Palatial Apartments,0256 Riverside Drive,New York City,U. S. A. America.
(Kindly forward if on tower)Passed by censor.
Dear Mary:
Well say little one, I am certainly glad your health, new contracts and the two fool dogs is both doing so nicely and as for the cigarettes they were O.K. not to say swell. Only dearie, it ain't hardly necessary to have my monogram on the next lot for Fritz has never waited for me to catch up to him so's I could offer him one and he's about the only person would be impressed by the J. La T. because our own boys kid me about any littlething like that on account of their knowing me to be your dancing-partner and not to mention husband and they are still slow to realize that it takes a real he-man to swing you around my neck twenty times like we do in the Tango de Lux, and I have to continually keep showing them.
Then another good reason for no gold monogram is that the price of same would cover quite a bunch of cheap smokes and dearie handing them about is more to me than my own personal vanity and would be the same with my shirts if necessary, while over here in distant Belgium I realise it was also a waste to have them embroidered on the sleeve because the dam chinaman always used to mark them up with monograms of his own anyways.
Speaking of money we used to spend on un-essentials before the war, I tell you dearie we certainly learn in the army, especially since getting into this recaptured territory, that many objects we would have swore could not be done without is laid off like the extra people after the ball-room scene and nobody misses them until somebody sends over one of them—like them monogramed smokes of yours. Immediately I got them I commenced to thinkabout little old B'way and dry-martinis and my little old roadster with the purple body and the red wheels, and us dancing at the palatial with the juice full on us, red and green, violet and amber. Oh Kid! it made me home-sick!! But then we got a order to start on cleaning up after them Botches again and so I forgot everything but you and my new step—which was forward, double line!
Well, sweetie, now about this smokes question. Of course your Ma having been with the circus is used to giving up things, as naturally in a trapese-act such as hers used to be she would need all the nerve she had and even eating a welsh rabbit would of been a wild party to her. The center ring is no joke and forty feet above it on a trapese from the center canvas less so. But trapese work has not yet been offered to the Allies except mebbe Itily on them mountains and any lady which starts a society to keep smokes from soldiers may be strong in morals but is surely weak in the head, which I never knew your Ma to be before. She being always not only a lady but a great little picker on contracts and what would we of done without her that time Goldringer tried to slip the "satisfactory to theGoldringer Theatrical Productions Corp." stuff over on us and she spotted it?
But for the love of liberty can this idea of hers about it not being good for the boys to smoke and make her quit worrying about us tearing around France learning no new sins. For sweetie the crimes a man can committ on whats left of his pay after the alotment is took out and the insurance and the liberty bonds instalments would be sanctioned by anybody in the country even if his coller buttoned up the back. For take it or leave it, liquor, ladies and lyrics is as expensive here as north of 42nd str., and our pay dont go for them even after distracting the above.
Why me and a fellow went off on leave to a general store in a town which I couldn't spell for you much less mention it, even if permitted. But anyways we went to it and Mac bought some winterweights and they was four-fifty a pair and no better than the U.S. seventy-five cent kind, and I got two pair socks a dollar per each and two bananas for 25c, which only goes to show everything here is terrible expensive except nessessaties. So dont let your Ma worry over me spending my remaining nickel on vice.
I note what you say about the way folks at home get your goat by passing the buck on war-reliefs—if it's chocolet they say they've just given to tobacco, if it's tobacco they just bought a W.S.S., and if it's W.S.S. they just got a hatful of bonds, or if it's bonds they just give their last cent to chocolet—passing the buck all along the line. Well dearie, I guess mebbe that's their way of getting a little war-relief of their own, but as you say why would they need any relief when the fact that they are for the most part without cooties ought to be relief enough in itself? Let alone having to dodge only taxi cabs and bill-collectors instead of shells. Only of course we dont have to do that now, only shell-holes, and dodge them in a hurry to get one last look at the German army before it puts on its good old soup and fish—or whatever the German for civilized clothing is, that is if they have any.
But you are right girlie, to boost the smokes. We'll need them for a long while yet. I know you have been obliged to keep your own from your Ma and what with not really caring for peppermints it has been hard all these years. But while her trapeese work stood alone in its day and no one on Broadway is more respectedat this writing and as a mother-in-law I have no complaint on her outside of her wearing my dress-pumps, this one time she is dead wrong. Soldiers are not always acrobats and they do need to smoke and your Ma will put herself in the small-time reform class if she dont look out. When I think of the stuff I seen up and down Broadway and elsewhere in my days which could be reformed and no one miss it, I get hot when I hear this talk about keeping the army pure. Take it or leave it, but the truth is the Huns has kept us pure alright—they sweat all the wickedness out of us running after them.
But to get back to the tobacco stuff. Dont let nothing hinder you from bothering everybody you see to send smokes. We'll use 'em up never fear! And if you was to be walking down the Avenue or mebbe Broadway sometime and a box in your hand and asking for Smoke Funds or something whichever way its done—and your Ma was to fight her way through the howling mob which would undoubtedly be surrounding you on account of course the best known parlor-dancing act in America and the world wouldn't walk out looking for funds and not draw a mob which wasonly too glad to see you for five cents in the smoke-fund-box instead of two dollars in the box office—well, anyways, if your Ma was to force her way through this mob which with her weight she could do easily, why she would forgive you in the end if not right there on the street, and I believe that a hand-organ would start and play hearts and flowers at that.
Anyways, keep up the good work only never mind the monograms as long as they taste like tobacco and can be lit. And if you fall out with Ma just tell her this story which I will tell you and she will see mebbe God didn't put tobacco in the world merely for little slum children to pluck on their two weeks vacation in all its green beauty.
Well, the story is like this sweetie, and I will write it as good as I can and if it seems comicle go ahead and get a good laugh only take it or leave it, it was no comedy at the time. But if you was to news it around mebbe the folks at home would start dropping something beside coppers in them soda-fountain boxes you was talking about, and commence trying to squeeze a quarter through the slot now and again. Come to think of it, the biggest thing a copper penny can buy is the feeling a persongets from dropping one in a Belgium milk bottle or home for crippled children or Merry Xmas for the Salvation Army. You know the cheap chest it gives you. Many a liberty bond has been left in the Govts. hands by a prospective buyer stumbling on a "drop a penny" box in a cigar store on his way to the cupon-cutters, or I miss my guess. I've done the same in my day and the man who says he aint raised his own stock with himself by giving a nickle to the Newsboys Annual Outing is as big a liar as the guy which says he never loved another girl. And if pennies was to be cut out of the currency a whole lot of cheap philanthropists would have to make their conscience work or fight.
Well, anyways you go right on boosting the smoke-fund and never mind Ma. She'll learn different some day.
Now about this story I was going to tell you. First off leave me explain that the drinking regulations over here is different to uniforms than on the Rialto and America. I hunch it that the managers and booking agents and so forth in the U. S. Military Amusements Co. inc. figure that a few of the rules have to be let down while the big show is on. Same as thestars can lean against a No Smoking sign on the big time and roll a makin's quite openly. So when on leave and even sometimes in the dressing-room or I should say rest-billets a bottle of wine is not out of order. Very different sweetie, from the night Goldringer gave me in my uniform the big send off at the Ritz with all the newspaper bird and the leads and everybody and me and you the only sober person present, do you remember?
Well, its no news to you to say that I havent forgot I am a professional dancer and good condition is my middle name for my future, not to mention my present contract with Uncle Sam and that a sober man is worth more to both—also to you and myself.
But the Allies dont look on liquor like we do. As a matter of fact they seldom look on what we would call liquor at all, hardly ever getting a glympse of anything hard such as rye, scotch or gin, and a cocktail being practically a stranger and a repulsive one at that to them. But wine is something different again. Which while with us it is the high sign for a big party and flowing only in extremely good classes such as at the lobster layouts—leaving aside dago spaghetti parlors when folks is resting—withthem it is a common matter and everybody drinks it and while there aint much kick to it, still it has it all over the water we get and coming under their idea of necessities, is low in price. Of course by wine I do not mean champagne like we used to for publicity purposes order for our dinner in public, but stuff made out of common grapes, I guess, and with the seltzer left out.
Well, dearie, the reason I hand you all this info. is that the story I am going to tell you got started because of this wine. "In Venus Veritas" you know or so they say, and I confess that in trying to get a little kick out of the stuff I got sort of lit and that's what caused me the story.
Well, we was sort of waiting off stage as you might call it, in a little town in Belgium, our act having just been on and a pretty lively one it was and the Captain give us a pretty good hand on it, although as you know the audience didn't wait for the finish but left us their orchestra seats or front line trenches which we moved into and then give up to the next numberon the bill and come back to watch from the wings, or would of only we was a little too far off.
Well, the Capt. felt so good and the water was so bad that he sent a delegation back for a little liquid refreshment. They have big jugs over here like the molasses is kept in at home only here it is frankly boose and no one pretends any different. And the game is this. The one which volunteers for this dangerous work, if broke himself, takes a swig or so out of the jug he is bringing back which it dont show on account of their not being transparent and so the officer dont get any surprise until toward the end of the jug and even so may think he took more than he had thought. The private will take only a little from each but if there is jugs enough many a mickle makes quite a jag.
Well, me and a fellow named McFarland and a French kid called Ceasare was each given two of these molasses jugs which looked like props, and was sent off to a village some place in congnito for you couldn't pronounce it. And we was glad enough to go because among other things we was short of smokes. Some cleaver actor had accidintly lit the last messfire with a bale of Virginias and there wasnt hardly a smoke among us.
You just figure out how it would feel if you was to have a bath and do your exercise and eat a swell breakfast and then realise there wasnt a pill in the house! Think sweetie, how your brest would swell up with alarm, and the royal fit you would throw while the elevator boy was on his way to the corner drug store! Why figure even the way you feel once you get a cigarette in your face and then cant find a match for two whole minutes. Well, take it or leave it, I tell you that feeling is a whole lot multiplied on the victorious fields of France when little friend cigarette is notable by its absence. A empty house on an opening night is nothing to it. So you can see where me and Ceasare and Mac was glad to get in the neighborhood of one, leaving even all considerations of the wine aside.
Well, we started out carrying each two jugs and as we went the fellow which acts as usher, or sentry on the road hollers at us do we know the way and Ceasare and him jabbered at each other in French in the remarkable fluent way they do over here. And Ceasare laughed and when we asked what it was he said the guytold him to look out Fritz didnt get us on the open road, which was certainly some joke for of course we hadn't been able to get near enough to Fritz to hear him in some time. So we laughed, too, for if any snipers had managed to stay behind and opened up on us we could of spotted them and wiped them out if they had kept it up.
Well sweetie, there wasnt any road exactly toward the place we was bound for on account of our having done considerable trespassing on private property and taking little notice of fences whether barbed-wire or civilian or shell-holes or trenches but having went straight ahead. And after the last 5 years on upper Broadway you will realize it comes easy enough to me, I often having come unharmed from the Claridge to the Astor, and the French fields has nothing on that crossing. So to me that first part of the trip was as little or nothing and I was the cheerfulist of the party though we was all pretty cheerful and singing a little song of Ceasare's which I dont know what it means but I guess I'd better not write it in for fear you would.
Well, it was late afternoon and awful cold for the time of year, and I was thinking thatat home the frost was on the pumpkin and the pumpkin would soon be in the pie and the turkey was about to get the axe and Halloween was due and a lot of nice things like that. And after a lot of kilomets had been covered, we come to the funny little town which looked like the back-drop to the opening seane in a musical comedy only all shot to pieces like it had been on the road with a No. 2 company for a long and successful tower.
Well, we come to it, anyhow, and being on duty in a way as far as them jugs went—we went with them and took what we could afford our ownselves while we watched papa Ceasare fill 'em up. Then the tobacco dept. claimed our attention only to find there wasn't any!
Well, sweetie, I have tried to put over the way I felt at these glad tidings and the censor wouldn't of stood for it, so out she goes! But I felt that way all right and so did Mac and Ceasare.
"I'll no beleeve ut!" says Mack which he talks a funny kind of way like Harry Lauder. "I'll no beleeve ut—theer must be some someplace aboot!"
"Say la guyer!" says Ceasare and gives a shrug, although he was a lot more disappointedthan Mac on account of Mac's really caring more for liquor than smoke any day. "Say la Guyer!" he says, and asks his pa why it happened and his pa tells him and he translates it to Mac and me.
"He say a young lady have took it all only hour ago for free to soldiers," he explains.
And take it or leave it, but I was certainly a little sore for although I am the first to believe in the other fellow getting it, still this time we all felt like the other fellow was us, and no doubt she had took it to the nearest camp or hut, and so I ast which way was it she went for mebbe we would get some of it. And then come a big surprise.
"No 'ospitil here!" Ceasare explained again. "An no 'ut! It ees too soon after we take it. Then papa says she is first cross red lady we have seen and she speak in French!"
"Well, that's funny!" I says—and of course dearie you understand this had been enemy ground only a little before and that there was a wine-shop going was a miricle and only for it being Ceasare's papa we wouldn't of got none, which is how he come to be along with us.
Well, we all felt real sore and disappointed but took it like a man for of course a red crossnurse would get it for the wounded and we had our health.
So papa give us all another round and we took the big molasses jugs and started off. It was getting toward twilight and pretty cold and I will say it give me sort of sore feeling towards the folks at home and blamed them for letting me be without a cigarette and you know how it is about two drinks makes me a little sore at things and I began to cheer up after the third and this was early in the evening.
Not so Mac. He has a talent for drink. Well, we had just about left the motion-picture village behind us when he commenced to sing and while I dont know what it was about, I will put it down this time because you wont know neither.
"Fortune if thou'll but gie me stillHale Breeks, a scone, an' whisky gill,An' rowth o' ryme to rave at will,Tak' a' the rest,"An' deal 't about as they blind skillDirectss thee best."
Well, naturally we applauded which is always safe when you don't understand athing, and it certainly was comical for Mac is generally a quiet cuss and a tightwad as well. Then I spoke up.
"These jugs is too heavy!" I says. "Let's lighten 'em up a bit."
Well they thought so and we done it and felt better and then I sang them:
"Give me your loveThe sunshine of your eyes!"
And both Ceasare and Mac commenced to cry. Mac set down his jugs and we done the same and then Mac done the most generous thing I ever seen a Scotchman do even in liquor. He reached inside his bonnett and took out three cigarettes, shook the bonnett to show they was actually the last, and give us each one and one to himself.
Well, we all sat down on a old motor chassis or what was left of it, and burned them smokes like insense, not speaking a word! But putting that red cross lady which had been ahead of us out of our minds and thinking only of how we was going to give Mac our next packages from home when they come, and he mebbe thinking of how he was going to getthem. And then we all made our jugs a little lighter and by this time it was pretty dark and we commenced to hurry back. Before we had went very far we had to hesitate about which way. Because sweetie, take it or leave it, what you write about getting lost in the new subway has nothing on finding your way about after dark by yourself in this part of the world.
Well, Mac was sure we come one way and I was sure we come another and Ceasare he had a different hunch from either of us. So we all took another little drink as it was getting mighty cold by now, and in the end we started off Ceasare's way because why wouldnt he know best which way was right and him born and raised right there on the farm? We trusted to his judgment just like him and Mac would of trusted me to tell the taxi-driver where to go from Keens.
So we went like he said, but somehow we didn't seem to get no place in particular although we kept on going for a long time: I couldn't say how long, but it seemed like a Battery to Harlem job to me only by now I loved everybody but Fritz and a sort of fog had come up or so I thought, and we was allsinging, each our own sweet songs but at the same time.
"Lets throw away a few of these jugs," I remember saying—and really there was so little in some of them it wasn't worth carrying back so we just finished them off and threw them away and then we come upon a little path—or it felt like it.
"Allou!" shouted Ceasare, "we are almost there!" and with that we sure got the surprise of our lifes, for rat-tat-tat-tat-tat come a sputter of machine gun fire right at us.
Atfirst we was very much jolted by this though unhurt, and then we commenced to think it was a joke. Here we was going in behind our own lines and being fired upon.
"Shut up, ye dam fools!" Mac hollered. "Can ye no recognize yer own people?"
Then Ceasare yelled in French, but they paid no attention to us.Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!it come again, and this time it made me real mad. I figured that if they didn't quit their nonsense somebody was liable to get hurt. So I saved what was left in my last jug, threwthe thing away, and told Ceasare and Mac to come on and leave us beat up the poor boobs with the nasty sense of humor and show them where they got off. Well, Mac and him thought this was a good idea so they done like I done and we ran up the little hill which we could see our way pretty good in spite of the dark because they never let up on us but kept right on spitting fire. Well, we got very mad by this time and to tell the truth I can't very well recall just what did happen only when we got to the gun the boys was German!
Well, take it or leave it, I aint had a jolt like that since the night Goldringer raised our salary of his own accord after we put on the La Tour Trot. And I only wisht I could remember more about what happened. But for quite a few minutes I was terrible busy; and I guess I better admit I was tight—awful tight. Of course there was five of them and only three of us, and equally of course we licked them badly and took only one prisoner but not being anything for a lady to read I will not give particulars and anyways I dont remember any. Of course it was one of them few remaining nest of hornets which we hadjoked about, but really hadn't believed was there.
Well, when it was all over but the cheering and we was sure these birds had been all by their lonesome, we was pretty well sobered and hot and everything. And the first thing we done was take a look around in a few places for tobacco. And take it or leave it—we didn't find any! Not a smoke among the lot! Watter you know about that?
But one good thing we got out of the scrap was our senses back and it was easy enough to spot about where our own lines would be. So after we figured it out, and taking Fritz, the one prisoner, along, we commenced to start off that way and you can bet the poor boob was glad to go with us. You would of thought he had wanted to be with us all the time. Just like after a election at home. Cant find anybody who didnt vote the winning ticket. Which joke you may not understand, sweetie, being a lady, and I will not now stop to explain.
Well, we started back alright and as we come, I got the story which I want to tell you which commenced really when we come to that old barn. Only I had to explain how we come to be there or you wouldnt get the ideaof what I am driving at for you to make your Ma understand.
Ever since I fell out of my airplane and was in the hospital and reenlisted the only place they'd take me back was in the infantry, I done a lot of thinking—and some of it stuff which might mebbe sound awful queer coming from me, especially after some of the language I have been known to use in my day, and while I hope I aint become mushy, I certainly do believe there is more to religion and such things than we have thought. Take it or leave it, mighty few fellows have lived through this war, far less fought through it, without getting religion of some kind out of it. I wonder can you get me? And make Ma get it too. So I'll tell what happened and you see if miricles is over yet or not for this is a true fact and not a story somebody told me.
Well, after we cleaned up that machine gun nest and had a cute little live German prisoner of our very own, we took him down the hill with us the best way we could in the dark and it full of holes and what not. There wasn't a bit of light—no moon nor stars nor nothing, and a wet sort of smell that made us wish for a smoke the way hardly nothing else is ever wished for,except mebbe a motion-picture salary or a drink of water after a big night—not on the desert.
Well we got on pretty good because we was nearly sober now and Ceasare he knew where we was going, and this time he really did, and so we kept up pretty good. It commenced to rain a little and the big drops felt awful nice against my cheeks which was burning hot. Made me think of when I was a kid back in Topeka and digging out to school and a pair of red mittens I had which my mother had made them—good knitting and well made like the sweater I had on that very minute which she also knit. And I thought of me and you and our snow-scene when we done that dance on the Small Time with the sleighbells on our heels—remember dear? Before we had really made good except with each other? And I thought about love too and a lot of fool stuff like that. And then I heard a funny sound for thereabouts. It was a woman moaning and crying.
Well, at first I thought mebbe I was crazy or imagined it, but Mac who was walking in front with our own little Fritz stopped short and so did Fritz and listened. It come again—the most dismal thing you ever want to hear. I turned to Ceasare and he had heard it.
"Say drool," he says, which means "Its funny" only it wasnt and he didnt mean it that way, but the other way. You know.
"It sure is!" I says. "There she goes again!"
"I think theers a wee bit housie over theere!" says Mac.
"It is the barn of my cousin's uncle," says Ceasare. "We better go look."
So with that we started across the road to where sure enough was a funny little barn—stone with a grass roof—peculiar to these parts, I guess. The nearer we got the louder the noise was, but no words to it, only sobbing very low and despairing and sort of sick—and a female—no doubt of it. There wasn't any light nor anybody moving about as far as we could tell.
"Gee! What'll we do?" I says in a whisper. "We can't pass it up!"
"Naw—we mun tak' a look inside!" whispers Mac.
"Certinmount," says Ceasare; "Mais—be careful! We put the Boch in first and see if some trick is up!"
It being Ceasare's cousin's uncle's barn heknew where the door was, and the three of us shoved Fritz up to it and made him understand he was to open it and go in ahead of the crew. We finally got it over with signs and shoves, because the bird didnt speak nothing but German and we hadnt a word of it among us. But still we made him do it and he did, and we pulled our guns and stood close behind and I stood closest and pulled not alone my gun but the little electric flashlight you sent me which I flashed in as quick as the door was opened.
Andtake it or leave it—there was a woman with a baby in her arms! She was rather a young round-faced woman and that kid was awfully little and held close under a big dark cloak the woman wore. The poor soul looked tired out and she had no hat and her hair was all down. The inside of the barn was a wreck and the rain was coming in through a big shellhole in the roof. She was all alone, we at once got that, and at sight of the German uniform which was all she seen at first, she give a shriek of joy and got up onto her feet.
"Got si danke!" she cried. "Ich habe——"
Then she seen the rest of us and shrunk back, covering the kid with her cloak. Fritz said something to her—quite a lot in a hurry, and evidently told her he was a prisoner, and now that she had spilled the beans, so was she. And of course even under the circumstances, she was. But take it or leave it, I certainly did feel queer when I went up to that lady with the little baby in that barn. For German or no German the situation was—well—it certainly got my goat. I took off my hat and made a bow.
"Lady," I commenced, "have no fear. Don't let us throw no scare into you. We ain't Huns—that is, I beg your pardon, but what I mean is you are perfectly safe and we will take care of you."
Well, the way she looked at me would of wrung a heart of stone. Her eyes was blue and she just stared at me as if I had hurt her—which of course was far from any mind there.
"Don't be scared," I says again. "You and the baby will get good care. Just come with us if you are able!"
When I spoke of the kid she give the poor little smothered thing a quick look and drewher cloak around it closer. Gee! but she looked fierce! She had quit crying but not a word out of her!
"You try!" I says to Ceasare. "The poor thing mebbe understands French."
So Ceasare, who was as much shot to pieces at the sight as I was, come forward.
"Madame!" says he, bowing with his cap in his hand. Then he shoots a lot of French about restes, au succuoor, and stuff I know meant "cut the worry." But she didnt get it any better than she had my line of talk, and only kept on looking scared.
Well by this time Mac come out of his stupor; but there was no use trying Scotch on her, that was plain. So there was nothing to it except forward march. For one thing my torch wouldnt of lasted much longer and for another it sure was getting late.
"Does your cousin's uncle which owns the barn have a house anywheres near, where we could leave her?" I asked Ceasare.
"All dead in this town!" he says cheerfully. "And this is the only building left I think it!"
"Then there's nothing to do but take her along to headquarters," I says, and off we started, she not saying a word.
That was some trip! I want to tell you sweetie it was the worst part of the whole war to me. You know I got a heart and I felt just fierce for that poor little German mother. All the way in, while we was helping her along I kept wishing I knew how on earth she come to get in that place. She seemed real feeble at times and we lifted her across the worst places. I tried to get her to let me carry the baby, but she held on to it like grim death and wouldnt leave any of us touch it—and it was so quiet I commenced to get scared.
"More than likely its dead!" I whispered to Ceasare and he thought so too.
Before we got in, we had carried her almost a mile, taking turns with her on our crossed hands, and the odd feller guarding our Hun. And then we came to the end of about the very worst and longest hike I ever took including the time the Queen of the Island Company got stranded in New Rochelle. The sentry across that mud hole of a slushy road was the welcomest sight in the world.
"Wot the 'ell yer got?" he says when he recognized us.
"One Gentleman Hun prisoner and one lady ditto in very bad shape!" I says.
"Wot the 'ell!" he says again. And then he passed us and we reported.
Say sweetie, take it or leave it, but I had honest clean forgot all about that wine which we had been sent for in the first place. I tell you I was so worried about that poor woman! And it was not until the five of us was standing in Capt. Haskell's quarters with the light from his ceiling glaring at us and him also glaring from behind his mustache, that I even commenced to remember it. But I had to report so I reported for the bunch of us and in strict detail as good as I could remember. All this while the woman sat in a chair, her face like a stone, and my heart just aching for her.
Well, when I got through taking the most nervous curtin-call of my life—and take it or leave it, if the German army would ever of been as nervous as I was then, the war would of ended that minute. Capt. Haskell beckoned to the lady.
"Come here, please!" he says very kind. "And let me see the baby!"
She got up and went over very softly. Then she stood in front of him and commenced to laugh and laugh.
"Pigs of Americans!" she said. "Fools tocarry me! That's not a baby—its twenty cartons of cigarettes!"
Then she threw back her cloak and under it there she was dressed in Red Cross uniform.
"I disguised myself and went to the village!" she went on in perfectly good English. "And I bought all the tobacco there.
"On my way back to my own lines I was fool enough to lose my way and to cry over it! That is all!"
And its enough, aint it dear? For you do get me, dont you? Them twenty cartons of cigarettes was a miricle to us and the one we needed the most of any right at that moment. Eh, what? as the English say. And her taking such a chance to get them for Fritz shows how bad off the German army must be, don't it? And so tell this to your Ma and get her to quit that foolish anti-smoke society she's forming—because its the bunk—and I am ever your loving life and dancing partner,
Jim.
P. S. Just got your letter. That certainly is a good one on Ma. Smoking a pipe! And if you hadnt opened the door so sudden you'd never in this world of caught her. And if she does claim her grandmother did it too, all yougot to say is so did many a soldier's grandmother.
P. S. No. 2. I forgot to say that a French General has given us a kiss on both cheeks and a medel for that job. And its the first time I ever got anything but a headache by going on a party.
Aintit funny the things that comes into a person's head when they are rubbing cold cream onto their nose? All sorts of stuff, some of it good sense and some of it the bunk. But most of it pretty near O.K. If some one was to take down the ideas I get at such a sacred hour, I'd be out of the dancing game and into the highbrow class just as quick as the printer got through his job.
It sure is a time when a woman's true thoughts come to the surface along with the dust and last night's make-up, and many a big resolve has been made owing to that cleanly habit. Wasn't there some wise bird made up a quotation about cleanliness being next to God knows what? Well, believe you me, its the truth, for once a woman starts in with the cold cream all alone,—and she sure does it atno other time—there is no telling what will come of it beside a clean pink face.
With me personally myself, thats where most of my ideas about life come from—right out of the cold cream tube! And while indulging in this well known womanly occupation the other evening I commenced thinking about rest and how important it is for us Americans—and of the way we go after it—like it was something we had to catch and catch quick or it would get away from us. Do you get me? If not, leave me tell you what a friend of mine, which has just been mustard out of the service says to me, when I was checking up his experiences abroad while he was checking up what the waiter had put down.
"My idea of rest?" he says. "Why taking Belleau Woods after three restless weeks in the trenches," he says.
Which sort of puts the nut in the shell, as the saying is. And also at the same time reminds me of the rest I just recently took.
Not that I generally need one any more than any other thoroughly successful star, for heavens knows the best known parlor dancing act in the world and Broadway, which mine undoubtedly is, dont need to rest because the managerstheirselves always come after me and resting I leave to the booking-agency hounds. But this time it was bonea fido, and come about in a sort of odd way.
To commence at the start it begun with me falling for the movies, which Gawd knows I only done it for the money, their being no art in it, and they having hounded me into them for a special fillum. And of course many well known girls like Mary Garden and Nazimova go into pictures and even myself, but its simply because of being hounded, as I say. But once in you earn your money, believe you me, and I have stood around waiting for the sun like Moses, or whoever it was, until my feet nearly froze to the pallasades before jumping off, only of course it was a dummy they threw after I had made the original motions of the leap to death. And the worst part is once you are signed up on one of these "payment to be made wheather the party of the first part (thats me) is working or not" you got to do like they say, and a whole lot of the "not working" means plain standing around waiting for the director or the camera-man or the rain to quit, and what us public favorites suffers whenon the job is enough to make the photographor's Favorite of Grainger, Wyo., abandon the career she might of had in favour of domestic service or something like that where she'd get a little time to herself.
Well anyways my judgment having slipped to the extent of having signed my sense of humor away for six months at twenty-two hundred a week, I was in the very middle of a fillum called the Bridge to Berlin when one day, just as a big brute of a German officer by the name of O'Flarety had me by the throat in a French chateau, the studio manager comes in and says the armistice is signed and the war is over, and we was to quit as who would release a war fillum now and we was to start on something entirely different, only he didn't know what the hell it was to be and here was eight thousand feet wasted—and believe you me I was sore myself for we had shot that strangling sceene six times by then and my marcelle wave was completely ruined by it, and I would of liked to of had something to show for it.
But anyways, orders was to quit and so me and Ma and the two fool dogs and Musette left the wilds of Jersey and after a stormy voyageacross the Hudson come safely home to our modest little apartment on the drive, there to not work at 22 hundred a week until Goldringer got the studio manager to get the scenario editor to get me a new story, which at the price was not of long duration for while Gawd knows they dont care how long a person stands around waiting to be shot, they just naturally hate to pay you for doing the same thing at home in comfort.
Well anyways the bunk that scenario editor picked out was something fierce. I wouldn't of been screened dead in it. But it just happened I had a idea for a scenario myself, which come about through somebody having give me a book for Christmas and one night, the boy having forgot to bring the papers, I read it. And was it a cute book? It was! I had a real good cry over it, and while it wasn't exactly a book for a dancer, I could see that there was good stuff in it. So finally me and Ma stopped into Goldringer's office after he had twice telephoned for me and handed him a little surprise along with the volume.
"I got a idea for a picture, Al," I says, "and here's the book of it."
"Well Miss La Tour, what's the name of itand idea?" says he, chewing on his cigar strong and not even looking at the book but throwing it to the stenographer, which is a general rule always in the picture game and one reason we don't see such a crowd of swell fillums.
"The name is Oliver Twist," I says. "It's a juvinile lead the way it stands, but I want it fixed up a little, with me as Olivette Twist—the editor can fix it so's that will be all right. It's really a swell part. I could wear boy's clothes some of the time."
"Huh! Olivette Twist," says Goldringer, taking back the book and looking at the cover of it. "Always thought it was a breakfast food! But if you say its O.K. we'd better get it. Where is this feller Dickens? We'll wire him for the rights. Friend of yours?"
You see, if anybody brings scenarios personally, a star in particular, it's generally a friends.
"No," I says. "It was sent me by Jim along with a letter which shows the bird is well known," I says. "And is in Westminister Abby, London, England, which Jim says proves his class.
"Must be a swell apartment," says Goldringer. "All right we'll send a cable to himand see if the picture rights is gone or not. If the boy is so well known he may stick out for a big price. This is Thursday. We may hear from him by Monday or Tuesday, and we'll get a scenario ready anyways so's we can begin to shoot not later than a week from to-day. Until then," he says, "run along and amuse yourself and dont do anything I wouldnt."
Well, me and Ma was shown out then and down on Broadway Ma see some salt-water taffy in a drug-store and wanted to go in and by it which I had to prevent because outside of Ma being in no need of nourishment, she weighing considerable over the heavy-weight requirements already and Gawd knows if she was to have went back into the circus it would no longer be on the trapeese and a certain party in the side-show would have a strong competitor for her job and it wouldn't be the human skeleton either. But leaving off the consideration how would it look for us to go up the Ave. in my new wine-colored limousine which I earned myself and no one can say different with truth—and eating stuff like that out of a folded paper box? Ma certainly has my health well in hand and heart and its seldom we quarrel over any little thing, but she certainlyhas no class instinct, or instinct for class—do you get me? And when I try to make her see that them little refinements is what makes me the big success I am, she sometimes kicks and if its hunger, its got to be met immediately if not one way, why then another. So in lieu, as the poet says, of the taffy I had to take her to the Ritz and watch her put away 6 vanillia eclairs at two bits each and a quart of cocoa, not that I begrudge the money, only believe you me the way all hotels charge nowadays is rapidly making Bolshivik out of even we capatalists. Do you get me? You do! But of course in my line you got to keep before the public in the right way.
Well anyways Ma complained over the loss of that taffy the whole way through the six eclairs, which it was certainly a little hard on me to have to sit there and watch her while for professional reasons eating only one of these tomato surprises which never surprise but the once, on my figures account, and certainly its a fact that the two of us was doing the next best thing to what we wanted instead of the thing itself which is one of the prices of success. So, as is also often the case at such times, I was a little mean to Ma on accountof having been mean already—do you get me?
"Mamma," I says. "You certainly are getting heavier. It's a crime for you to wear these narrow skirts!"
Ma give me a searching look the same as used to lead up to caster oil when I was a kid, and then took the half of a eclair at one bit before replying.
"Now Mary Gilligan you needn't take out your artistic temperament or any other ailment on me!" she says as firmly as the eclair would permit. "Just because Jim is in France yet, and your moleskin dolman was a failure and you aint been occupied daily for a week or more, and slipped up on doing your setting up exercises this morning which I wouldnt of mentioned only you started it," she says. "Its no excuse for picking on me," she says. "What if I am a little plump? My Gawd aint I earned the right to be? What with three kids and your Pa to bring up and the center trapeese in the circus right through it all except when absolutely necessary? You dont know what a womancango through!"
"Dont I, just!" I snapped for my Gawd aint it the truth every woman has the very worst troubles that any woman ever had? And shesure gets sore when another woman sets up to go them one better!
"No you don't!" retorts Ma with that maddening air of being older than me which she uses to squelch me every time she cant get me any other way. "No you dont!" she says. "You never brought up three kids without a nurse girl while on the trapeese—you never brought up a thing but two fool dogs and you even leave them to the carelessness of a personal maid," she says. "Poor dears, Gawd knows what will become of their little canine minds and morals!"
"Now Ma!" I begged, because she aughter know that is a sore point with me and not intention, and she had me on the raw.
"Well then!" she says. "You got a swell job and no troubles only mabe a sluggish liver and you aint the only woman in America which Gen. Pershing cant yet spare the husband of," she says. "And mabe I do need to reduce a little," which was her way of apologizing. And just as this lull occurred who should come into sight but Maison Rosabelle, her which runs the shop where myself and all the most chic professionals gets their clothes. She was all dressed up like a plush horse with real sables,part of which must of come off them simple refined little gowns I had made for the Bridge to Berlin that was ruined by the armistice. Her hair had just been rehennered and her face was as fresh as a tea-rose straight from the fragrent facial massage. She smiled and sailed down on the two of us which we welcomed with the usual relief of a family quarreling when neither sees the way to win out and have got to go on living together. In other words she automatically buried the hatchet for us, as the school books say.
"So pleased to of run into you, dearies!" she says. "For I'm goin' to Atlantic City to-morrow for a little rest."
No sooner was them words out from between her lip-rouge than I see a vision of salt-water taffy arising in Ma's eyes. Believe you me Ma is certainly hard to pry loose from anything she has once set her mind on! And Maison had to continue in that cordial manner.
"Why dont you run down for a few days?" she says. "It'll do you good. You're looking kinda pulled down Mrs. Gilligan!" she says—and of course Ma fell for that.
"I do feel a little low!" she says, finishing off her cocoa. "And Mary—Marie here iswaiting until they get a answer to a cable which was sent to England by the studio. I understand we may have quite a wait, so I really believe we might go along."
Nowas I looked at Ma it come over me that mabe she had the right dope. When people that live together, especially if not friends, but relations, commence to get a little on each others nerves, going away on a trip is good for what ails them. The only trouble is that in the case of females they generally go together. Still, with the whole bunch of new and different stuff it gives them to fight over—R.R. tickets, and who wired for these horrid rooms, and I told you to bring a heavier coat, and etc., they generally get straightened out quite a lot. Even the idea of going along with Maison didnt worry me then, I having been on tower many a time when the No. 1 Company went out and Ma the same for years, and we generally speak, even to the publicity man, no matter if we have made Rochester, Buffalo and Chicago in a quick jump playing matinées as well. So I am without the wholesome and wellfounded fear of taking a pleasure-trip with friends which is the bitter fruit of most persons experience of the same. Besides, I sort of like Maison, which of course her real name is Maisie Brady, and her funny little husband, which is also still in France, she not being dependant any more than myself nor would she hold him back from serving his country only I dont hardly believe she urged him to go for quite the patriotic reasons I did, he having been a traveling man and so when he retired on her income she didnt feel as natural and affectionate and homelike and all that as when he was away most of the time. But at any rate I and she were both war-widows and old friends from the time her mother was lady-lion tamer and mine on the trapeese, and so in spite of the bills she charges me she has more refinement than most people and so I says all right, we'll go to Atlantic City and we'll be on the one twenty train to-morrow.
"Thats sweet, dearie!" says Maison. "We'll get a swell rest!"
Then she set sail and was off with a Jewish gentleman friend, which had been waiting at the entrance all this time with a gardenia in his buttonhole. And Ma and me called forthe check and dogs and limousine and hitched our way homeward through the traffic to our quiet little apartment with 7 windows with the beautiful outlook of the river and the R.R. tracks and etc.
Then while Musette packed only three trunks and my gold-fitted dressing case and a couple of hat boxes and my specially designed jewellery box and the travelling hamper for the dogs, we having decided to travel light and probably not stay over three or four days, Ma went into the all-tiled kitchen and commenced getting up a little smack of cold beef and potato salad and fried cheese sandwiches and coffee and a few hot biscuits and honey so's we wouldn't have to go out and eat, which Ma certainly loves to do and no cook ever stands it for more than a week and the current cook's week was up that morning before we went downtown.
Well anyway while she was doing this I went into the drawing-room which is all fitted up in handsome gold furniture—that the dealer said was one of the Louis periods. Louis Cohen I guess,—I never remember quite. And to put a record on the phonograph in the case I had especially built in the same style at fiftydollars extra and all the instalments paid, and streached out as good as I could manage to on the chaise loung, which is a sort of housebroken steamer-chair, and while John Macormik's own voice sang my little grey home in the west to me in the privacy of my own home, I thought dreamingly about Jim and how much I was missing him and how swell we danced together and how kind and loving and brave he was and how refined, and believe me he's about the only theatrical male that don't murder a dress suit, and how horrible it was to be seperated from him after being married only two weeks and what fools we was to have danced together in every first-class theatre in America and only got married so recent, for if only we'd been married sooner mabe the pain of seperation wouldnt of been so great by now. Who knows? And believe you me it was some pain, and I had myself crying before I knew it. For I sure am stuck on that poor simp and my only war-work aint been done on the screene, Gawd knows, when I give him up to whatever the Allies was fighting for, which if it dont turn out to be as represented, believe you me, myself and a whole lot of other girls is going to want to know why!!
Well anyways, before Ma had the biscuits baked and I had run jada jada and sing me to sleep, I was wild to get away to the pure country ocean air and some healthy outdoor exercise which would help me forget my loneliness. And a lot of quiet and rest and sleep, with the ocean pounding me to the pillow and all that.
I had only a sort of twenty minute small time sketch of a idea of what Atlantic City was like on account of me having been there for openings only and getting in at four forty five with the show beginning at eight fifteen and the washup you need after the trip and Ma always insisting on me doing a twenty minute practice in my room and underwear before every opening which is perfectly correct and one of the principal things which has made my handsprings what they are, and getting dinner far enough in advance to do the hand-springs in time. I knew little nor nothing of what Jim calls the Coney Island that went to finishing school except that there is swimming and horseback riding and a boardwalk that any one without French heels to catch in the cracks can have a elegant walk on. What little sniff of air I had outside the theatre and mybedroom at the hotel give me a appatite for more, which up to now I never had the opportunity to get because of always being with a high-class show that went right back to N.Y. Sunday to open on Broadway. But now I was going like a regular American lady citizen to rest and get full of health and do as the regular resorters did. And I was glad. I was so anxious to keep myself in a pure atmosphere for Jim's sake and the studio wasn't exactly the farm—do you get me? You do! And a rest in the country was the very thing. I got quite excited thinking about it; dried my tears, stopped the phonograph and made sure that Musette put in my riding suit, bathing ditto, and walking boots. And when this was done I felt better already as the saying is, and fully able to take some of the nourishment Ma had got up.
The minute we set down to the table I see that she had also been making good resolutions and waited till she got ready to confess. It come after the seventh tea-biscuit and honey. On her part I mean, I only taking coldmeat and salad and things I dont like much, for reasons before stated.
"Mary Gilligan!" she says. "I believe I'mgetting heavier," she says, just as if it occurred to her for the first time. "And I have decided that while I am away to Atlantic City I wont eat to amount to anything and reduce in other ways the whole time I'm there!"
"You dont say," I says, without batting an eye. "Do you really think you need to?"
"I do!" she says. "This is my last real meal. And you needn't try to persuade me out of it."
I didn't. And next morning right after breakfast we caught the one twenty, hats, dogs, Musette, and all, and met up with Maison Rosabelle, which was dressed in a simple little trotters costume of chiffon and ermine which looked like it had been made in Babylon. I mean B.C. not L.I. And with her was a little surprise in the way of the same Jewish gentleman, Mr. Freddy Mayer, with another gardenia on him and a fine line of plausable explinations.
"Aint it a co-co-strange, Freddy just happens to be going our way!" cooed Maisie with all the innocence of a N.Y. livery-stable pidgeon.
"Yes, I'm taking a special offering of champagne to a special friend in the hotel business there," says Mr. Freddy. "And with threesuch beautiful lady companions its no hardship to leave Manhattan behind nor the Bronx," says he gaily. "Altho when we come back we may find the Aldermen has decided to change both names after July first," says the humorous dog.
"Will you please kindly open this window a little?" I intrupped him. "The air in here aint so good as it was."
I dont know did this get over, but believe you me I didn't care for that well washed young wine-seller at all, nor for his company. And it was a relief when he done as I asked and him and Maison found their seats was at the other end of the car. In a way I can understand her liking traveling-men but not up to the point of traveling with one, even by semi-accident. And so opening the Motion Picture Gazette to look at the double-page spread of myself "Who has at length been lured by the artistic possibilities of the picture world," and keeping a eye on Ma to see would she stop the candy-boy, settled down to the soothing sound of Maison's laugh, and begun my quiet little trip to Healthland.
There is a large variaty of ladies which have husbands still in the army, but believe you methey certainly got one thing in common, or else no looks at all. And that is, the temptation to take up with other company to some degree. Because of course while the war was holding the stage a husband's absence could be stood, but what with this peace-hyphen in the fighting and everything, you cant help but commence wondering what kind of a girl is detaining him over there and feel inclined to have a understudy kind of waiting off stage in self defence. For believe you me, there seems to be something sort of attractive about a war-widow and the ones which ignores the fact and minds their own affairs is the real patriotic women of America.
Not that I want to say a word about Maison, and what happened to me after the end of that train ride on which I was sitting so superior-minded, taught me a lesson; because its a cinch to be good when you want to be. A person which has suffered themselves is slow to bawl out the other fellow so quick next time. Do you get me? Not yet.
Well, after we had rolled by the lovely scenery and read the handsome ad. signs on either hand, not to mention the pipe-line, and got the invigorating smell of low tide in oureager nostrils, we come out on that quiet little country railroad station platform, our destination, to be greeted by only several hundred busses and a thousand or so taxi-cabs, each yelling at the top of their voices. As we got off the train Maison rushes up to us and pipes a cheering little question.
"Where are we going, dearie?" she said, blithly.
"Where are we going?" I says. "Maison Rosabelle, do you mean to say you didn't wire no place for rooms?"
"Why no!" says Maison. "Didn't you?"
"Certainly not!" I says. "I never wired for rooms in my whole life. The advance agent always done that for me."
"Well Mary Gilligan, I'm not your advance agent!" she snapped, and then she kind of looked at Mr. Freddy in a sweet, helpless womanly fashion expecting him to fork up a little help. But it seems Mr. Freddy was one of these birds that only think to take care of his own comfort. He had a room alright at the Traymore. And he meant to keep it!
"We'll take the bus to there," he suggested. "I'm sure there'll be lots of room."
But no bus for me on account of professional reasons. So we took one taxi for him and us and another for Musette and the dogs and the bags, and then commenced a round of seeking for shelter as the poet says, which had the "Two Orphans" skun a mile. We went to six hotels and not a room among them. Believe you me, there is just one person can make you feel cheaper than a Atlantic City hotel clerk when he says "No reservations?" and lifts his arched brows, and that is the head waiter when he says "nothing to drink?" and you say "yes, nothing!" Well, thank Gawd thats one thing prohibition will prohibit.
Well anyways, we tried six hotels until at last we come to a little place where the young feller at the desk give his reluctant consent to our admission. It was a simple little place done quitely in red plush and gold and marble columns, very restful with not over a hundred people sitting about in the lobby, listning not to the sad sea waves but to a jazz orchestra and inhaling the nice fresh tobacco smoke of which the air was full.
Well, Mr. Freddy give a gasp of relief and bid us good-by, after dating up Maisie for dinner, and a flock of bell-hops hopped upon ourstuff and we commenced a walking tower to our rooms. As we started off down the Alleyway, Maison give me a nudge.
"Look it, that sweet young officer! Aint he handsome?" she whispers only just loud enough for him to hear. And before I thought I turned my head and he certainly was easy to look at. He looked, in fact like a cross between a clothing ad. and a leading juvinille with a touch of bear-cat in him to make a regular he-man out of him. He was a captain, although so young, and had a cute little moustache and had that blue-blooded air—you know—like a Boston accent even without hearing him speak. And he was sitting all alone under a big poster advertising a entertainment for the benefit of blind soldiers or something. Of course I didn't notice him at all, because I being a perfect lady I dont do them things. But I couldnt help seeing that he didn't blush at what Maisie said, although I knew he heard it, but a sort of crinkly expression come up round his nice blue eyes as if he thought us comic or something. It made me just boil because my clothes is nothing if not refined and I never wear anything but a little powder on my nose when off the stage, and if its one thinggets my goat it is to be taken for a show-girl which undoubtedly he thought the two of us was and they not in his class, for even with the passing glance I had taken I could see he was used to the Vanderbilts and all that set and had never had to be taught to take his daily tub. Do you get me?
So I walked like I hadnt looked, and of course I really hadnt, and proceeded to the before the war section of the hotel and the handsome suite all fitted in real varnished pine and carpets just like a Rochester boarding house when I was on the small time before I made my big success, and it made me feel quite at home or would of only for what I knew the difference in price was going to be. I guessed it just as soon as I heard Ma gasping over the hotel rules which she was reading. I went over and looked at them too, and at first I couldn't see nothing unusual about them. There was the usual bunk about the management not being responsible for the guest in any way, and Gawd knows how could they be and I dont blame them. And then, a little ways down I see what had got Ma stirred up. It seems dogs was ten dollars a week per each, and of coursewe had two of them and Ma never has cared for my two, anyways.
"Well, I hope the sea air will be good for the poor little lambs," she says very sarcastic. "Mebbe it'll make 'em grow—into police-dogs or something useful!"
Well I see by this that the salt air had not yet got to Ma, although the troublesome journey had. And so I put on a simple little suit of English tweed and low heeled shoes and a walking hat, which seemed to me the right thing for the country, and went out to pry off a little health before dinner.
The outdoors was something grand. The air was as good a cocktail as a person would want, and the lights along the boardwalk was coming out like dandelion blossoms. There was hardly anybody around—just a few here and there and the surf of that wide and cruel ocean which Jim was the other side of, was breaking close to the rail in big white ostrich plumes. Overhead the sky was as clear and high as a circular drop with the violet lights on it, and a few clean stars was coming out. It was just cold enough to make a person want to walk fast until the blood got singing through you and you wanted to shout and run, only ofcourse no lady would. But just the same, I commenced to feel glad I hadnt died when I had the measles, and I loved everybody and had a great career before me and—and—oh that grand yearning happy feeling which comes out of being young and full of strength and a good bank-account. Do you get me? You do!
Well anyways, here I was walking like I had money on it and huming a tune to myself, when along comes a man the other way, walking two to my one, and huming the same tune, "How I hate to get up in the morning," it was. When he heard me and I heard him we both sort of half stopped out of surprise, and I got a good look at him. It was the young Captain from the hotel.
He also give a start of surprise when he seen me, showing he recognized me just as good as I did him. Only it was a real, genuine start, as if he realized something more than the fact he had seen me at the hotel. Then he smiled—a smile which would of done any dental ad. proud, and passed along, looking back over his shoulder—once. While I went along minding my own business and only know he looked back on account of my happening to look back tosee how far I had gone. I went a mile further and somehow that smile of his stuck in my mind and made me sort of happy for no reason, and at the same time awful extra lonesome for Jim. I made up my mind I would get Jim a new car for a surprise when he come home and I would send him a extra box of eats this week and some of them cigarettes he likes so well, and a whole lot of stuff like that, the way a woman does at such a time. Do you get me? Probably.
Well anyways, I walked myself into a terrible enthusiasm over Jim, and then come back to the hotel. Which, by the way, its a strange thing how much further it is coming back to a Atlantic City hotel than walking away from it. And there at the door was Ma with the two dogs. A real strange sight for I never knew her to take them out before, and it looked like a guilty conscience, for she give me a peek out of the corner of her eye for some reason and then hastily explained how she had thought she'd take them herself this time instead of Musette. Well, we got rid of the dogs and then come down to dinner where Maison sailed down upon us all dressed up and no place to go, for it seems this Mr. Freddy had stood herup on the dinner, having telephoned he'd be over later with a friend or two but business prevented him paying for her meal, or at least thats what I expect he meant. And Maison was wild. But she had to eat dinner with us, and register a bunch of complaints between bowing to friends and so forth.
"The luck I have!" she says. "That guy Freddy doesn't think any more of a nickle than he does of his right arm! And with all the conventions which is held at this town of course we would have to pick on the date the Baptist ministers was here! Its a fact! The clerk told me. And what is more if there ain't Ruby Roselle and Goldringer and will you look at that wine and it twelve a quart without the tax! Well, of all things!"