The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-05-31
Tuning up a II gro

that it didn't take long for the Commo-
dOre and me to get a line on each 9TH
er, and when finds out he's Roaring
Dick, the nefvy old chap that stood
out on the front porch of his ship all
through the muss at Santiago Bay and
hammered the daylights ont of the
Spanish fleet. gives him my hand.
I've read about you in the papers.
says l.
But not so often as I used to read
about you" says he.
And say, inside of ten minutes we
was like a couple of G. A. r. vets at a
reunion. He'd been on the European
station for three years. knOckin' around
with kings and princes and French and
Russian naval officers that was grand
dukes and such when they was ashOrel
and he'd carried along with him
truckdriver's thirst and the capacity of
a ward boss. The fizzy stuff he'd
slowed away in that time must have
been enough TO sail a ship on. l
guess he didn't mind il much, though.
for he'd been in pickle a long time. 1t
was the seVenteen-cOurse night din
ners and the foreign cooking that gave
him the Knockout.
All of a sudden his digester had
thrown up the job, and before he knew
il he was in a state where a hot bis
cult or a piece of fried potato would
lay him out on his back for a week
He'd come home on sick leave to visit
his daughter, and his rich son-in-la law
had steered him up against a special
list who told him that if he didn't quit
and obey orders he wouldn't last three
weeks. The orders was to live on moth
in but medicated milk, and for a man
that had been Twin the way he had il
was an awful jolt. He couldn't be
trusted TO take the stuff himself, so
they hired Wallets to keep him dOped
within.
Il scared the first one half TO death, 8"
says the Commodore. land the next one
l bribed to smuggle out ham sand
wiehes. Then they got this fellow Bah
bitt TO follow me around with that
cursed go-cart, and I haven't had a
moments peace since! He's just about
equal to job like that. Babbitt is.
make him earn his money though"
You'd have thought so if you could
have seen the old Commodore work up
games to throw Rabbit off the track
I put in most of the day watchin' 'em
at it, and il was as good as a vaudeville
act. About quarter of an hour before
II was time for the dose the valet would
come out and begin TO look around the
grounds. Soon as he'd located the
Commodore he'd slide off after his tea
wagon. That was just where the old
boy got in his fine work. The minute
Babbitt was out of sight the Commo-
dore makes a break for a new hidin
place, so the valet has to wheel that
cart all over the lot, playin' peekabOO
behind every bush and tree until he
naied his man.
Now. you'd think most anyone with
a head would have cracked a joke now
and then with the old gent. and kind
OF made il easy all around. But not
Babbitt. He'd been hired TO get medi-
Gated milk into the Commodore. and
that was all the idea his nut could ac-
cOmmodate at one time. He was one of
these stiff necked, cold blOoded funk
les that don't seem much more human
than wooden Indians. He had an ag
gravatin' way, too, of treatin' the old
chap when he got him cOrnered. He
was polite enough, so far as what he
had to say. but it was the mean look in
his ratty little eyes that grated.
With every dose the Commodore got
madden and madden. Some of the
names he thought up to call that valet
was worth putin in a book II
| seemed like a shame, though, to stir
up the old gent that way. and l don't
| believe the medicine did him any more
good. He took it, though, because he'd
| promised his daughter he would
Course, had my own notions of that
/ kind Of treatment, but 1 couldn't see
that it was up to me to jump in the
coacher's box and give off any advice
Next mOrnin' I'd been out for a little
leg work. and l was just jOggin into
the park again. when hears all kinds
OF a ructiOn goin' on over behind the
stone wall. There was screams and
yells and shouts like a Saturday night
riot in Double Alley. 1 pokes up a gi-
raffe neck and sees a couple of women