CHAPTER VIIGETTING A JOLT FROM WESTY
You might call it time out, or suspended hostilities durin' peace negotiations, or anything like that. Anyway, Aunty has softened up to the extent of lettin' me come around once a week without makin' me assume a disguise, or crawl in through the coal chute. Course I'm still under suspicion; but while the ban ain't lifted complete she don't treat me quite so much like a porch climber or a free speech agitator.
"Remember," says she, "Friday evenings only, from half after eight until not later than ten."
"Yes'm," says I, "and it's mighty——"
"Please!" she breaks in. "No grotesquely phrased effusions of gratitude. I am merely indulging Verona in one of her absurd whims. You understand that, I trust?"
"I get your idea," says I, "and even if it don't swell my chest any, I'm——"
"Kindly refrain from using such patois," says Aunty.
"Eh?" says I. "You mean ditch the gabby talk? All right, Ma'am."
Aunty rolls her eyes and sighs hopeless. "How my niece can find entertainment in such——" Here Aunty stops and shrugs her shoulders. "Well," she goes on, "it is a mystery to me."
"Me too," says I; "so for once we're playin' on the same side of the net, ain't we! Say, but she's some girl though!"
Aunty's mouth corners wrinkle into one of them sarcastic smiles that's her specialty, and she remarks careless: "Quite a number of young men seem to have discovered that Verona is rather attractive."
"They'd have to be blind in both eyes and born without ears if they didn't," says I, "believe me!"
Oh, yes, we had a nice confidential little chat, me and Aunty did,—almost chummy, you know,—and as it breaks up and I backs out into the hall, givin' her the polite "Good evenin', Ma'am," I thought I heard a half-smothered snicker behind the draperies. Maybe it was that flossy French maid of theirs. But I floats downtown as gay and chirky as though I'd been promoted to first vice-president of something.
Course I was wise to the fact that Aunty wa'n't arrangin' any duo act with the lightsshaded soft. Not her! Even if I had an official ratin' in the Corrugated now, and a few weeks back had shunted her off from a losin' stock deal, she wa'n't tryin' to decoy me into the fam'ly. Hardly! I could guess how she'd set the stage for my weekly call, and if I found myself with anything more than a walk-on part in a mob scene I'd be lucky.
You know she's taken a house for the winter, one of them old-fashioned brownstone fronts up on Madison-ave. that some friends of hers was goin' to close durin' a tour abroad. Nothin' swell, but real comfy and substantial, and as I marches up bold for my first push at the bell button I'm kind of relieved that I don't have to stand in line.
Who should I get a glimpse of, though, as I'm handin' my things to the butler, but the favored candidate, Sappy Westlake? Yep, big as life, with his slick, pale hair, his long legs, and his woodeny face! Looked like his admission card must have been punched for eightp.m., or else he'd been asked for dinner. Anyway, he was right on the ground, thumpin' out a new rag on the piano, and enjoyin' the full glare of the limelight. The only other entry I can discover is a girl.
"My friend Miss Ull," explains Vee.
A good deal of a queen Miss Ull is too, tall and slim and tinted up delicate, but one of thesepoutin', peevish beauts that can look you over cold and distant and say "Howdy do" in such a bored, tired tone that you feel like apologizin' for the intrusion.
They didn't get wildly enthusiastic over my entrance, Miss Ull and Westy. In fact, almost before the honors are done they turns their backs on me and drifts to the piano once more.
"Do play that 'Try-trimmer-Träumerei' thing again," urges Miss Ull, and begins to hum it as Westy proceeds to bang it out.
But there's Vee, her wheat-colored hair fluffin' about her seashell ears and her big gray eyes watchin' me sort of quizzin' and impish. "Well, Mr. Private Secretary?" says she.
"When does the rest of the chorus come on?" says I.
"The what?" says Vee.
"The full panel," says I. "Aunty's planned to have the S. R. O. sign out on my evenin's, ain't she?"
At which Vee tosses her head. "How silly!" says she. "No one else is expected that I know of. Why?"
"Oh, she might think we'd be lonesome," says I. "Honest, I was lookin' for a bunch; but if it's only a mixed foursome, that ain't so bad. I got the scheme, though. She counts Westy as better than a crowd. 'Safety First'is her motto. But who's the Peevish Priscilla here, that's so tickled to see me come in she has to turn away to hide her emotion?"
"Doris?" says Vee. "Oh, we got to know her on the steamer coming back from the Mediterranean last winter. Stunning, isn't she?"
"Specially her manners," says I. "Almost paralyzin'."
"Oh, that's just her way," says Vee. "Really, she's very nice when you get to know her. I'm rather sorry for her too. Her home life is—well, not at all congenial. That's one reason why I asked her to visit me for a week or so."
"That's the easiest thing you do, ain't it," says I, "bein' nice to folks that ain't used to it?"
"Thank goodness," says Vee, "someone has discovered my angelic qualities at last! Go on, Torchy, think of some more, can't you?" And she claps her hands enthusiastic.
"Quit your spoofin'," says I, "or I'll ring for Aunty and tell how you've been kiddin' the guest of honor. I might talk easier too, if we could adjourn to the window alcove over there. No rule against that, is there?"
Didn't seem to be. And we'd have had a perfectly good chat if it hadn't been for Doris. Such a restless young female! First she wants to drum something out on the piano herself.Then she must have Vee come show her how it ought to go. Next she wants to practice a new fancy dance, and so on. She keeps Westy trottin' around, and Vee comin' and goin', and things stirred up gen'rally. One minute she's gigglin' hysterical over nothin' at all, and the next she's poutin' sulky.
Anyway, she managed to queer the best part of the evenin', and I'd just settled down with Vee in a corner when the big hall clock starts to chime ten, and in through the draperies marches Aunty. It ain't any accidental droppin' in, either. She glances at me stern and suggestive and nods towards the door. So it was all over!
"Say," I whispers to Vee as I does a draggy exit, "if Doris is to be with us again, would you mind my bringin' a clothesline and ropin' her to the piano?"
Maybe it wa'n't some discouragin' a week later to find the same pair still on the job, with Doris as much of a peace disturber as ever. I got a little more of her history sketched out by Vee that night. Seems that Doris didn't really belong, for all her airs. Her folks had only lived up in the West 70's for four or five years, and before that——
"Well, you know," says Vee, archin' her eyebrows expressive, "on the East Side somewhere."
You see, Father had been comin' strong in business of late,—antiques and house decoratin'. I remember havin' seen the name over the door of his big Fifth-ave. shop,—Leo Ull. You know there's about five hundred per cent, profit in that game when you get it goin', and while Pa Ull might have started small, in an East 14th Street basement, with livin' rooms in the rear, he kept branchin' out,—gettin' to Fourth-ave., and fin'lly to Fifth, jumpin' from a flat to an apartment, and from that to a reg'lar house.
So the two boys went to college, and later on little Doris, with long braids down her back and weeps in her eyes, is sent off to a girls' boardin' school. By the time her turn came too, the annual income was runnin' into six figures. Besides, Doris was the pet. And when Pa and Ma Ull sat down to pick out a young ladies' culture fact'ry for her the process was simple. They discarded all but three of the catalogues, savin' them that was printed on the thickest paper and havin' the most halftone pictures, and then put the tag on the one where the rates was highest. Near Washington, I think it was; anyway, somewhere South,—board and tuition, two thousand dollars and up; everything extra, from lead pencils to lessons in court etiquette; and the young ladies limited to ten new evenin' dresses a term.
Maybe you've seen products of such exclusive establishments? And if you have perhaps you can frame up a faint picture of what Doris was like after four years at Hetherington Hall and a five months' trip abroad chaperoned by the Baroness Parcheezi. No wonder she didn't find home a happy spot after that!
"Her brothers are quite nice, I believe," says Vee. "They're both married, though. Mr. Ull is not so bad, either,—a little crude perhaps; but he has learned to wear a frock coat in the shop and not to talk to lady customers when he has a cigar between his teeth. But Mrs. Ull—well, she hasn't kept up, that's all."
"Still on East 14th Street, eh?" says I.
Vee admits that nearly states the case. "And of course," she goes on, "she doesn't understand Doris. They don't get on at all well. So when Doris told me how lonely and unhappy she was at home and begged me to visit her for a week in return—well, what could I do? I'm going back with her Monday."
"Then," says I, "I see where I cut next Friday off the calendar."
"Unless," suggests Vee, droppin' her long eyelashes coy, "you were not too stupid to think of——"
"Say," I breaks in, "gimme that number again, will you? Suppose I could duck meetin' Westy if I came the first evenin'?"
"If you're at all afraid of him, you shouldn't run the risk," comes back Vee.
"Chance is my middle name," says I. "Only him stickin' around does make a room so crowded. I didn't know but he might miss a night occasionally."
Vee sticks the tip of her tongue out. "Just two during the last ten days, if you want to know," says she.
"Huh!" says I. "Must think he holds a season ticket."
I couldn't make out, either, what it was that Vee seems so amused over; for as near as I can judge she was never very strong for Sappy herself. Maybe it was just a string she was handin' me.
Havin' decided on that, I waits patient until eight-fifteen Monday evenin', and then breezes cheery and hopeful through the Ulls' front door and into the front room. No Westy in sight, or anybody else. The maid says the young ladies are in somewhere, and she'll tell 'em I've come.
So I wanders about amongst the furniture, that's set around almost as thick as in a showroom,—heavy, fancy pieces, most likely ones that had been sent up from the store as stickers. The samples of art on the walls struck me as a bit gaudy too, and I was tryin' to guess how it would seem if you had to livein that sort of clutter continual, when out through the slidin' doors from the lib'ry appears Sappy the Constant.
"The poor prune!" thinks I. "I wonder if I've got time to work up some scheme of puttin' the skids under him?"
But instead of givin' me the haughty stare as usual he rushes towards me smilin' and excited. "Oh, I say!" he breaks out. "Torchy, isn't it? Well, I—I've got a big piece of news."
"I know," says I. "Someone's told you that the Panama Canal's full of water."
"No, no!" says he. "It—it's about me. Just happened, you know. And really I must tell someone."
I had a choky sensation in my throat about then, and my breath came a little short; but I managed to get out husky, "Well, toss it over."
Westy beams grateful. "Isn't it wonderful?" says he. "I—I've got her!"
"Eh?" I gasps, grippin' a chair back.
"She just told me," says he, "in there. She's—she's wearing my ring now."
Got me right under the belt buckle, that did. I felt wabbly and dizzy for a second, and I expect I gawps at him open faced. Then I takes a brace. Had to. I don't know how well I did it either, or how convincin' it sounded, butI found myself shakin' him by the mitt and sayin': "Congratulations, Westlake. You—you've got a girl worth gettin', believe me!"
"Thanks awfully, old man," says he, still pumpin' my arm up and down. "I can hardly realize it myself. Awfully bad case I had, you know. And now, while I have the courage, I suppose I'd best see her mother."
"Wha-a-at?" says I, starin' at him.
"I know," says he, "it isn't being done much nowadays, but somehow I think I ought. You know I haven't even met Mrs. Ull as yet."
I hope he was so fussed he didn't notice that sigh of relief I let out; for I'll admit it was some able-bodied affair,—a good deal like shuttin' off the air in a brake connection, or rippin' a sheet. Anyway, I made up for it the next minute.
"You and Doris, eh?" says I, poundin' him on the back hearty. "Ain't you the foxy pair, though? Well, well! Here, let's have another shake on that. But why not see Father and tell him about it? Know the old gent, don't you?"
"Ye-e-es," says Westy, flushin' a bit. "But he—well, he's her father, of course. She can't help that. And it makes no difference at all to me if he isn't really refined—not a bit. But—but I'd rather not talk to him just now. I—I prefer to see Mrs. Ull."
I can't say just what I felt so friendly and fraternal to him about then; but I did. "Westy," says I, "take my advice about this hunch of yours to see Mother. Don't!"
"But really," he insists, "I must tell one or the other, don't you see. And unless I do it right away I know I never can at all. Besides I've made up my mind that Mrs. Ull ought to be the first to know. I—I'm going to ring for the maid and ask to see her."
"Good nerve!" says I, slappin' him on the shoulder. "In that case I'll just slip into the back room there and shut the door."
"Oh, I say!" says he, glancin' around panicky. "I—I wish you'd stay. I—I don't fancy facing her alone. Please stay!"
"It ain't reg'lar," says I.
"I don't care," says Westy, pleadin'. "You could sort of introduce me, you know, and—and help me out if I got stuck. You would, wouldn't you?"
And it was amazin' how diff'rent I felt towards Westy from five minutes before. His best friend couldn't have looked on him fonder, or promised to stand by him closer. I calls the maid myself, discovers that Mrs. Ull is in the upstairs sittin' room, and sends the message that Mr. Westlake would like to see her right off about something important.
"But you got to buck up, my boy," says I;"for from all the dope I've had you've got a jolt comin' to you."
That wa'n't any idle rumor, either. He'd hardly begun pacin' restless in and out among the chairs and tables before we hears a heavy pad-pad on the stairs, and the next thing we know the lady is standin' in the door.
Not such an awful stout old party as I'd looked for, nor she didn't have such a bad face; but with the funny way she has her hair bobbed up, and the weird way her dress fits her, like it had been cut out left-handed in a blind asylum—well, she's a mess, that's all. It's an expensive lookin' outfit too, and the jew'lry display around her lumpy neck and on her pudgy fingers was enough to make you blink; but somehow it all looked out of place.
For a second she stands there fingerin' her rings fidgety, and then remarks unexpected: "It's about Doris, ain't it? Well, young feller, what is it you got on your mind?"
And all of a sudden I tumbles to the fact that she's lookin' straight at me. Then it was my turn to go panicky. "Excuse me, Ma'am," says I hasty, "but that's the guilty party, the one over by the fireplace. Mr. Westlake, Ma'am."
"Oh!" says she. "That one, eh? Well, let's have it!" and with that she paddles over to a high-backed, carved mahogany chair and settlesherself sort of grim and defiant. I almost had to push Westy to the front too.
"I expect you've talked this all over with her father, eh?" she goes on. "I'm always the last to get wise to anything that goes on in this house, specially if it's about Doris. Come, let's have it!"
"But I haven't seen Mr. Ull at all," protests Westy. "It—it's just happened. And I thought you ought to know first. I want to ask you, Mrs. Ull, if I may marry Doris?"
We wa'n't lookin' for what come next, either of us; her big red face had such a hard, sullen look on it, like she knew we was sizin' her up and meant to show us she didn't give a hoot what we thought. But as Westy finishes and bows real respectful, holdin' out his hand friendly, the change come. The hard lines around her mouth softens, the narrowed eyes widen and light up, and her stiff under jaw gets trembly. A tear or so trickles foolish down the side of her nose; but she don't pay any attention. She's just starin' at Westy.
"You—you wanted me to know first, did you?" says she, with a break in her shrill, cackly voice. "Me?"
"I thought it only right," says Westy. "You're Doris's mother, you know, and——"
"Good boy!" says she, reachin' out after one of his hands and pattin' it. "I'm glad you didtoo. Doris, she's got too fine for her old mother. That ain't so much her fault as it is mine, I expect. I'm kind of rough, and a good deal behind the times. I ain't kept up, not even the way Leo has. But then, I ain't had the chance. I've been at home, lookin' after the boys and—and Doris. I saw she was gettin' spoiled; but I didn't have the heart to bring her home and stop it. She's young, though. She'll get over it. You'll help her. Oh, I know about you. Quite a young swell, you are; but I guess you're all right. And I'm glad for Doris. Maybe too, she'll find out some day that her rough old mother, who got left so far behind, thinks a lot of her still. You—you'll tell her as much some time perhaps. Won't you?"
Say, take it from me, I was so misty in the eyes about then, and so choky under my collar, that I couldn't have done it myself. But Westy did. There's a heap more to him than shows on the outside.
"Mrs. Ull," says he, "I shall tell Doris all of that, and much more. And I'm sure that both of us are going to be very fond of you. And if you don't mind, I'm going to begin now to call you Mother."
Yes, I was gettin' a little uneasy at that stage. I hadn't counted on bein' let in for quite such a close fam'ly scene. And when the two girls showed up with their arms lockedabout each other, and Vee leads Doris up to Mother Ull, and they goes to a three-cornered clinch, sobbin' on one another's shoulder—well, I faded.
On the way home I was struck by a sudden thought that trickled all the way down my spine like a splinter of ice. "If I ever had the luck to get that far," thinks I, "would I have to go through any such an act with Aunty? Hel-lup, Hubert! Hel-lup!"
CHAPTER VIIISOME GUESSES ON RUBY
Well, I'm shocked at Ruby, that's all. Also I'm beginnin' to suspicion I ain't such a human-nature dope artist as I thought, for I've made at least three fruity forecasts on Ruby, and the returns are still comin' in.
My first frame-up was natural enough. When this goose-necked young female with the far-away look in her eyes appeared as No. 7 in our batt'ry of lady typists, and I heard Mr. Robert havin' a séance tryin' to dictate some of the mornin' correspondence to her, I swung round with a grin on my face and took a second look. She was fussed and scared.
No wonder; for Mr. Robert has a shorthand system of his own that he uses in dictatin' letters. He'll reel off the name and address all right, and then simply sketch in what he wants said, without takin' pains to throw in such details as "Replying to yours of even date," or "We are in receipt of yours of the 20th inst." And the connectin' links he always leaves to the stenog.
Course that don't take much bean after they get used to his ways; but this fairy in the puckered black velvet waist and the white linen cuffs hadn't been on the Corrugated staff more 'n three days, and this was her first tryout on private officework. She'd been told to read over the last letter fired at her, and she was doin' it like this:
Baily, Banks & Baker, Something-or-other Chestnut, Philadelphia. Look up the number, will you? Gentlemen—and so on. Ah—er—what's that note of theirs? Oh, yes! Shipments of ore will be resumed—
Baily, Banks & Baker, Something-or-other Chestnut, Philadelphia. Look up the number, will you? Gentlemen—and so on. Ah—er—what's that note of theirs? Oh, yes! Shipments of ore will be resumed—
Which was where Mr. Robert stops her. "Pardon me," says he, "but before we go any further just how much of that rubbish do you mean to transcribe?"
"Why," says Ruby, starin' at him vacant, "I—I took down just what you said."
"Mm-m-m!" says he sarcastic. "My error. And—er—that will be all." Then, when she's gone, he growls savage: "Delightful, eh? You noticed her, didn't you, Torchy?"
"The mouth breather?" says I. "Sure! That's Ruby. Nobody home, and the front door left open. One of Piddie's finds, I expect."
"Ring for him, will you?" says Mr. Robert.
Poor Piddie! He was almost as fussed as Ruby had been. He admits takin' her on, but insists that she brought a good letter from someWestern mill concern and was a wonder at takin' figures.
"Keep her on them and out of here, then," says Mr. Robert. "And if you love peace, Mr. Piddie, avoid sending her to the governor."
Which was a good hunch too. What Old Hickory would have remarked if them letters had got to him it ain't best to imagine. Besides, that stare of Ruby's would have got on his nerves from the start; for it's the weirdest, emptiest, why-am-I-here look I ever saw outside a nut fact'ry. Kind of a hauntin' look too. I couldn't help watchin' for it every time I passes through the front office, just to see if it had changed any. And it didn't—always the same!
Then here one day when I has to cook up some tabulated stuff for the Semiannual me and Ruby had a three-hour session together, me readin' off long strings of numbers, and her thumpin' 'em out on the keys. We got along fine too, and when I says as much at the finish she jars me almost speechless by shootin' over a shy, grateful look and smilin' coy.
From then on it was almost a case of friendly relations between me and Ruby, conducted on the basis of about two smiles a day. Poor thing! I expect them was about the only friendly motions she went through durin' business hours; for she didn't seem to mix at allwith the other lady typists, and as for the young sports around the shop—well, to them Ruby was a standin' joke.
And you could hardly blame 'em. Them back-number costumes of hers looked odd enough mixed in with all the harem effects and wired-neck ruffs that the others wore down to work. But when it come to doin' her hair Ruby was in a class by herself. No spit curls or French rolls for her! She sticks to the plain double braid, wound around her head smooth and slick, like the stuff they wrap Chianti bottles in, and with her long soup-viaduct it gives her sort of a top-heavy look. Sort of dull, ginger-colored hair it is too. Besides that she's a tall, shingle-chested female, well along in the twenties, I should judge, and with all the earmarks of bein' an old maid.
So shock No. 2 is handed me when I discovers how the high-shouldered young husk with the wide-set blue eyes, that I'd seen hangin' round the Arcade on and off, was really waitin' for Ruby. Uh-huh! I stood and watched 'em sidle up to each other and go driftin' out into Broadway hand in hand. A swell pair they'd make for a Rube vaudeville act! Honest, with a few make-up touches, they could have walked right on and had the gallery with 'em!
Believe me, I couldn't miss a chance to josh Ruby some on that. I shoves it at her next daywhen I comes back early from lunch and finds her brushin' her sandwich crumbs into the waste basket.
"Now don't spring any musty first-cousin gag on me," says I; "for it don't go with the fond, palm-pressin' act. Steady comp'ny, ain't he?"
Which was where you'd expect her to turn pink in the ears and let loose a giggle. But not Ruby. She's a solemn, serious-minded party, Ruby is. "Do you mean Mr. Lindholm?" says she.
"Heavings!" says I. "Do you have relays of 'em? I'm referrin' to the stocky-built young Romeo that picked you up at the door last night."
"Oh, yes," says she placid, "Nelson Lindholm. We had Sanskrit together."
"Eh?" says I. "Sans-which? What kind of a disease is that?"
"It's a language," explains Ruby. "We were in the same class. I thought it might help me in my foreign mission work. I'm sure I don't know why Nelson took it, though. He was studying electrical engineering."
"Maybe it was catchin', at that," says I. "Where was all this?"
"At the Co-ed," says Ruby. "But then I'd known Nelson before. He's from Naukeesha too."
"Come again," says I. "From what?"
"Naukeesha," repeats Ruby, just as if it was some common name like Patchogue or Hoboken.
"Is that an island somewhere," says I, "or just a mixed drink?"
"Why," says she, "it's a town; in Wisconsin, you know."
"Think of that!" says I. "How they do mess up the map! What's it like, this Naukeesha?"
And for the first time Ruby shows some traces of life. "It's nice," says she, "real nice. Not at all like New York."
"Ah come, not so rough!" says I. "What you got special against our burg here?"
Ruby lapses back into her vacant stare and sort of shivers. "It's so big and—and whirly!" says she. "I don't like things to be whirly. Then the people are so strange, and their faces so hard. If—if I should fall down in one of those crowds, I'm sure they would walk right over me, trample on me, without caring."
"Pooh!" says I. "You'll work up a rush-hour nerve in a month or so. Of course, havin' always lived in a place like Naukeesha——"
"But I haven't," corrects Ruby. "I was born in Kansas."
"As bad as that!" says I. "And your folks moved up there later, eh?"
"No," says she. "They—they—I lost them there. A cyclone, you know."
"You don't mean," says I, "that—that——"
"Yes," says she, "Mother, Father, and my two brothers. We were all together when it struck; that is, I was just coming in from the kitchen. I'd been shutting the windows. I saw them all go—whirled off, just like that. The chimney fell, big beams came down, then it was all smoky and dark. I must have been blown through a window. My face was cut a little. I never knew. Neighbors found me in a field by a stump. They found the others too—laid them side by side in the wagon shed. Nothing else was left standing. It's dreadful, being in a cyclone—the roar, you know, and things coming at you in the dark, and that feeling of being lifted and whirled. I was only twelve; but I—I can't forget. And when I'm in big, noisy places it all comes back. I suppose I'm silly."
Was she? Say, what's your guess about that? And, take it from me, I didn't wonder any more at that stary look of hers. She'd seen 'em all go—four of 'em. Good-night! I talked easy and soothin' to Ruby after that.
"Then I went up to live with Uncle Edward at Naukeesha," she trails along. "He's a minister there. It was he who suggested my going into foreign mission work. I had to do something,you know, and I'd always been such a good scholar. I love books. So I studied hard, and was sent to the Co-ed. But the languages took so much time. Then I had to skip several terms and work to help pay my expenses. I worked during vacations too, at anything. Now I'm waiting for a field. They send you out when there's a vacancy."
"How about Nelson?" says I. "He's goin' to be a missionary too?"
"He doesn't want me to go," says Ruby, shakin' her head. "That is why he came on. He had charge of the electric light plant too, a good place. And here he gets only odd jobs. I tell him he's silly to stay. I can't see why he does."
"Asked him, have you?" says I.
"Why, no," says Ruby.
"Shoot it at him to-night," says I.
But she shakes her head, opens her notebook, and feeds in a copyin' sheet as the clock points to 1. I looks up just in time to catch a couple of them cheap bondroom sports nudgin' each other as they passes by. Thought I'd been joshin' the Standin' Joke, I expect. Well, that's the way I started in, I'll admit.
It's only a day or so later I has the luck to run across Oakley Mills. Something had come up that needed to be passed on by Mr. Robert, and as he was still out lunchin' I scoutsover to his club, and finds him stowed away at a corner table with this chatty playwright party.
He's quite a swell, Oakley is, you know; and I guess with one Broadway hit in its second year, and a lot of road comp'nies out, he can afford to flit around under the white lights. Him and Mr. Robert has always been more or less chummy, and every now and then they get together like this for a talkfest. As Mr. Mills seems to be right in the middle of something as I drifts in, Mr. Robert waves me to a chair and signals him to keep on, which he does.
"It's a curious mess, that's all," says Oakley, spreadin' out his manicured fingers and shruggin' his shoulders under his Donegal Norfolk. "I'm not sure if the new piece will ever go on."
"Another procrastinating producer?" asks Mr. Robert careless.
"No, a finicky author this time," says Oakley. "You see, there is one part, a character part, which I'm insisting must be cast right. It seemed easy at first. But these women of our American stage! No training, no facility, no understanding! Not one of them can fill it, and we've tried nearly a dozen. If I could only find the original!"
"Eh?" says Mr. Robert, who's been payin'more attention to manipulatin' the soda siphon than to Oakley's beefin'. "What original?"
"The dumbest, woodenest, most conscientious young female person it has ever been my lot to meet," goes on Mr. Mills. "Talk about your rare types! You should have known Faithful Fannie (my name for her, you know). It was out in the Middle West last summer. I had two or three weeks' work to do on the new piece, revising it to fit Amy Dean. All stars of that magnitude demand it, you understand.
"Well, I should have stayed right here until it was done, but some Chicago friends wanted me to go with them up into the lake region, promised me an ideal place to work in—all that. So I went. I might have had better sense. You know these bungalow colonies in the woods—where they live in fourteen-room log cabins, fitted with electric lights and English butlers? Bah! It was bridge and tennis and dancing day and night, with a new mob every week-end. Work? As well try it in the middle of the Newport Casino.
"So I hunted up a little third-rate summer hotel a mile or so off, where the guests were few and the food wretched, and camped down with my mangled script and my typewriter. There I met Fannie the Unforgetful. She was the waitress I happened to draw out of a joblot. I suppose it was her début at that sort of thing. For the sake of hungry humanity I hope it was. What she did not know about serving was simply amazing; but her capacity for absorbing suggestions and obeying orders was profound. 'Could I have a warm plate?' I asked at the first meal. 'Oh, certainly, Sir,' says Fannie, and from then on every dish she brought me was piping hot, even to the cold-meat platter and the ice cream saucer. It was that way with every wish I was rash enough to express. Fannie never forgot, and she kept to the letter of the law.
"Also she would stand patiently and watch me eat. That is, she would fix her eyes on me intently, never moving, and keep them there for a quarter of an hour at a time. A little embarrassing, you know, to be so constantly observed. She had such big, stary eyes too, absolutely without any expression in them. To break the spell I would order things I didn't want, just to get her out of the way for a moment or so while I snatched a few unwatched bites. You know how it is? There's green corn. Now I like to tackle that with both hands; but I don't care to be closely inspected while I'm at it. I used to fancy that her gaze was somewhat critical. 'Good heavens, Girl!' I said one day. 'Can't you look somewhere else—at the ceiling, or out of the window?' Shechose the ceiling. It was a bit weird to have her stationed opposite me, her eyes rolled heavenward. Uncanny! It attracted the attention of the other guests. But it was something of a relief. I could watch her then.
"There was something fascinating about Faithful Fannie, though, as there is about all unusually plain persons. Not that she was positively homely. Her features were regular enough, I suppose. But she was such a tall, slim, colorless, neutral creature! And awkward! You've seen a young turkey, all legs and neck, with its silly head bobbing above the tall grass? Well, something like that. And as I never read at my meals I had nothing else to do but study that sallow, unmoving face of hers with its steady, emotionless, upward gaze. Was she thinking? And what about! Who was she? Where had she come from?
"A haunting face, Fannie's was; at least, for me. It became almost an obsession. I could see it as I sat down to my work. And the first thing I knew I was writing Fannie into my play. There was a maid's part in it,—the conventional, table-dusting, note-carrying, tea-serving maid, with not half a dozen words to speak. But before I knew it this insignificant part had become so elaborated, I had sketched in Fannie's personality so vividly, that the whole action and theme of the piece were revolvingabout her—hinged on her. I couldn't seem to stop, either. I wrote on and on and—well, by Jove! it ended in my turning out something entirely different from that which I had begun. The original skeleton is still there, the characters are the same; but the values have exchanged places. This is a Fannie play through and through. And it's good, the biggest thing I've done; but——" Once more Oakley shrugs his shoulders and ends with a deep sigh.
"Rubbish!" says Mr. Robert. "You and your artistic temperament! What's the real trouble, anyway?"
"As I've tried to make clear to your limited and wholly commercialized intelligence," comes back Mr. Mills, "I have created a character which is too deep and too subtle for any available American actress to handle. If I could only find the original now, with her tractable genius for doing exactly what she was told——"
"Why not send out for her, then?" asks Mr. Robert.
"As though I hadn't!" says Oakley. "Two weeks ago I located the hotel manager in Florida and wired him a full description of the girl. All I got from him was that he'd heard she was somewhere in New York."
"How simple!" says Mr. Robert. "Here is my young friend Torchy, with wits even morebrilliant than his hair. Ask him to find Fannie for you."
"A girl whose name I don't even know!" protests Oakley. "How in blazes could anyone trace a——"
"I'll bet you the dinners," cuts in Mr. Robert, "that Torchy can do it."
"Taken," says Mr. Mills, and turns to me brisk. "Now, young man, what further details would you like?"
"Don't happen to have a lock of her hair with you?" says I, grinnin'.
"Alas, no!" says he. "She favored me with no such mark of her esteem."
"Was it kind of ginger-colored," says I, "and done in a braid round her head?"
"Why—er—I believe it was," says he.
"And didn't she have sort of droopy shoulders," I goes on, "and a trick of starin' vague, with her mouth part way open?"
"Yes, yes!" says he eager. "But—but whom are you describing?"
"Ruby Everschott," says I. "Come down to the Corrugated and take a look."
Course it seemed like a 100 to 1 chance, but when I got the Wisconsin part of his yarn, and tacked it onto the rest, it didn't seem likely one State could produce two such specimens. Inside of fifteen minutes the three of us was strollin' casual through the front offices.
"Glance down the line of lady typists," I whispers to Oakley.
"By George!" says he gaspy. "The one at the far end?"
"You win," says I.
"And you also, my young wizard," says Oakley.
"I'll have her sent into my private office," suggests Mr. Robert.
And once more I was lookin' for some startled motions from Ruby when she discovers Mr. Mills. But in she comes, as woodeny and stiff as ever, goes to her little table, and spreads out her notebook, without glancin' at any of us.
"Pardon me, Miss Everschott," says Mr. Robert, "but—er—my friend Mills here fancies that he—er—ah—oh, hang it all! you say it, Oakley."
At which Mr. Mills steps up smilin'. I should judge he was a fairly smooth, high-polished gent as a rule; but after Ruby has turned that stupid, stary look on him, without battin' an eyelash or liftin' an eyebrow, the smile fades out. She don't say a word or make a move: just continues to stare. As for Oakley, he shifts uneasy on his feet and flushes up under the eyes.
"Well?" says he. "I trust you remember me?"
Ruby shakes her head slow. "No, Sir," says she.
"Eh?" says Oakley. "Weren't you a waitress at the Lakeside Hotel last summer?"
"Certainly, Sir," says Ruby.
"And didn't you bring me my meals three times a day for four mortal weeks?" he insists.
"Did I?" says Ruby, starin' stupider than ever.
"Great Scott, young woman!" breaks out Oakley. "Didn't you look at me long enough and steadily enough to remember? Don't you recall I was disagreeable enough to ask you not to watch me eat?"
"Oh!" says Ruby, a flicker of almost human intelligence in her big eyes. "The one who wanted hot plates!"
"At last," says Oakley, "I am properly identified. Yes, I am the hot-plate person."
"You had tea for breakfast too, didn't you?" asks Ruby.
"Always," says he. "An eccentricity of mine."
"And you put salt on your muskmelon, and wanted your eggs opened, and didn't like tomato soup," adds Ruby, like she was repeatin' a lesson.
"Guilty on all three counts," says Mr. Mills.
"I tried to remember," says Ruby, sort of meek.
"Tried!" gasps Oakley. "Why, you made an art of it. You never so much as—— But tell me, was it those foolish little whims of mine you were thinking so hard about while you stood there gazing so intently at me?"
Ruby nods; a shy, bashful little nod.
Mr. Mills makes a low bow. "A thousand pardons, my dear young lady!" says he. "I stand convicted of utter selfishness. But perhaps I can atone."
And with that he proceeds to put his proposition up to her. He tells her about the play, the trouble he's had tryin' to fit one special part, and how he's sure she could do it to a T. He asks her to give it a try.
"Go on the stage!" says Ruby, her big eyes starin' at him like he'd asked her to jump off the Metropolitan Tower. "No, I don't think I could. I'm going to be a foreign missionary, you know."
"A—a what?" gasps Oakley. "Missionary! But see here—that can wait. And in one season on the stage you could make——"
Well, I must say Oakley argued it well and put it strong; but he'd have produced just as good results if he'd been out in the square askin' the bronze statue of Lafayette to hand him down a match. Ruby drops back into hervague gazin' act and shakes her head. So at last he ends by askin' her to think it over for a day, and Ruby goes back to her desk.
"How absurd!" growls Oakley. "But I simply must have her. Why, we would pay her three hundred dollars a week."
I catches my breath at that. "Excuse me if I seem to crash in," says I, "but was that a gust of superheated air, or did you mean it?"
"I should be glad to submit a contract to Miss Everschott on those terms," says he.
"Then leave it to me," says I; "that is, to me and Nelson."
Did we win Ruby? Say, with our descriptions of what three hundred a week might mean in the way of Christmas presents to Uncle Ed, and donations to the poor box, and a few personal frills on the side, we shot that foreign missionary scheme so full of holes it looked like a last year mosquito bar at the attic window.
"But I'm sure I sha'n't like it at all," says Ruby as she signs her name.
I didn't deny that. I knew she was in for a three weeks' drillin' by the roughest stage manager in the business. You know who. But he can deliver the goods, can't he? He makes the green ones act. Look at what he did with Ruby! Only it don't seem like actin' at all. She's just Ruby, in the same puckered waist, her hairmopped around her head in the same silly braid, and that same stary look in her big eyes. But it gets 'em strong. Packed every night!
I meets Nelson here only yesterday, and he was tellin' me. Comin' along some himself, Nelson is. He's opened an office and is biddin' for big jobs.
"I've just landed my first contract," says he.
"Good!" says I. "What's it for?"
"A fifty-foot, twenty-thousand-candle-power sign over the theater," says he, "with Ruby's name in it. She's signed up for another year, you know."
"Well, well!" says I. "Then it's all off with the heathen, eh?"
And Nelson he drifts up the street wearin' a grin.