“So that’s the kind of guy you think I am?” he said, and gently poked the old fellow in the ribs with his closed fist. “So you don’t believe me, hunh?”
“Ah-h, I wouldn’t believe you on a stack of bibles,” said John grouchily. He pushed the lever forwards and the elevator started up. “You’re a lot of talk—that’s what you are. I don’t listen to anything you say:” He stopped the elevator and opened the heavy door.
“So that’s the kind of friend you are?” said Herbert, stepping out into the corridor. Full of himself, full of delight with his own humour, he winked at two pretty, rosy-cheeked Irish maids who were waiting to go up, and, jerking his thumb towards the old man, he said: “What are you goin’ to do with a guy like this, anyway? I go and get him all dated up with a blonde and he won’t believe me when I tell him so. He calls me a big wind.”
“Yeah, that’s what he is,” said the old man grimly to the smiling girls. “He’s a lot of wind. He’s always talkin’ about his girls and I bet he never had a girl in his life. If he saw a blonde he’d run like a rabbit.”
“Just a pal!” said Herbert with mock bitterness, appealing to the maids. “O.K., then, Pop. Have it your own way. But when those blondes get here, tell ‘em to wait till I come back. You hear?”
“Well, you’d better not be bringin’ any of ‘em round here,” said John. He shook his white, head doggedly and his whole manner was belligerent, but it was evident that he was enjoying himself hugely. “I don’t want any of ‘em comin’ in this building—blondes or brunettes or red-heads or any of ‘em,” he muttered. “If they do, you won’t find ‘em when you come back. I’ll tell ‘em to get out. I’ll handle ‘em for you, all right.”
“He’s a friend of mine!” said Herbert bitterly to the two girls, and jerked his thumb towards the old man again. He started to walk away.
“I don’t believe you, anyhow,” John called after his retreating figure. “You ain’t got no blondes. You never did have…You’re a momma’s boy!” he cried triumphantly as an afterthought, as if he had now hit upon the happiest inspiration of the evening. “That’s what you are!”
Herbert paused at the door leading into the main corridor and looked back menacingly at the old man, but the look was belied by the sparkle in his eyes.
“Oh yeah?” he shouted.
He stood and glared fiercely at the old fellow for a moment, then winked at the two girls, passed through the door, and pressed the button of the passenger elevator, whose operator he was to relieve for the night.
“That fellow’s just a lot of talk,” said John sourly as the maids stepped into the service car and he closed the door. “Always gassin’ about the blondes he’s goin’ to bring round—but I ain’t never seen none of ‘em. Nah-h!” he muttered scornfully, almost to himself as the car started up. “He lives with his mother up in the Bronx, and he’d be scared stiff if a girl ever looked at him.”
“Still, Herbert ought to have a girl,” one of the maids said in a practical tone of voice. “Herbert’s a nice boy, John.”
“Oh, he’s all right, I guess,” the old man muttered grudgingly. “And a nice-looking boy, too,” the other maid now said.
“Oh, he’ll do,” said John; and then abruptly: “What are you folks doin’ to-night, anyway? There’s a whole lot of packages waitin’ to come up.”
“Mrs. Jack is having a big party,” one of the girls said. “And, John, will you bring everything up as soon as you can? There may be something there that we need right away.”
“Well,” he said in that half-belligerent, half-unwilling tone that was an inverted attribute of his real good nature. “I’ll do the best I can. Seems like all of them are givin’ their big parties to-night,” he grumbled. “It goes on sometimes here till two or three o’clock in the morning. You’d think all some people had to do was give parties all the time. It’d take a whole regiment of men just to carry up the packages. Yeah!” he muttered to himself. “And what d’you get? If you ever got so much as a word of thanks----”
“Oh, John,” one of the girls now said reproachfully, “you know Mrs. Jack is not like that! You know yourself----”
“Oh, she’s all right, I reckon,” said John, unwillingly as before, yet his tone had softened imperceptibly. “If all of them was like her,” he began—but then the memory of the panhandler came back to him, and he went on angrily: “She’s too kind-hearted for her own good! Them panhandling bums—they swarm round her like flies every time she leaves the building. I saw one the other night get a dollar out of her before she’d gone twenty feet. She’s crazy to put up with it. I’m goin’ to tell her so, too, when I see her!”