The Bull Called Emily
by
We were sitting at a corner table in a certain small restaurant hard by where Sixth Avenue’s L structure, like an overgrown straddlebug, wades through the restless currents of Broadway at a sharpened angle. The dish upon which we principally dined was called on the menu Chicken a la Marengo. We knew why. Marengo, by all accounts, was a mighty tough battle, and this particular chicken, we judged, had never had any refining influences in its ill-spent life. From its present defiant attitude in a cooked form we figured it had pipped the shell with a burglar’s jimmy and joined the Dominecker Kid’s gang before it shed its pin-feathers. There were two of us engaged in the fruitless attack upon its sinewy tissues–the present writer and his old un-law-abiding friend,–Scandalous Doolan.
For a period of minutes Scandalous wrestled with the thews of one of the embattled fowl’s knee-joints. After a struggle in which the honours stood practically even, he laid down his knife and flirted a thumb toward a bottle of peppery sauce which stood on my side of the table.
“Hey, bo,” he requested, “pass the liniment, will you? This sea gull’s got the rheumatism.”
The purport of the remark, taken in connection with the gesture which accompanied it, was plain enough to my understanding; but for the nonce I could not classify the idiom in which Scandalous couched his request. It could not be Underworld jargon; it was too direct and at the same time too picturesque. Moreover, the Underworld, as a rule, concerns itself only with altering such words and such expressions as strictly figure in the business affairs of its various crafts and pursuits. Nor to me did it sound like the language of the circus-lot, for in such case it probably would have been more complex. So by process of elimination I decided it was of the slang code of the burlesque and vaudeville stage, with which, as with the other two, Scandalous had a thorough acquaintance. I felt sure, then, that something had set his mind to working backward along the memory-grooves of some one or another of his earlier experiences in the act-producing line of endeavour, and that, with proper pumping, a story might be forthcoming. As it turned out, I was right.
“Where did you get that one, Scandalous?” I asked craftily. “Your own coinage, or did you borrow it from somebody else?”
He only grinned cryptically. After a bit he hailed the attendant waiter, who because he plainly suffered from fallen arches had already been rechristened by Scandalous as Battling Insteps.
“Say, Battling,” he said, “take away the emu; he’s still the undefeated champion of the ages. Tidy him up a little and serve him to the next guy that feels like he needs exercise more’n he does nourishment. The gravy may be mussed up a trifle, but the old ring-general ain’t lost an ounce. I fought him three rounds and didn’t put a bruise on him.”
“Couldn’t I bring you somethin’ else?” said the waiter. “The Wiener Schnitzel with noodles is very—-“
“Nix,” said Scandalous; “if the cassowary licked us, what chance would we stand against the bison? That’ll be all for the olio; I’ll go right into the after-show now. Slip me a dipper of straight chicory and one of those Flor de Boiled Dinners, and then you can break the bad news to my pal here.” By this I knew he meant that he craved a cup of black coffee and one of the domestic cigars to which he was addicted, and that I could pay the check.
He turned to me:
“How’re you goin’ to finish your turn?” he asked. “They’ve got mince pie here like Mother Emma Goldman used to make. Only you want to be careful it don’t explode in your hand.”
I shook my head. “I’ll nibble at these,” I said, “until you get through.” And I reached for a little saucer of salted peanuts that lurked in the shadow of the bowl containing the olives and the celery. For this, you should know, was a table d’hote establishment, and no such place is complete without its drowned olives and its wilted celery.