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The Man Who Came Back
by
“I don’t seem to know how to thank you,” began Ted, a little husky as to voice.
“Call around to-morrow morning,” interrupted Jo Haley., briskly, “and Minnie Wenzel will show you the ropes. You and her can work together for a couple of months. After then she’s leaving to make her underwear, and that. I should think
she’d have a bale of it by this time. Been embroidering them shimmy things and lunch cloths back of the desk when she thought I wasn’t lookin’ for the last six months.”
Ted came down next morning at 8 A.M. with his nerve between his teeth and the chip still balanced lightly on his shoulder. Five minutes later Minnie Wenzel knocked it off. When Jo Haley introduced the two jocularly, knowing that they had originally met in the First Reader room, Miss Wenzel acknowledged the introduction icily by lifting her left eyebrow slightly and drawing down the corners of her mouth. Her air of hauteur was a triumph, considering that she was handicapped by black sateen sleevelets.
I wonder how one could best describe Miss Wenzel? There is one of her in every small town. Let me think (business of hand on brow). Well, she always paid eight dollars for her corsets when most girls in a similar position got theirs for fifty-nine cents in the basement. Nature had been kind to her. The hair that had been a muddy brown in Minnie’s schoolgirl days it had touched with a magic red-gold wand. Birdie Callahan always said that Minnie was working only to wear out her old clothes.
After the introduction Miss Wenzel followed Jo Haley into the lobby. She took no pains to lower her voice.
“Well I must say, Mr. Haley, you’ve got a fine nerve! If my gentleman friend was to hear of my working with an ex-con I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d break off the engagement. I should think you’d have some respect for the feelings of a lady with a name to keep up, and engaged to a swell fellow like Mr. Schwartz.”
“Say, listen, m’ girl,” replied Jo Haley. “The law don’t cover all the tricks. But if stuffing an order was a criminal offense I’ll bet your swell traveling man would be doing a life term.”
Ted worked that day with his teeth set so that his jaws ached next morning. Minnie Wenzel spoke to him only when necessary and then in terms of dollars and cents. When dinner time came she divested herself of the black sateen sleevelets, wriggled from the shoulders down a la Patricia O’Brien, produced a chamois skin, and disappeared in the direction of the washroom. Ted waited until the dining-room was almost deserted. Then he went in to dinner alone. Some one in white wearing an absurd little pocket handkerchief of an apron led him to a seat in a far corner of the big room. Ted did not lift his eyes higher than the snowy square of the apron. The Apron drew out a chair, shoved it under Ted’s knees in the way Aprons have, and thrust a printed menu at him.
“Roast beef, medium,” said Ted, without looking up.
“Bless your heart, yuh ain’t changed a bit. I remember how yuh used to jaw when it was too well done,” said the Apron, fondly.
Ted’s head came up with a jerk.
“So yuh will cut yer old friends, is it?” grinned Birdie Callahan. “If this wasn’t a public dining-room maybe yuh’d shake hands with a poor but proud workin’ girrul. Yer as good lookin’ a divil as ever, Mister Ted.”
Ted’s hand shot out and grasped hers. “Birdie! I could weep on your apron! I never was so glad to see any one in my life. Just to look at you makes me homesick. What in Sam Hill are you doing here?”
“Waitin’. After yer ma died, seemed like I didn’t care t’ work fer no other privit fam’ly, so I came back here on my old job. I’ll bet I’m the homeliest head waitress in captivity.”
Ted’s nervous fingers were pleating the tablecloth. His voice sank to a whisper. “Birdie, tell me the God’s truth. Did those three years cause her death?”