The Life of the Party Read online

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  _The Life of the Party_

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  BY IRVIN S. COBB

  FICTION

  THE LIFE OF THE PARTYTHOSE TIMES AND THESELOCAL COLOROLD JUDGE PRIESTFIBBLE, D. D.BACK HOMETHE THUNDERS OF SILENCETHE ESCAPE OF MR. TRIMM

  WIT AND HUMOR

  EATING IN TWO OR THREE LANGUAGES"SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS----"EUROPE REVISEDROUGHING IT DE LUXECOBB'S BILL OF FARECOBB'S ANATOMY

  MISCELLANY

  THE GLORY OF THE COMINGPATHS OF GLORY"SPEAKING OF PRUSSIANS----"

  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANYNEW YORK

  * * * * *

  "ARE YOU PAYIN' AN ELECTION BET THREE WEEKS AFTER THEELECTION'S OVER? OR IS IT THAT YOU'RE JEST A PLAIN BEDADDLED IJIET?"]

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  _The Life of the Party

  By

  Irvin S. Cobb

  Author of "Back Home," "Old Judge Priest," etc., etc.

  Illustrated By James M. Preston_

  Publisher's logo]

  _New York George H. Doran Company_

  _Copyright, 1919,By George H. Doran Company

  Copyright, 1919, by the Curtis Publishing CompanyPrinted in the United States of America_

  * * * * *

  TO

  MISTRESS MAY WILSON PRESTON

  A LADY OF GREAT DRAWING QUALITIES

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  _ILLUSTRATIONS_

  "Are you payin' an election bet three weeks after the election's over? Or is it that you're jest a plain bedaddled ijiet?" _Frontispiece_

  PAGE"That's nice," spake the fearsome stranger. "Now stay jest the way you are and don't make no peep or I'll have to plug you wit' this here gat" 24

  Mr. Leary's gait became a desperate gallop, and as he galloped he shouted: "Wait, please, here I am.--Here's your passenger" 32

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  _The Life of the Party_

  I

  It had been a successful party, most successful. Mrs. Carroway's partiesalways were successes, but this one nearing its conclusion stood outnotably from a long and unbroken Carrowayian record. It had been achildren's party; that is to say, everybody came in costume with intentto represent children of any age between one year and a dozen years. Buttwelve years was the limit; positively nobody, either in dress ordeportment, could be more than twelve years old. Mrs. Carroway had madethis point explicit in sending out the invitations, and so it had been,down to the last hair ribbon and the last shoe buckle. And betweendances they had played at the games of childhood, such as drop thehandkerchief, and King William was King James' son and prisoner's baseand the rest of them.

  The novelty of the notion had been a main contributory factor to itssuccess; that, plus the fact that nine healthy adults out of ten dearlylove to put on freakish garbings and go somewhere. To be exactlytruthful, the basic idea itself could hardly be called new, since longbefore some gifted mind thought out the scheme of giving children'sparties for grown-ups, but with her customary brilliancy Mrs. Carrowayhad seized upon the issues of the day to serve her social purposes,weaving timeliness and patriotism into the fabric of her plan by makingit a war party as well. Each individual attending was under pledge tokeep a full and accurate tally of the moneys expended upon his or hercostume and upon arrival at the place of festivities to deposit a likeamount in a repository put in a conspicuous spot to receive thesecontributions, the entire sum to be handed over later to the guardiansof a military charity in which Mrs. Carroway was active.

  It was somehow felt that this fostered a worthy spirit of wartimeeconomy, since the donation of a person who wore an expensive costumewould be relatively so much larger than the donation of one who went infor the simpler things. Moreover, books of thrift stamps were attachedto the favours, the same being children's toys of guaranteed Americanmanufacture.

  In the matter of refreshments Mrs. Carroway had been at pains to complymost scrupulously with the existing rationing regulations. As thehostess herself said more than once as she moved to and fro in aflounced white frock having the exaggeratedly low waistline of the sortof frock which frequently is worn by a tot of tender age, with a wideblue sash draped about her almost down at her knees, and with fluffyskirts quite up to her knees, with her hair caught up in a coquettishblue bow on the side of her head and a diminutive fan tied fast to oneof her wrists with a blue ribbon--so many of the ladies who had attainedto Mrs. Carroway's fairly well-ripened years did go in for theseextremely girlishly little-girly effects--as the hostess thus attiredand moving hither and yon remark, "If Mr. Herbert Hoover himself werehere as one of my guests to-night I am just too perfectly sure he couldfind absolutely nothing whatsoever to object to!"

  It would have required much stretching of that elastic property, thehuman imagination, to conceive of Mr. Herbert Hoover being there,whether in costume or otherwise, but that was what Mrs. Carroway saidand repeated. Always those to whom she spoke came right out and agreedwith her.

  Now it was getting along toward three-thirty o'clock of the morningafter, and the party was breaking up. Indeed for half an hour past, thisperson or that had been saying it was time, really, to be thinking aboutgoing--thus voicing a conviction that had formed at a much earlier hourin the minds of the tenants of the floor below Mrs. Carroway's studioapartment, which like all properly devised studio apartments was at thetop of the building.

  It was all very well to be a true Bohemian, ready to give and take, andif one lived down round Washington Square one naturally made allowancesfor one's neighbours and all that, but half past three o'clock in themorning was half past three o'clock in the morning, and there was nogetting round that, say what you would. And besides there were somepeople who needed a little sleep once in a while even if there were someother people who seemed to be able to go without any sleep; and finally,though patience was a virtue, enough of a good thing was enough and toomuch was surplusage. Such was the opinion of the tenants one flightdown.

  So the party was practically over. Mr. Algernon Leary, of the firm ofLeary & Slack, counsellors and attorneys at law, with offices at NumberThirty-two Broad Street, was among the very last to depart. Never hadMr. Leary spent a more pleasant evening. He had been in rare form, avariety of causes contributing to this happy state. To begin with, hehad danced nearly every dance with the lovely Miss Milly Hollister, forwhom he entertained the feelings which a gentleman of ripened judgment,and one who was rising rapidly in his profession, might properlyentertain for an entirely charming young woman of reputed means andundoubted social position.

  A preposterous ass named Perkins--at least, Mr. Leary mentally indexedPerkins as a preposterous ass--had brought Miss Hollister to the party,but thereafter in the scheme of things Perkins did not count. He was acipher. You could back him up against a wall and take a rubber-tippedpencil and rub him right out, as it were; and with regards to MissHollister that, figuratively, was what Mr. Leary had done to Mr.Perkins. Now on the other hand Voris might have amounted to something asa potential rival, but Voris being newly appointed as a policemagistrate was prevented by press of official duties from coming to theparty; so Mr. Leary had had a clear field, as the saying goes, and hadmade the most of it, as the other saying goes.

  Moreover, Mr. Leary had been the recipient of unlimited praise upon theingenuity and the uniqueness expressed in his costu
me. He had notrepresented a Little Lord Fauntleroy or a Buster Brown or a Boy Scout ora Juvenile Cadet or a Midshipmite or an Oliver Twist. There had beenthree Boy Scouts present and four Buster Browns and of sailor-suitedpersons there had been no end, really. But Mr. Leary had chosen toappear as Himself at the Age of Three; and, as the complimentary commentproved, his get-up had reflected credit not alone upon its wearer butupon its designer, Miss Rowena Skiff, who drew fashion pictures for oneof the women's magazines. Out of the goodness of her heart and thedepths of her professional knowledge Miss Skiff had gone to Mr. Leary'said, supervising the preparation of his wardrobe at a theatricalcostumer's shop up-town and, on the evening before, coming to hisbachelor apartments, accompanied by her mother, personally to add thosesmall special refinements which meant so much, as he now realised, inattaining the desired result.

  "Oh, Mr. Leary, I must tell you again how very fetching you do look!Your costume is adorable,