Johnny smiled widely and good-humoredly. “You’re the only bum I’ve seen so far,” he replied. “Come up and cool off.”
“That’s a rotten pun,” protested Slim, accepting the invitation to sit down in a comfortable wicker chair. “Say, Johnny, there must be money in Sinn Feining.” He looked approvingly about the big porch with its tables and chairs, magazines and flowering plants. “Is this your real home, or do you just hire this for Sundays?”
“We’ve been living here going on three years,” answered Johnny. “Ever since dad made his pile.” He turned to Leonard and indulged in a truly Irish wink of one very blue eye. “Slim thinks he gets my goat,” he explained, “but he doesn’t. Sure, I know this is a bit of a change from The Flats.”
“The Flats?” repeated Leonard questioningly.
“That’s what they call it over beyond the Carpet Mills,” explained Johnny. “Shanty Town, you know; Goatville; see?”
“Oh, yes! I don’t believe I’ve been there yet.”
“Well, it isn’t much to look at,” laughed Johnny. “We lived there until about three years ago. We weren’t as poor as most of them, but there were six of us in five rooms, Grant. Then dad made his pile and we bought this place.” Johnny looked about him not altogether approvingly and shook his head. “It’s fine enough, all right, but, say, fellows, it’s awfully – what’s the word I seen – saw the other day? Stodgy, that’s it! I guess it’s going to take us another three years to get used to it.”
“He misses having the pig in the parlor,” observed Slim gravely to Leonard. The latter looked toward Johnny McGrath anxiously, but Johnny only grinned.
“’Twas never that bad with us,” he replied, “but I mind the day the Cleary’s nanny-goat walked in the kitchen and ate up half of dad’s nightshirt, and mother near killed him with a flat-iron!”
“Why did she want to kill your father with a flat-iron?” asked Slim mildly.
“The goat, I said.”
“You did not, Johnny. You told us it was a nanny-goat and said your mother nearly killed ‘him.’ If that doesn’t mean your father – ”
“Well, anyway, I had to lick Terry Cleary before there was peace between us again,” laughed Johnny. Then his face sobered. “Sure, up here on the Hill,” he added, “you couldn’t find a scrap if you was dying!”
The others had to laugh, Slim ejaculating between guffaws: “Johnny, you’ll be the death of me yet!” Johnny’s blue eyes were twinkling again and his broad Irish mouth smiling.
“It’s mighty queer,” he went on, “how grand some of these neighbors of ours are up here. Take the Paternos crowd next door here. Sure, six years ago that old Dago was still selling bananas from a wagon, and to-day – wow! – the only wagon he rides in is a limousine. And once, soon after we moved in, mother was in the back yard seeing the maid hung the clothes right, or something, and there was Mrs. Paternos’ black head stuck out of an upstairs window, and thinking to be neighborly, mind you, mother says to her, ‘Good morning, ma’am,’ or something like that, and the old Eye-talian puts her nose in the air and slams down the windy – window, I mean!”
“You’ve got to learn, Johnny,” explained Slim, “that you can’t become an aristocrat, even in this free country of ours, in less than five years. That gives you about two to go, son. Be patient.”
“Patient my eye,” responded Johnny serenely. “It’ll take more than five years to make aristocrats of the McGraths, for they’re not wanting it. Just the same, Slim, it makes me sick, the way some folks put on side just because they’ve been out of the tenements a few years. I guess the lot of us, and I’m meaning you, too, couldn’t go very many years back before we’d be finding bananas or lead pipe or something ple-bee-an like that hanging on the old family tree!”
“Speak for yourself,” answered Slim with much dignity. “Or speak for the General here. As for the Stapleses, Johnny, I’d have you know that we’re descended from Jeremy Staples, who owned the first inn in Concord, New Hampshire, and who himself served a glass of grog to General George Washington!”
“That would be a long time ago,” said Johnny.
“It would; which is why we can boast of it. If it happened last year we’d be disclaiming any relationship to the old reprobate.”
“McGrath’s right,” said Leonard, smiling but thoughtful. “We’re all descended from trade or something worse. I know a fellow back home whose several-times-great grandfather was a pirate with Stede Bonnet, and his folks are as proud of it as anything. If it isn’t impertinent, McGrath, how did your father make his money?”
“In the War, like so many others. He was a plumber, you see. He’d gone into business for himself a few years before and was doing pretty well. Joe – that’s my oldest brother – was with him. Well, then the War came and Joe read in the paper where they were going to build a big cantonment for the soldiers over in Jersey. ‘Why not try to get the job to put in some of the plumbing?’ says he. ‘Sure, we haven’t a chance,’ says my dad. ‘’Twill be the big fellows as will get that work.’ But Joe got a copy of the specifications, or whatever they’re called, and set down and figured, and finally persuaded the Old Man to take a chance. So they did, and some surprised they were when they were awarded the contract! Dad said it was too big for them and they’d have to give some of it to another, but Joe wouldn’t stand for that. He had a hard time getting money for the bond, or whatever it was the Government wanted, but he did it finally, and they did the job and did it honestly. Their figures were away under the estimate of the other firms, but in spite of that they made themselves rich. Now I say why isn’t dad as much of a gentleman as old Pete Paternos? Sure lead pipe’s as clean as rotten bananas!”
“That’s just the point,” replied Slim. “The rotten bananas are old and the lead pipe’s new. Give the lead pipe another two years, Johnny, and you can slap Paternos on the back and get away with it.”
“I’m more likely to slap him on the head with a crow-bar,” grumbled Johnny. Then: “Say, fellows, want some lemonade?”
“Not for worlds,” answered Slim promptly. “Where is it?”
“I’ll have Dora make a pitcher in a shake of a lamb’s tail,” said Johnny eagerly, as he disappeared. Slim smiled over at Leonard and Leonard smiled back. Then the latter exclaimed protestingly:
“Just the same, he’s a mighty decent sort, Slim!”
“Of course he is,” agreed the other calmly. “I told you that across the street. Johnny’s all right.”
“Well, then, aren’t you – aren’t you afraid of hurting his feelings? Talking to him the way you do, I mean.”
“Not a bit. Johnny knows me, and he knows that what I say is for the good of his soul. We aristocrats, General, have got to make the hoi polloi understand that they can’t shove into our sacred circle off-hand. They’ve got to train for it, old man; work up; go through an initiation.”
Leonard observed Slim in puzzlement and doubt.
“Why,” Slim went on soberly, “what do you suppose old Jeremy Staples would say if he could see me now hob-nobbing with the son of a plumber? The poor old rascal would turn over in his grave, General. Bet you he’d turn over twice!”
“Oh,” said Leonard, “I thought you meant it!”
“Who says I don’t? Ah, that sounds mighty cheerful, Johnny! Sure you didn’t put any arsenic in it? My folks are English on my uncle’s side!”
“I’d not waste good arsenic on the likes of you,” answered Johnny, pouring from a frosted glass pitcher. Followed several moments of deeply appreciative silence during which visitors and host applied themselves to the straws that emerged from the glasses. Then Slim sighed rapturously and held his glass out for more.
“It