LETTER III
IN WHICH I RING THE BELL
Dear Mom:
Well, I suppose you seen my ideas in the papers. I have never had anything so wonderful happen to me in my whole life. There it was every bit of it and all fixed up in such fine language as I could never of thought of and sounding so very very wise. And to think that this greatest Man in the whole world has said it, and every newspaper in the whole world almost has published it on the front page.Why Mom He didn’t say hardly anything else at all. He made his whole interview out of that idea I have give to His secretary. Me poor little Mamie Riggs, manicurist in the Elite Beauty Parlors with just one copper cent in her pocket this night!
That is a fact! I spent three cents for that afternoon paper so I didn’t have the price of my usual malted milk for lunch and had to take a glass of plain milk and a doughnut. But I didn’t mind that, I went back to the shop feeling so smart the girls all seen there was something and they wanted to know, “What is it, Mame, you got a new beau?” That’s all they ever think about of course.
I says, “No it ain’t that it’s something more great.” But I didn’t dare give them no hint because it’s what Mr. Edgerton calls a state secret. So Ada Higgins she wants you to call her Adaire now and did you ever hear of anything so silly, being ashamed of her origin and trying to put on side she says, “I know, it’s that swell gent that was here a few days ago. What’s his line Mame?”
And just then the phone rung and it was Mr. Edgerton calling and he wants me to have dinner with him again and of course then all the girls is buzzing like a lot of bees they never heard of such a thing as my not telling they always tell about their affairs because after all what have they got to talk about between customers with the pitiful narrow lives they live and no great ideas about world events and no way of getting behind the scenes of the political show and seeing how the actors is made up.
Well he says for me to meet him at a Chinese restaurant this time. It is over in Z street and a long ways and gee it is drizzling and I shall have wet feet when I get there. But I dassn’t try to borrow a nickle from my landlady because my rent was due four days ago and I am side-stepping because I just had to get a new scarf to hide my old dress. It is all very well for Mr. Edgerton to talk about wanting to keep close to the plain people, and the rough honesty of them and all that, but no man wants to go out to dinner with a slouch you know that Mom and it ain’t going to happen while I’m the lady. So now I’m off and tell Pop to send me some of his ideas about politics as quick as a postage stamp will bring them.
P. S. Well it was my first dinner a la Chink and we had chop suey and it is made out of chicken and something else that should be called guey instead of suey. But it ishot and very filling and that is the principal thing when you are trying to pull through and go straight on eighteen-fifty per and rents what they is in the city of Washington, D. C. Mr. Edgerton brought me home in a taxi and now I have got my feet in bed and I couldn’t go to sleep anyhow till they get warm, so I will tell you what happened.
Well of course we talked international affairs since that is the most interesting thing in the world, and what everybody talks here in high society. Mr. Edgerton says that when he told the Spokesman the great idea that I had give to him, He grunted, and that is eloquence from Him. And He told Mr. Edgerton to have it wrote out for Him and He even added a couple of sentences of His own because some of it was so important that He wanted to say it twiced.
And of course I had to be modest so I says, “I really didn’t think it was so remarkable as that, it is what anyone would say.”
And Mr. Edgerton says, “That’s it exactly. What I have to do is to find out what anyone would say and say it for them.”
“But why,” I says—“when they can just as good say it for themselves?” So he explained that people likes to have things said for them it is less trouble and it pleases them to hear their own ideas, “it is like looking at themselves in a mirror, if you understand what I mean,” says he and I says that most any woman would understand that.
And Mr. Edgerton says that the Spokesman likes to say things like the sort that I say, because it saves Him having to talk about other things that ain’t so easy for Him to think about. The reporters asks Him questions and He don’t know what to answer and then there is always people trying to get Him to do this and that and to say yes or no and He don’t like to say either nor to do neither. The Spokesman’s other name is Cautious, and He never does nothing He don’t have to and He seldom does. He says that most problems solve themselves if you let them alone.
Says I, “What that generally means is that somebody else solves them.” And Mr. Edgerton laughs and says, “Well, yes, but then if they solve them wrong it ain’t your funeral.”
And he showed me how it goes. There will be two big fellows fighting over some juicy bit of graft and they come to Washington and pull all the strings they know of each of them trying to get the Spokesman to give it to his gang. And the Spokesman listens polite to both of them and tells both of them He’ll do the best he can and then He don’t do nothingand both of them hates Him like poison and calls Him all the names they can think of. But bye and bye they get tired of quarreling and patch up some sort of agreement to divide the graft and then they go off and think it over and say to themselves by golly that Guy is a slick one, He knows how to take care of Himself and that’s the Sort we need to run the country.
Well just about that time a couple comes into the Chink restaurant a pair of swell lookers and I see they knows Mr. Edgerton. The gentleman gives him a bow and the lady too but then she gets a glimpse of me and she freezes up like she was hit by an artic cyclone and she goes by with her nose high up like an aeroplane. And I see that Mr. Edgerton is a bit flustered and don’t know what to talk about next and I says, “It seems your lady friend don’t like the way I look perhaps she thinks my hair is too decorative or some thing.” And he smiles, kind of sickish like and I says, “Let me tell you how it is if you want to have anything pretty in the gas-house district of Camden New Jersey, you have got to carry it along with you.” And he says, “Yes, I suppose so.”
I see he is badly rattled so I says, “I want you to know that I know exactly how it is and you don’t have to try to fool me or yourself. Everything is pure and sweet between us like we was the two babes in the woods but I know too you ain’t going to get Washington smart society to believe it. And I can guess how it’ll be if anybody tips off Mrs. Edgerton to the fact that her husband is doing research work among the plain people. By the way how’s the poor soul getting along?”
“Well,” he says, “just now the angina pectoris has moved on to one of her toes.”
“Well,” says I, “at least it’s getting as far away from her mind as it can and maybe it’ll move out altogether. But what I started to say is this if you think you better not see me any more—”
“No, no!” he says real anxious. “No, Miss Riggs, please don’t desert me in this crisis.”
“Crisis?” I says.
“Yes,” says he. “You see, the Elks’ convention is coming to our national capital next week and the Spokesman has got to deliver a full hour’s speech to them and you just can’t imagine how I shall be put to it to invent something different to say. Only think of it I’ve got to work up some new compliment to pay to the Constitution! And every Fourth ofJuly for a hundred and fifty years some twenty thousand orators have been warming up this old soup and putting in new flavors. Miss Riggs the great heart of the plain people has got to save me! You must tell me what to say—you and none other!”
So there I am up against it again and I wishing I could get home so as to see if a letter has come from Pop. “America,” I says, “is a great country.”
“Yes, I know,” he says, “but why? And how? What makes it that way? What—”
“Hold on,” I says, “one question at a time. It is very simple you get yourself mixed up by thinking too hard. Anybody can see that what makes America a great country is because there is so much of it. Ain’t that so?”
“Yes,” he says but kind of doubtful.
“And because there is so many people in it. Ain’t that so?”
“I suppose so,” he says but still like he didn’t.
“You take these here Elks that is coming to Washington,” I says. “Everybody knows the Elks is a great order and why? Because there is so many of them and they’ve got a pile of money and they come here and spend it and raise a hurrah and they own the town. Ain’t that so?”
Yes of course he can’t deny that is so. But still there is something eating him. “Surely Miss Riggs there must be something else—some ideas—”
“Ideas?” I says. “Don’t you worry about ideas the people will tend to that, there is enough of them. If there is one person and he has got an idea,” I says, “that is something but when there is a hundred million has got it, that’s a hundred million times as much and if you don’t think that’s so you just go and ask Kayser Bill,” I says.
And say, Mom, it was like a light begun to shine in his eyes. “Miss Riggs,” he says, “do the people really believe that?”
“Of course they believe it,” I says. “Who’s going to stop them?”
And Mom, I thought he was going to reach across the table and grab my hand in spite of his lady friend across the way shooting eye-daggers at him. “Miss Riggs,” he says, “you have saved me! You have restored my faith in the sublime principles of democracy! You have given me the theme of an immortal address a real piece of Elkoquence if you will pardon the pun. Upon these wings the Spokesman will soar to heights never before attained even by Him!”
And Mom, he is so pleased, he invites me to go home in a taxi; and how can I tell him that my feet is wet and froze, and I would of rather of walked?
Your happy
Mame.