golden grot in which he stood spellbound by the low murmur of her
voice. A sense of infinite leisure emanated from her--a subtle denial of
the ordinary responsibilities--very relaxing and delightful to Tutt. But
what twitched his very heartstrings was the dimple that came and went
with that pathetic little twisted smile of hers.
"I came to you," said Mrs. Allison, "because I knew you were both kind
and clever."
Tutt smiled sweetly.
"Kind, perhaps--not clever!" he beamed.
"Why, everyone says you are one of the cleverest lawyers in New York,"
she protested. Then, raising her innocent China-blue eyes to his she
murmured, "And I so need kindness!"
Tutt's breast swelled with an emotion which he was forced to admit was
not altogether avuncular--that curious sentimental mixture that
middle-aged men feel of paternal pity, Platonic tenderness and
protectiveness, together with all those other euphemistic synonyms, that
make them eager to assist the weak and fragile, to try to educate and
elevate, and particularly to find out just how weak, fragile, uneducated
and unelevated a helpless lady may be. But in spite of his half century
of experience Tutt's knowledge of these things was purely vicarious. He
could have told another man when to run, but he didn't know when to run
himself. He could have saved another, himself he could not save--at any
rate from Mrs. Allison.
He had never seen anyone like her. He pulled his chair a little nearer.
She was so slender, so supple, so--what was it?--svelte! And she had an
air of childish dignity that appealed to him tremendously. There was
nothing, he assured himself, of the vamp about her at all.
"I only want to get my rights," she said, tremulously. "I'm nearly out
of my mind. I don't know what to do or where to turn!"
"Is there"--he forced himself to utter the word with difficulty--"a--a
man involved?"
She flushed and bowed her head sadly, and instantly a poignant rage
possessed him.
"A man I trusted absolutely," she replied in a low voice.
"His name?"
"Winthrop Oaklander."
Tutt gasped audibly, for the name was that of one of Manhattan's most
distinguished families, the founder of which had swapped glass beads and
red-flannel shirts with the aborigines for what was now the most
precious water frontage in the world--and moreover, Mrs. Allison
informed Tutt, he was a clergyman.
"I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. Allison.
"Why--I--I'm--not surprised at all!" prevaricated Tutt, at the same time
groping for his silk handkerchief. "You don't mean to say you've got a
case against this man Oaklander!"
"I have indeed!" she retorted with firmly compressed lips. "That is, if
it is what you call a case for a man to promise to marry a woman and
then in the end refuse to do so."
"Of course it is!" answered Tutt. "But why on earth wouldn't he?"
"He found out I had been divorced," she explained. "Up to that time
everything had been lovely. You see he thought I was a widow."
"Ah!"
Mr. Tutt experienced another pang of resentment against mankind in
general.
"I had a leading part in one of the season's successes on Broadway," she
continued miserably. "But when Mr. Oaklander promised to marry me I left
the stage; and now--I have nothing!"
"Poor child!" sighed Tutt.
He would have liked to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he
always kept the door into the outer office open on principle.
"You know, Mr. Oaklander is the pastor of St. Lukes-Over-the-Way," said
Mrs. Allison. "I thought that maybe rather than have any publicity he
might do a little something for me."
"I suppose you've got something in the way of evidence, haven't you?
Letters or photographs or something?" inquired Tutt, reverting
absent-mindedly to his more professional manner.
"No," she answered. "We never wrote to one another. And when we went out
it was usually in the evening. I don't suppose half a dozen people have
ever seen us together."
"That's awkward!" meditated Tutt, "if he denies it."
"Of course he will deny it!"
"You can't tell. He may not."
"Oh, yes, he will! Why, he even refuses to admit that he ever met me!"
declared Mrs. Allison indignantly.
Now, to Tutt's credit be it said that neither at this point nor at any
other did any suspicion of Mrs. Allison's sincerity enter his mind. For
the first time in his professional existence he accepted what a lady
client told him at its face value. Indeed he felt that no one, not even
a clergyman, could help loving so miraculous a woman, or that loving her
one could refrain from marrying her save for some religious or other
permanent obstacle He was sublimely, ecstatically happy in the mere
thought that he, Tutt, might be of help to such a celestial being, and
he desired no reward other than the privilege of being her willing slave
and of reading her gratitude in those melting, misty eyes.
Mrs. Allison went away just before lunch time, leaving her telephone
number, her handkerchief, a pungent odor of violet talc, and a
disconsolate but highly excited Tutt. Never, at any rate within twenty
years, had he felt so young. Life seemed tinged with every color of the
spectrum. The radiant fact was that he would--he simply had to--see her
again. What he might do for her professionally--all that aspect of the
affair was shoved far into the background of his mind. His only thought
was how to get her back into his office at the earliest possible moment.
"Shall I enter the lady's name in the address book?" inquired Miss
Wiggin coldly as he went out to get a bite of lunch.
Tutt hesitated.
"Mrs. Georgie Allison is her name," he said in a detached sort of way.
"Address?"
Tutt felt in his waistcoat pocket.
"By George!" he muttered, "I didn't take it. But her telephone number is
Lincoln Square 9187."
To chronicle the details of Tutt's second blooming would be needlessly
to derogate from the dignity of the history of Tutt & Tutt. There is a
silly season in the life of everyone--even of every lawyer--who can call
himself a man, and out of such silliness comes the gravity of knowledge.
Tutt found it necessary for his new client to come to the office almost
every day, and as she usually arrived about the noon hour what was more
natural than that he should invite her out to lunch? Twice he walked
home with her. The telephone was busy constantly. And the only thorn in
the rose of Tutt's delirious happiness was the fear lest Abigail might
discover something. The thought gave him many an anxious hour, cost him
several sleepless nights. At times this nervousness about his wife
almost exceeded the delight of having Mrs. Allison for a friend. Yet
each day he became on more and more cordial terms with her, and the
lunches became longer and more intimate.
The Reverend Winthrop Oaklander gave no sign of life, however. The
customary barrage of legal letters had been laid down, but without
eliciting any response. The Reverend Winthrop must be a wise one, opined
Tutt, and he began to have a hearty contempt as well as hatred for his
quarry. The first letter had been the usual vague hint that the
clergyman might and probably would find it to his advantage to call at
the offices of Tutt & Tutt, and so on. The Reverend Winthrop, however
did not seem to care to secure said advantage whatever it might be. The
second epistle gave the name of the client and proposed a friendly
discussion of her affairs. No reply. The third hinted at legal
proceedings. Total silence. The fourth demanded ten thousand dollars
damages and threatened immediate suit.
In answer to this last appeared the Reverend Winthrop himself. He was a
fine-looking young chap with a clear eye--almost as blue as
Georgie's--and a skin even pinker than hers, and he stood six feet five
in his Oxfords and his fist looked to Tutt as big as a coconut.
"Are you the blackmailer who's been writing me those letters?" he
demanded, springing into Tutt's office. "If you are, let me tell you
something. You've got hold of the wrong monkey. I've been dealing with
fellows of your variety ever since I got out of the seminary. I don't
know the lady you pretend to represent, and I never heard of her. If I
get any more letters from you I'll go down and lay the case before the
district attorney; and if he doesn't put you in jail I'll come up here
and knock your head off. Understand? Good day!"
At any other period in his existence Tutt could not have failed to be
impressed with the honesty of this husky exponent of the church
militant, but he was drugged as by the drowsy mandragora. The blatant
defiance of this muscular preacher outraged him. This canting hypocrite,
this wolf in priest's clothing must be brought to book. But how? Mrs.
Allison had admitted the literal truth when she had told him that there
were no letters, no photographs. There was no use commencing an action
for breach of promise if there was no evidence to support it. And once
the papers were filed their bolt would have been shot. Some way must be
devised whereby the Reverend Winthrop Oaklander could be made to
perceive that Tutt & Tutt meant business, and--equally imperative
--whereby Georgie would be impressed with the fact that not
for nothing had she come to them--that is, to him--for help.
The fact of the matter was that the whole thing had become rather
hysterical. Tutt, though having nothing seriously to reproach himself
with, was constantly haunted by a sense of being rather ridiculous and
doing something behind his wife's back. He told himself that his
Platonic regard for Georgie was a noble thing and did him honor, but it
was an honor which he preferred to wear as an entirely private
decoration. He was conscious of being laughed at by Willie and Scraggs
and disapproved of by Miss Wiggin, who was very snippy to him. And in
addition there was the omnipresent horror of having Abigail unearth his
philandering. He now not only thought of Mrs. Allison as Georgie but
addressed her thus, and there was quite a tidy little bill at the
florist's for flowers that he had sent her. In one respect only did he
exhibit even the most elementary caution--he wrote and signed all his
letters to her himself upon the typewriter, and filed copies in the
safe.
"So there we are!" he sighed as he gave to Mrs. Allison a somewhat
expurgated, or rather emasculated version of the Reverend Winthrop's
visit. "We have got to hand him something hot or make up our minds to
surrender. In a word we have got to scare him--Georgie."
And then it was that, like the apocryphal mosquito, the Fat and Skinny
Club justified its attempted existence. For the indefatigable Sorg made
an unheralded reappearance in the outer office and insisted upon seeing
Tutt, loudly asserting that he had reason to believe that if a new
application were now made to another judge--whom he knew--it would be
more favorably received. Tutt went to the doorway and stood there
barring the entrance and expostulating with him.
"All right!" shouted Sorg. "All right! I hear you! But don't tell me
that a man named Solomon Swackhamer can change his name to Phillips
Brooks Vanderbilt and in the same breath a reputable body of citizens be
denied the right to call themselves what they please!"
"He don't understand!" explained Tutt to Georgie, who had listened with
wide, dreamy eyes. "He don't appreciate the difference between doing a
thing as an individual and as a group."
"What thing?"
"Why, taking a name."
"I don't get you," said Georgie.
"Sorg wanted to call his crowd the Fat and Skinny Club, and the court
wouldn't let him--thought it was silly."
"Well?"
"But he could have called himself Mr. Fat or Mr. Skinny or Mr. Anything
Else without having to ask anybody--Oh, I say!"
Tutt had stiffened into sculpture.
"What is it?" demanded Georgie fascinated.
"I've got an idea," he cried. "You can call yourself anything you like.
Why not call yourself Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander?"
"But what good would that do?" she asked vaguely.
"Look here!" directed Tutt. "This is the surest thing you know! Just go
up to the Biltmore and register as Mrs. Winthrop Oaklander. You have a
perfect legal right to do it. You could call yourself Mrs. Julius Caesar
if you wanted to. Take a room and stay there until our young Christian
soldier offers you a suitable inducement to move along. Even if you're
violating the law somehow his first attempt to make trouble for you will
bring about the very publicity he is anxious to avoid. Why, it's
marvelous--and absolutely safe? They can't touch you. He'll come across
inside of two hours. If he doesn't a word to the reporters will start
things in the right direction."
For a moment Mrs. Allison looked puzzled. Then her beautiful face broke
into an enthusiastic classic smile and she laid her little hand softly
on his arm.
"What a clever boy you are--Sammy!"
A subdued snigger came from the direction of the desk usually occupied
by William. Tutt flushed. It was one thing to call Mrs. Allison
"Georgie" in private and another to have her "Sammy" him within hearing
of the office force. And just then Miss Wiggin passed by with her nose
slightly in the air.
"What a perfectly wonderful idea!" went on Mrs. Allison rapturously. "A
perfectly wonderful idea!"
Then she smiled a strange, mysterious, significant smile that almost
tore Tutt's heart out by the roots.
"Listen, Sammy," she whispered, with a new light in those beautiful
eyes. "I want five thousand dollars."
"Five?" repeated Tutt simply. "I thought you wanted ten thousand!"
"Only five from you, Sammy!"
"Me!" he gagged.
"You--dearest!"
Tutt turned blazing hot; then cold, dizzy and sea-sick. His sight was
slightly blurred. Slowly he groped for the door and closed it
cautiously.
"What--are--you--talking about?" he choked, though he knew perfectly
well.
Georgie had thrown herself back in the leather chair by his desk and had
opened her gold mesh-bag.
"About five thousand dollars," she replied with the careful enunciation
of a New England school-mistress.
"What five thousand dollars?"
"The five you're going to hand me before I leave this office, Sammy
darling," she retorted dazzlingly.
Tutt's head swam and he sank weakly into his swivel chair. It was
incredible that he, a veteran of the criminal bar, should have been so
tricked. Instantly, as when a reagent is injected into a retort of
chemicals and a precipitate is formed leaving the previously cloudy
liquid like crystal, Tutt's addled brain cleared. He was caught! The
victim of his own asininity. He dared not look at this woman who had
wound him thus round her finger, innocent as he was of any wrongdoing;
he was ashamed to think of his wife.
"My Lord!" he murmured, realizing for the first time the depth of his
weakness.
"Oh, it isn't as bad as that!" she laughed. "Remember you were going to
charge Oaklander ten thousand. This costs you only five. Special rates
for physicians and lawyers!"
"And suppose I don't choose to give it to you?" he asked.
"Listen here, you funny little man!" she answered in caressing tones
that made him writhe. "You'd stand for twenty if I insisted on it. Oh,
don't jump! I'm not going to. You're getting off easy--too easy. But I
want to stay on good terms with you. I may need you sometime in my
business. Your certified check for five thousand dollars--and I leave
you."
She struck a match and started to light a tiny gold-tipped cigarette.
"Don't!" he gasped. "Not in the office."
"Do I get the five thousand?"
He ground his teeth, not yet willing to concede defeat.
"You silly old bird!" she said. "Do you know how many times you've had
me down here in your office in the last three weeks? Fifteen. How many
times you've taken me out to lunch? Ten. How often you've called me on
the telephone? Eighty-nine How many times you've sent me flowers?
Twelve. How many letters you've written me? Eleven! Oh, I realize
they're typewritten, but a photograph enlargement would show they were
typed in your office. Every typewriter has its own individuality, you
know. Your clerks and office boy have heard me call you Sammy. Why,
every time you've moved with me beside you someone has seen you. That's
enough, isn't it? But now, on top of all that, you go and hand me
exactly what I need on a gold plate."
He gazed at her stupidly.
"Why, if now you don't give me that check I shall simply go up to the
Biltmore and register as Mrs. Samuel Tutt. I shall take a room and stay
there until you offer me a proper inducement to move on." She giggled
delightedly. "It's marvelous--absolutely safe," she quoted. "They can't
touch me. You'll come across inside of two hours. If you don't a word to
the reporters will start things in the right direction."
"Don't!" he groaned. "I must have been crazy. That was simply
blackmail!"
"That's exactly what it was!" she agreed. "There aren't any letters
except these typewritten ones, or photographs, or any evidence at all,
but you're going to give me five thousand dollars just the same. Just so
that your wife won't know what a silly old fool you've been. Where's
your check book, Sam?"
Tutt pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk and slowly removed his
personal check book. With his fountain pen in his hand he paused and
looked at her.
"Rather than give you another cent I'd stand the gaff," he remarked
defiantly.
"I know it," she answered. "I looked you up before I came here the first
time. You are good for exactly five thousand dollars."
Tutt filled out the check to cash and sent Willie across the street to
the bank to have it certified. The sun was just sinking over the Jersey
shore beyond the Statue of Liberty and the surface of the harbor
undulated like iridescent watered silk. The clouds were torn into
golden-purple rents, and the air was so clear that one could look down
the Narrows far out to the open sea. Standing there by the window Mrs.
Allison looked as innocently beautiful as the day Tutt had first beheld
her. After all, he thought, perhaps the experience had been worth the
money.
Something of the same thought may have occurred to the lady, for as she
took the check and carefully examined the certification she remarked
with a distinct access of cordiality: "Really, Sammy, you're quite a
nice little man. I rather like you."
Tutt stood after she had gone watching the sunset until the west was
only a mass of leaden shadows Then, strangely relieved, he took his hat
and started out of the office. Somewhat to his surprise he found Miss
Wiggin still at her desk.
"By the way," she remarked casually as he passed her, "what shall I
charge that check to? The one you just drew to cash for five thousand
dollars?"
"Charge it to life insurance," he said shortly.
He felt almost gay as he threaded his way through the crowds along
Broadway. Somehow a tremendous load had been lifted from his shoulders
He would no longer be obliged to lead a sneaking, surreptitious
existence. He felt like shouting with joy now that he could look the
world frankly in the face. The genuine agony he had endured during the
past three weeks loomed like a sickness behind him. He had been a
fool--and there was no fool like an old one. Just let him get back to
his old Abigail and there'd be no more wandering-boy business for him!
Abigail might not have the figure or the complexion that Georgie had,
but she was a darn sight more reliable. Henceforth she could have him
from five p.m. to nine a.m. without reserve. As for kicking over the
traces, sowing wild oats and that sort of thing, there was nothing in it
for him. Give him Friend Wife.
He stopped at the florist's and, having paid a bill of thirty-six
dollars for Georgie's flowers, purchased a double bunch of violets and
carried them home with him. Abigail was watching for him out of the
window. Something warm rushed to his heart at the sight of her. Through
the lace curtains she looked quite trim.
"Hello, old girl!" he cried, as she opened the door. "Waiting for me,
eh? Here's a bunch of posies for you."
And he kissed her on the cheek.
"That's more than I ever did to Georgie," he said to himself.
"Why, Samuel!" laughed Abigail with a faded blush. "What's ever got into
you?"
"Dunno!" he retorted gaily. "The spring, I guess. What do you say to a
little dinner at a restaurant and then going to the play?"
She bridled--being one of the generation who did such things--with
pleasure.
"Seems to me you're getting rather extravagant." she objected. "Still--"
"Oh, come along!" he bullied her. "One of my clients collected five
thousand dollars this afternoon."
Tutt summoned a taxi and they drove to the brightest, most glittering of
Broadway hostelries. Abigail had never been in such a chic place before.
It half terrified and shocked her, all those women in dresses that
hardly came up to their armpits. Some of them were handsome though. That
slim one at the table by the pillar, for instance. She was really quite
lovely with that mass of yellow-golden hair, that startlingly white
skin, and those misty China-blue eyes. And the gentleman with her, the
tall man with the pink cheeks, was very handsome, too.
"Look, Samuel," she said, touching his hand. "See that good-looking
couple over there."
But Samuel was looking at them already--intently. And just then the
beautiful woman turned and, catching sight of the Tutts, smiled
cordially if somewhat roguishly and raised her glass, as did her
companion. Mechanically Tutt elevated his. The three drank to one
another.
"Do you know those people, Samuel?" inquired Mrs. Tutt somewhat stiffly.
"Who are they?"
"Oh, those over there?" he repeated absently. "I don't really know what
the lady's name is, she's been down to our office a few times. But the
man is Winthrop Oaklander--and the funny part of it is, I always thought
he was a clergyman."
Later in the evening he turned to her between the acts and remarked
inconsequently: "Say, Abbie, do I look as if I'd just had my hair cut?"
The Dog Andrew
"Every dog is entitled to one bite."--UNREPORTED
OPINION OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION OF THE NEW
YORK SUPREME COURT.
"Now see here!" shouted Mr. Appleboy, coming out of the boathouse, where
he was cleaning his morning's catch of perch, as his neighbor Mr.
Tunnygate crashed through the hedge and cut across Appleboy's parched
lawn to the beach. "See here, Tunnygate, I won't have you trespassing on
my place! I've told you so at least a dozen times! Look at the hole
you've made in that hedge, now! Why can't you stay in the path?"
His ordinarily good-natured countenance was suffused with anger and
perspiration. His irritation with Mr. Tunnygate had reached the point of
explosion. Tunnygate was a thankless friend and he was a great cross to
Mr. Appleboy. Aforetime the two had been intimate in the fraternal,
taciturn intimacy characteristic of fat men, an attraction perhaps akin
to that exerted for one another by celestial bodies of great mass, for
it is a fact that stout people do gravitate toward one another--and hang
or float in placid juxtaposition, perhaps merely as a physical result of
their avoirdupois. So Appleboy and Tunnygate had swum into each other's
spheres of influence, either blown by the dallying winds of chance or
drawn by some mysterious animal magnetism, and, being both addicted to
the delights of the soporific sport sanctified by Izaak Walton, had
raised unto themselves portable temples upon the shores of Long Island
Sound in that part of the geographical limits of the Greater City known
as Throggs Neck.
Every morn during the heat of the summer months Appleboy would rouse
Tunnygate or conversely Tunnygate would rouse Appleboy, and each in his
own wobbly skiff would row out to the spot which seemed most propitious
to the piscatorial art. There, under two green umbrellas, like two fat
rajahs in their shaking howdahs upon the backs of two white elephants,
the friends would sit in solemn equanimity awaiting the evasive cunner,
the vagrant perch or cod or the occasional flirtatious eel. They rarely
spoke and when they did the edifice of their conversation--their Tower
of Babel, so to speak--was monosyllabic. Thus: