by W. W. Jacobs
VI
THE GLAD HAND
I
I SEE a piece in the paper where that ex-leading headliner of the oldGerman Big-Time Circuit, William Hohenzollern, him that used to appearin the spiritualistic act known as "Me and God," claims he had no handin starting those fireworks in Europe which has recently ended in aFourth of July celebration. And although myself a good American andlooking with doubt upon any statement known to be German, I am sort ofinclined to believe him. At any rate, to believe that he was not thewhole cheese in the matter, but only a sort of limp limberger, or swiss,and full of holes. Because it's my experience personally myself, that astrong personality with a clean-cut idea can usually get a thing done ifthey elect theirself boss and stick on the job until it is finished, butif they call a committee meeting and discuss the action before them,the whole idea is likely to get stalled. Why, look at Congress! Not thatI, being a mere lady of the female sect, know why or how they getstalled, or on just what. But it's a cinch they do and are, and you canprove it by any editorial page in the country. And it seems that Billythe Bone-head, confessed to the reporter, which managed to get thisSunday story printed, that a committee meeting of Yonkers or somethingwas called about the war, he, Bill the Badman, not having the bean to goto it alone, and it was them ruined the war, or so he says. Which goesto show that not alone in the theatrical and moving-picture worlds dothe heads of departments alibi their flivvers, but also in theKing-business, and it's a habit which may even yet ruin the former, asit pretty near has the latter, unless they quit shirking and deliverbetter goods. Because if the Head Has-Been had had any real thinker andhad thought up the war all by his little self and forced it on hisbook-keeper, cashier and so forth, he might of got away with it likeNapoleon and Rockefeller and Eva Tanguay and a lot of them which hasthrust riches and success upon theirselves.
But no committee can ever do that sort of thing. It takes asingle-handed personality, and I guess mabe the biggest bluff Germanyhas had to confess to is her ex-leader. He seems the A-1 example of howtrue it is that well-known tailors' ad, "Clothes make the man." Also itinspires me to invent a quotation to hang beside the famous one ofShakespeare's, I think it is "Do it now!" which you see so often, minebeing "Do it yourself!" Well, you will if you are the able one on acommittee. Everybody which has served on one knows that every committeeis composed of the one which does all the work and three to six otherswhich uses most of their vitality and imagination in thinking up excusesand offering them.
Well, anyways, the foregoing is why I simply eliminated the othermembers of my Theatrical Ladies' Committee of Welcome to Our ReturningHeroes. And eliminating them was so simple, too. I just didn't call anycommittee. And why would I, what with the knowledge I had gained throughformer experiences? Believe you me, a lady which learns by experienceis a great little time-saver, although admittedly rare, but in my lineyou don't fall out of a air-plane more than once, and any successfulpicture actress and dancer like myself will tell you the same. So as tocommittees, none for me, thanks just the same, as the man said to thesoda clerk the morning of July first, 1919 A. D., which is Latin forAnti-Drinking. Not that I will ever again try to get into thestrong-character class with the aforementioned celebrities, for areputation for doing anything well is as good as a signed contract to doit. And my advice to young girls is, don't let it be known you can doanything well or you'll have to deliver constantly. Look as ignorant aspossible whenever anything is suggested except the thing you are burningto get after, or your time will be taken up with a lot of uselessside-lines that get you nowheres. There is a person for every job if youjust let the job alone until the right person finds it. Did you evernotice the way simps which can't do a thing always get it done for them?You have! Well--from this on, here's where I look like a poor fishwhenever anybody outside of a motion-picture magnate or a theatricalmanager makes a noise like work to be done.
All the amateur stuff can be taken care of by the sweet womanly womenwho ain't got anybody to support except their dressmakers, and not by amere professional earning near a hundred thousand a year like I. Myfinal lesson on working with volunteer boards and committees is aun-wept memory, and believe you me, that Chateau Terry battle hadnothing on some of the War Relief Committee board rooms I seen inexecutive session and keep the home fires burning is right, we done it,especially the White Kittens Belgian Relief, which it's a fact we nearlysplit over whether we'd print our postcard appeals on pink or yellowcards!
Well, anyways, I suppose these relief committees was a big help to themthat was on them if not to any one else, and after all a lot of moneysomehow got left to do good with after expenses was paid. But thebiggest relief I know of come from relieving ourselfs of them reliefcommittees, and the last of all was the Welcome Home one.
I wouldn't of gone on it in the first place only I was so low in mymind. And who wouldn't be a little low even with my cheery dispositionafter such a morning as I went through, first commencing with the lossof Maude.
Not that I had ever liked her nor 'Frisco, her husband, either, butlosing her was worse than living with her any day, and when Ma come inand broke the news I wasn't in any mood for it, struggling as I was overthe joint contract which Goldringer had just sent on from Los Angeles asa nice surprise and welcome for Jim which we were expecting to hear hewould be leaving France any day now. It called for seventy-five thousandper each of us for six joint pictures, our expenses to the coast, and Iwas holding out for a car while there and a special publicity man of ourown to be paid by them, but chosen by us, meaning Rosco, which has sofaithfully let the public know every time I sneezed these last fiveyears and has a way of disguising a two column ad so's the editor thinksit's a news item.
Well, anyways, I was reading through all that foreign language portionof this contract and had waded past about a page of "to wit, viz.: partyof the first part" stuff, which sounds like it didn't mean anything,but is where they sometimes slip one over on you, when in come Ma with abig home-made cruller partly in her hand and partly in her face. She wasdreadfull agitated but had to get rid of the first part of the secondparty before she could speak, and I put in a few seconds of watchfulwaiting, wondering how could she do it, for Ma had put on at leastthirty lbs. the last few months and believe you me, she was no slifbefore then, weighing some amount she would never tell just what andanybody knows what that means with a woman. But up to just recent shehad gone through spells where she was making at least the faint motionsof dieting, or when not that, sighing and saying she hadn't really oughtto over every second helping but taking it. Do you get me? You do!
Since she had heard Jim was coming back, however, she had taken toeating everything in sight regardless. It give me real pleasure to thinkof any mother-in-law feeling that way about her daughter's husband anddancing partner coming back, for with many mothers it is nothing of thekind. So I made no remarks upon the cruller, and finally Ma give a gulpand gasped out the bad news.
"Maude is gone!" she says.
"Gone?" says I. "Whatter you mean, gone?"
"I can't find her no place!" says Ma. "And I looked everywheres!"
This give me a most unpleasant feeling down my back, and I got to myfeet in a hurry.
"Are you sure she ain't hid?" I says, "like the last time," I says.
"Come and see for yourself!" says Ma, and I went, you can bet on that!And sure enough, she wasn't in the box. Ma lifted the wire off the topand lifted out the two old sofa cushions we had put in for comfort andonly Maude's husband, 'Frisco, was there. He was as usual lying in aboutfive coils like a boiler-heater, with his wicked-looking flat head onthe top, and he stuck out his oyster fork of a tongue, and give us alittle hiss, much as to say, why was we always disturbing him. But noMaude.
"Ma!" I began, catching a guilty look on her face. "Ma Gilligan, youleft that snake out again! After all the times I ast you not to!"
"Well, it was just for a minute!" she says. "I was playing with her, andthen I thought maybe the crullers I had made was cool by th
en and I wentand got a few and when I come back she was gone!"
"Well, she's got to be found, that's all!" I snapped. "All this comesfrom you insisting on keeping in with them low circus people andboarding their acts for them!"
"But Madame Estelle had to stay with her husband when he fell offen thetrapeze and they so devoted!" says Ma. "And I didn't take the bigsnakes--the substitute is using them--but only her own dear pets whichthe landlady wouldn't leave her have in her room."
"And now one of them is loose in _my_ room!" I says, "which is thegeneral result of charity which, as the poet says, had ought to begin athome," I says. "And you know, Ma, how I feel about snakes. There'snobody in the psycopathic ward got anything on me. If only they had evena few feet instead of so many yards, I wouldn't mind them so much."
"Well, now Mary, I'm real sorry," says Ma. "But not half so sorry asMadame Estelle will be if anything happens to Maude! I'm real fond ofthe little beauty myself, and if you had been with a circus all theyears I was, you would understand her better!"
Well, believe you me, it wasn't a lack of understanding with me, it wasa religious conviction, and why not, for hadn't them beasts made troublebeginning with the original eviction of undesirable tenants, and was Ito think it likely that our own janitor would be any more lenient ifMaude was to get, say, as far as the elevator? Keeping snakes never gota tenant in right yet and loose ones might set the first of May forwardas many months as was necessary. Not to mention my own personal feelingsin the matter, which it's a fact I once broke a contract on theSmall-Time years ago because a snake-charmer come off just as I wasgoing on and I used to meet her and them in the wings every time.
Well, anyways, I will say it for Ma, she certainly turned in and helpedme make a thorough search for Maude, which was going some for a lady ofher figure. Looking for a vanished snake in a apartment meansconsiderable gymnastics, because nothing can be overlooked with safety,and I didn't want that parlor-eel slipping anything over onme--especially her cold stomach in the middle of the night across myface, for instance.
So I and Ma looked under all the furniture and in the pedalcase of thepianola and in the vases and behind the steam radiators, back of the biggold clock, inside the victrola, under the rugs, back of the pictures onthe wall and every place:--but no Maude. Finally we even took a look outin the hall, although we knew nobody had opened the front door, andafter that we opened the wall safe where we keep our diamonds in astocking, this being a compromise between Ma's habits and mycommon-sense. And then we had a peep into the ice-box where Ma found asaucer of pudding which she had someways overlooked at supper but nosnake.
And after we had felt under the bath-tub with my best lavender umbrellawhich what with the limousine it was the first use I ever had for it,and then taken a forlorn hope into the soiled-clothes hamper, we give itup, and sat down with ruined georgette blouses and perfectly wildlooking hair and all heated up like a couple of wrestlers. Any onecoming in then would of thought we had been indulging in a familydiscussion of some kind, and for a matter of that it's the truth. I saida few raw remarks about the kind of a home she run for me and I workingas hard as cider to keep it and now she left snakes around, Gawd knowswhere, and how would a artist like myself get the rest to do justice tomy work on the bomb-explosion scene in the last reel of "Bosh orBolshevik?" which I was going to be shot in only the next day, and ifshe had to support me instead of I her, she would have a right to leaveany animals or minerals around she chose, but this was my flat andalthough Gawd knew she was welcome, pretty soon we would have none if Iwas to be made a nervous wreck out of instead of the biggest nerve inpictures. Yes, I said that and a lot more pretty mean stuff as only adaughter can--for even with my refinement I am but a mere human afterall, and under the glittering success of my career is several commonhuman failings and at times I act no different from any less well-knownfemale in the bosom of my family.
So I had the last word and Ma was in wrong and went to get lunch withouta come-back out of her. Alas! Had I but canned that foolish chatter ofmine! But how could I know she was going to act like she done laterbecause of it? You can't remember forwards and if a person could, it'sten to one they'd quit before they was off the bottle and go back toHeaven whence they come, life being so full of mistakes you could ofavoided if only you had done something different from what you did!
II
Well, anyways, Ma went back to the kitchen to fix up a little snack ofwaffles and honey and poached eggs on hash and cream-cake andstrawberries with a cup of cocoa and whipped cream for a light lunch,her lunches being light about the way a "light" motor truck is, and Iwent back to my joint contract and was so mad I concluded to write intoit not alone expenses and Rosco but a cottage or bungaloo, as it iscalled in Los Angeles, while out there. With which I wrote a refined butfirm letter to Goldringer, saying this was my final word on the matterand spoke also for Jim. Then I enclosed the contract and Ma called outthe cocoa was getting cold and so I stamped and put it in the hall-slotwhich I never have a feeling any letter going down it is headed foranybody except maybe the devil, and not even him unless it don't getstuck on the way. And then I ate, though not with much appetite, whatwith expecting any moment to see Maude crawl out from some place, and Mabeing quiet to a extent not to be fully accounted for by three plates ofwaffles. It wasn't natural in her, that quiet, but I remembered thedoughnuts and laid it to the sequence. Still I tried to get her to talk,as talking, if about herself, generally cheers her quite a lot.
"Anything ail you, Ma?" I says.
"Nothing much," says Ma, lighting into the cream-cake. "Nothing to speakof."
"Tell me about it then!" I says. But Ma wouldn't. She heaved a big sighand handed me a substitute for what was really on her mind. It wassomething just as good, I credit her for that.
"You know the stuff you ordered from Schultz?" she says.
"You mean the wet goods I ordered to keep Jim from parching to deaththis summer?" I says, because although Jim is far from a real drinkingman, he having his profession of dancing always in mind even aftereleven P. M. and Gawd knows never fails to realize that soundacrobatics is the basis of all good dancing which a drunkard never yetwas, or at least not for over two seasons; still, in spite of all this,Jim is a mere male and a drink or two, especially if difficult to get,is not by any means objectionable to him. And beside he had been twoyears in France and I didn't want him to feel it had anything on Americawhen he come home, even if I had to go so far as to myself personallyreplace what Congress had taken away. Do you get me? You do! And I haddone it as far as my bank account, cellarette and the liquor-dealerpermitted. Which looked like it was going to postpone the drought quitesometime for us. And while here and there stuff like champagne andbrandy and vermouth had to be bought, like remnants on a bargaincounter--just kind of odds and ends of each--I had one satisfaction outof the buy, and that was getting a case of Old Home Rye--absolutely thelast case in the city--probably the last in the whole entire U. S. A.,and it was Jim's one best bet. A high-ball of this--just one--with hisdinner was about his exact idea of drinking, and I had calculated thatthe three gallons, taking it at his rate would last him pretty near ayear, and by that time some new vice would surely of been invented totake its place.
Well, anyways, I had ordered it and paid for it, and there wasn't anymore of it anywheres, and it and the contract with Goldringer was two ofthe best surprises I had for Jim.
"Well," says Ma. "I can't say I approve of the demon Rum coming intoour--your house, but once money is paid out, I like to see thegoods--_all_ the goods, delivered," she says.
"What's this leading up to?" I asked.
"To the way that man Schultz cheats you!" says Ma. "He didn't send theOld Home Rye!"
Believe you me, never have I been handed a meaner deal than that, no,not even the night Goldringer first heard of me and came to see mytry-out for the big time and my pink tights didn't come.
"Ma!" says I. "Why don't you call him up and find out why didn't he?"
"I've done that!" she says. "And he claims on his oath it was sent withthe rest. I spoke to the boy which brought it and then to Schultzhimself. They both claim they give it to Rudie."
Rudie was the janitor but he had missed his profession. He had ought toof been a sleight-of-hand man, for he could make things disappear in away which would of delighted a morning matinee audience, especiallythose under twelve years of age. Believe you me, though, he was neverknown to make anything grow where nothing had been before--not rabbitsor even silk handkerchiefs, but it's the truth that he had onct or twicecaused a vanished quart of cream to reappear if given a sufficientlyhard call quick enough after it was missed. And the minute I heard hewas cast for a part in my tragedy, I decided to hear him read his linesright off without no delay, because it was practically impossible thathe could of got away with more than a quart yet and I was prepared to gothrough the business of believing him when he come to the description ofhow he had dropped it by accident and too bad but it broke.
Which was all right in theory, but Rudie did nothing of the kind.Evidently so long as he was lying he had made up his mind it was aswell to be killed for a case as a quart, as the poet says, and when Isent for him and he had kept me waiting while he sifted the ashes andpounded on the steam pipes and talked to the garbage man and got a lightfrom the cop and chatted with the elevator-girl and a few little oddsand ends like that just to show me where I got off, he finally decidedto come up. Well, it was seven months to Xmas, so what could I expect?Anyways, he finally made his entrance, down R. C. to footlights, in myLouis-size drawing-room, leaving tracks behind him which Ma spotted witha angry eye as fast as he laid them, and with all the well-knowncourtesy of the proletariat he looked me in the eye.
"Well?" he says.
"Say, Trotsky!" I says, for I had never liked this bird, as he was onone continued drunk. "Look here, Lenine," I says, glad of the chance toinsult him. "A case of fine whisky at sixty dollars net seems to of beenavoidably detained in your dug-out. I expect that with a littlesearching you can stumble on it. And as for that bottle you broke byaccident, don't bother to mention it," I says, "because I am gladlydoing so for you," I says. "Only kindly find the rest and we will alsoforget about this morning's cream."
Probably I hadn't ought to of been so generous, for Rudie sort of swayeda little and give me a pleasant childlike smile out of his unshaveddoormat of a face.
"Dunno wash you mean!" he says, real pleasant.
"Jim is right about the kick in that stuff," I says, eyeing himcritically. "You certainly have a swell bun!"
"Why, Mish La Tour!" says Rudie. "Don't drink a dropsh! Never toush it."
And with that he give a sigh of disappointment in me which made theplace smell like a bar-room!
"But of coush I'll shee if itsh down stairsh!" he says.
Well, there was no use in arguing with him, I could see that all right,all right, but I left him know I wasn't swallowing any such a poor alibias his own word.
"All right, you second-hand shock absorber!" I says. "Maybe I can't joltthe truth out of you, but I will hand you one small piece of informationbefore you take your reluctant departure. You'll find that whiskey orthe cops will. And if they don't get me a judgment against you, onewill come from heaven, that's a cinch, for you not only got the stuff,but you took it off a returning soldier which is a bigger crime thanmere patriotic stealing would be," I says. "You wait and see what'llhappen to you if you don't come across! We got a long score to settle,we have, and right always wins out in the end, and that's my middlename!"
Well, he went away very proud and hurt to think I would suspect him ofsuch a crime, he being that kind of a drunk. Do you get me? Of course!Gosh! How I do hate to see a person in liquor; really, I thinkprohibition will be a good thing for all of us, and was myself onlystoring up a little, for exceptional reasons. And when a person beginstalking about federal prohibition and their constitutional rights Ican't help but wonder why they don't consider it in the physical as wellas the political sense.
Well, anyways, it was a blow to lose that Old Home, and awful irritatingon top of Maude. And then, while pulling myself into one of these newaccident-policy-destroying narrow skirts which belongs with what isthrough courtesy called my new walking suit, the hall-girl brought themail and Musette give it to me in the midst of my negligee and strugglesand I stopped dead when I seen the first letter, for it was marked"Soldier's Mail" and only one which has some one expected home and atthe same time welcome, can know how that particular mark thrills.Musette observed me register joy so she registers it too, and I toreopen the envelope forgetting the skirt which had a death-grip on myknees, and opened up the page in Jim's dear handwriting.
Did you ever come to a time in your life where you had one trouble ontop of another until it seemed like nothing more could possibly happenexcept maybe the end of the world, and then something still worse waspulled on you? You have! Well, this letter was pretty near the end ofthe world to me--at least a distinct postponement of anything whichcould with any truth be called living. For Jim wasn't coming back withthe 70th after all! As I read his words in that dear boyish handwritingof his which he never had time to learn to write better, being likemyself quicker with his feet than hands, my eyes filled with tears andI stumbled to the day-bed as good as I could with the skirt, and satdown. It seemed he had been put in charge of some special work in Parisand it might be six months before he'd get sent home! Six months! And megetting all ready for a second honeymoon inside of six weeks! Andinstead of being out in the wholesome country with me at Saratoga orLong Beach or Niagara Falls or some place, he would be in Paris! Thatwas what I had to face and any woman will readily understand myfeelings.
Believe you me, I didn't care for Maude or the Old Home or the contractor anything for over three-quarters of a hour. And I had to wash my faceand powder my nose three times after I was finally dressed on account ofbreaking down again when just completed.
Whenever a person has a real sorrow come to them the best way to do iscontrol it quick before it controls you. So after I had indulged in thewomanly weep which certainly was coming to me, I braced up and got intothe new suit with the idea of taking as brisk a walk as it would allowof. Then I put on a new hat which I had intended for my secondhoneymoon but which would never see it or him, as it would undoubtedlybe out of style by the time Europe had made up its mind one way oranother, and I was just going to leave when the bell rung and Ma come into say it was a caller.
"It's that Mr. Mulvaney from the Welcome Home Committee, the one thathad you on the 'phone yesterday," says Ma. And after a minute I kind ofcaught control of myself and says well, all right, I would see him andwent in.
Well, it sure is strange the birds they pick out for these deeds ofsynthetic patriotism. This one come from the neighborhood of FourteenthStreet and must of got his appointment of chief welcomer from the way hegive the glad hand. You would of thought he was cranking a flivver thatwouldn't crank the way he kept on shaking after any real need was past.And if he was to of greeted each of the boys the way he done me, thearmy wouldn't be demobilized in our generation! Also he had a suit onhim which spoke for itself and a watch-chain which must of posed forthem in the cartoons of Capital--do you get me? Sure! I and he had had along talk on the telephone as per above, and so as soon as he left gohis cinch on my hand, he got right down to business.
"Now, Miss La Tour--er--it--er--gives me great pleasure to think youwill take charge of the Theatrical Women's Division," he says. "Er--I ama great admirer of yours--that picture you done, 'Cleopatria,'now--great stuff!"
Well, I let that pass, because how would such a self important bird asthis know my art when he sees it, and if he enjoyed Theda, why not leavehim be? I changed the subject at once for fear he would be confusing mewith Caruso next.
"And so I'm to spend ten thousand of the hundred thousand iron-menraised by the Welcome Committee?" I says hastily. "How nice. What willit go for?"
"That is for you and your committee to decid
e," he says. "I'm sure youwill think up something tasty," he says. "And go to the limit--we needideas."
Well, anybody could see that. But I only says all right.
"I suppose you are familiar with committees?" says this humaneditorial-page-sketch.
"I'm never too familiar with anybody," I says stiffly. "But I have beenacquainted with more than one committee."
"Well, here are the papers I promised you--the general scheme and soforth. The central committee will meet as is indicated here. See you atthem. Pleased to of seen you off the screen! You certainly was fine in'Shoulder Arms'!"
And before I could get my breath he had looked at a handsome watch nobigger than a orange, humped into his coat and was off in a shower oflanguage that left me no come-back.
Believe you me, I was glad when he had squoze out through our typicalapartment hall and the gilt elevator had snapped him up. For to hand meten thousand to spend on welcoming a bunch of other women's husbandswas, to soft pedal it, rubbing it in. I was only about as upset as thatspilled milk that was cried over and no wonder at 18 cents a qt. Well,anyways, it was no light thing to face, going on with this work andJim's letter scarcely dry from my tears. But having promised over thetelephone and being given no chance to refuse in the parlour, I wouldkeep my word if not my heart from breaking.
Because, anyways, if I was simply to do nothing to occupy myself exceptmaybe a few thousand feet of fillum and rehearsing my special dance actfor the Palatial and my morning exercises and walking my five miles aday and all that quiet home stuff which gives a person too much time tothink, what would I think, except a lot of unprintable stuff about anyadministration which was keeping him in a town like Paris, France? Andthe only comfort I could see in sight was to work hard to give the boysthat _was_ coming a real welcome and remember that Jim never was askirt-hound--that I ever saw.
III
Having reached this resolve I decided to go on the walk I had mapped outanyways, because what is home with a disappeared snake in it? And so Istarted, and as I come past the door in the lower hall, which its marked"Superintendent," which is Riverside-Drivese for Janitor, what would Ihear but Rudie singing to himself out of the fullness of his heart orsomething.
I went out in wrath and the spring sun and after a while I begun tofeel less sore and miserable in my heart, partially because of the freshair and partially through irritation at the stylish trouser-leg thatboth of mine was in. But the day was too sweet for a person to stay madlong. Ain't it remarkable the way spring can creep into even a city andsomehow make it enchanted and your heart kind of perk up and takenotice--do you get me? You do, or Gawd pity you! It's the light, Iguess, just the same as the audience holds hands when they turn on theambers with a circular drop for a sunset or something.
And by the time I had walked along the Avenue and seen all thedecorations which was already put up for the first regiments home, Icommenced getting real fired and excited with my new job. It looked likethe powdered-sugar industry was going to suffer because about all theplaster in the country seemed to be being used on arches which lookedlike dago-wedding cakes and you actually missed the dolls dressed likebrides and grooms off the top of them. And here and there was some funnylooking columns of the same white stuff and on the Public Library stepsa bunch of spears and shields was thrown all over the place just as ifa big Shakespearian production had suddenly give it up in despair andleft their props and hoofed it back to Broadway. It certainly wasimposing.
Up at 59th Street was a arch that looked like Coney Island frozen solid.It was all of little pieces of glass:--heavy glass and millions ofpieces. I don't know what good they did, but they shone something grand,and must of cost a terrible lot of money. I guessed the boys wouldcertainly feel proud to march under it provided none of it fell on theirheads.
Believe you me, by the time I got home my head was full of imaginaryarchitecture like Luna Park and Atlantic City jumbled together with aset I seen in "The Fall of Rome" when we was shooting it at Yonkers. Andafter I had squirmed out of my walking suit and was a free woman oncemore, in a negligee, which is French for kimona which is Japanese forwrapper, well, anyways, I lay in it and opened up the evening paperbecause I am not one to let the news get ahead on me and have acquiredthe habit of reading it regular the same as my daily bath.
But it was hard to keep my attention on it because Maude was stillmissing and also I kept thinking, when not of her, of the lovely archesand so forth my ten thousand would build. I had about settled onpink-stucco, with real American beauties strung on it and a pair ofwhite kittens in plaster--symbol of the best known Theatrical LadiesAssociation in Broadway, and I expect the world--at the top, when Iopened the paper again and I see something which set my mind thinking.
"70th will add thousands to ranks of unemployed."
Yes, that's just what it said. And I went on and read the piece where itsaid how enough men to start a real live city was being fed atsoup-kitchens and bread lines, not in Russia or Berlin, but right in N.Y. C., N. Y., U. S. A.! Somehow, coming right on top of all their archesand so forth, it sort of struck me in the pit of my stomach and give methe same sinking sensation like a second helping of griddle-cakes a hourlater--you know! The thought of all that money going on arches thatafter they was once marched under was no good to anybody but the oneswhich built them and the ones which carted them away, had me worried.Think of all the soup that glass and plaster would of made! Do you getme? You do or you're a simp! And it also besides struck me that whilethe incoming boys would undoubtedly enjoy them city frostings, themwhich had already marched under them and was now in the bread-line mustbe kind of fed up with it. Then I thought of the ten thousand intrustedto me to spend which had been gladly given in small sections by willingcitizens who wanted to do some little thing to show appreciation to theboys which had went over there, and I begun to realize I had been told Icould spend it anyways I wanted to.
And when I thought of that pink arch and roses I blushed, althoughnobody had, fortunately, heard me mention it, except the two fool dogs,aloud.
Believe you me, I then see like a bolt from the blue, as the poet says,that arches was all right in their way but they was in the traffic's wayat best and made mighty poor eating. And so naturally with Ma having itcontinually before me, I thought of ten thousand dollars worth of eats,because while there is quite a lot of red X canteens for men in uniform,how about the poor birds which had just got out of a uniform and not yetgot into a job? Besides there is something kind of un-permanent aboutfood unless a salary to get more with follows it as a chaser.
And so I lay there in comfort all but for the thought of Maude, andfigured and figured what would I do. It seemed it was a cinch to getmoney from people to give the boys a welcome but what to spend it on wascertainly a stiff one. But after a while I commenced to get a idea.Which it's a fact I am seldom long without one when needed whichtogether with my great natural talent is what has made me the bigsuccess I am.
Work! That was the welcome the boys needed. Work and a little somethingsubstantial to start on. So this is what I figured. Suppose we was todivide up that ten thousand, how many boys would it take care of, andhow?
Say we had ten men. A thousand each. Too much, of course. Twenty men.Five hundred per ea. Still too much. Well, then forty men. Two fifty.Well, they could use it of course, but it was not a constructive idea.It was too much for a present and not enough to invest. So how about 80.Well, that was $125. per man. This was doing something pretty good byeighty men that would very likely need it, but it seemed sort of unfairnot to take in more of the boys. So I split it again and had one hundredand sixty boys with $62.50 in their pockets.
Well, I felt kind of good over this idea and there was only two realtroubles with it which is to say that $31.25 for three hundred andtwenty boys looked nicer if there was only some way to handle it right.But how?
I put in another hard think and then I got it. The way to make that$31.25 a real present was to make it a payment on something and thenwith the ot
her hand pass out a job at the same time, which would notalone keep the soldier but allow him to cover the difference.
And to get away with this all I needed now was a popular investment and320 perfectly good steady jobs.
Well, with the Victory Loan the first part was easy enough, and Iconcluded to pay twenty-five dollars on each of three hundred and twentyone hundred dollar victory notes, making myself responsible for the lotthe same as if I was a bank and getting a job for each note and havingthe giver of the job hold the note on the soldier and pay me theinstalments and I would pay myself back, or if not nobody would be stungoutside of me, supposing any one of them failed to come across. I wasgoing to take a big lot for myself and another ten didn't much matter.
And then with the remaining $6.25 each, well, I would pool that forleaflets enough to go around the whole division and on the leaflet Iwould have printed the facts and a list of the jobs and just what theywas, with how much kale per week went with them, and see that the boysgot them while the parade was forming and then it would be up to them,because the home folks can only do so much and then it's up to the armytheir own selves just as with munitions and sugar and red X work whilethe big show was on. They did the work but we gave them the job--we andthe Germans. And now all we could do again was to give them a job--andit's enough, judging from how they went after the first one.
And then, just as I come smack up against the awful fact of where wouldI get them jobs Ma come in and says the hot-dogs and liberty-cabbagewhich it's the truth we always translate them into American at ourtable, was getting cold and as long as I was paying for them I'd bettereat them while they was fit. So I says all right and we went in and didso.
Believe you me, it certainly is a remarkable thing the way you start ona afternoon's work like I done, all full of vigor and strength and howyour ideas and courage and everything will sort of leak away toward thetime to put on the feed-bag at Evensong. And how again the ideas and pepcomes back in the evening once you have eaten. There was almost perfectsilence the first few minutes we sat down or would of been except for Mataking her tea out of the saucer, which I can't learn her not to do andthe only way I keep her from disgracing me at the Ritz and etc., is tomake sure she don't order it. But when the first pangs was attended to Icommenced to feel more conversational.
"Work," I says, thinking of what I had been thinking of. "Work is theone thing that stands by a person. Everything else in life can go blueyand their work will see them through. That's why it's been so popularall these years, and where these Bolsheviks make their big mistake.Because they don't work and not working they get bored to death and sothey commence rioting. Do you remember that quotation from thatwell-known cowboy poet, Omaha Kiyim, "Satan will find business still foridle hands to do?" How good that applies to strikes--idle hands--ain'tthat perfect? And it written so long ago!"
"How long?" says Ma.
"Oh, I dunno. Maybe three hundred years," I says.
Ma laid down her knife and spoon, she being quite entirely through, andlooked me in the eye.
"I will remember them words, daughter," she says very solemn.
And it's the truth I never noticed how serious she was about it until Icome to look back on it nearly three weeks later.
IV
And during that time which has been so immortally fixed in writing bythe grandest book with the same name, I was as busy as the greatAmerican cootie is supposed to be on his native hearth--only it ain'tthat piece of furniture but another, of course. Do you get me? I'mafraid so! Well, I was as busy as what you think. To begin with I calleda committee-meeting in the privacy of my grey French enamel boudoirwhere I wear my boudoir cap and have the day-bed hitched and thiscommittee meeting consisted entirely of myself and the two fool dogs.And after I had gone through all the motions, I appointed myself asub-committee of one to carry out the meeting's resolutions and do allthe work.
This is about what would of happened if I had done it the regular wayand asked Ruby Roselle and Maison Rosabelle and the other girls. Wewould of had a mahogany table and a gavel and a pitcher of ice-water anda lot of hot-air and a wasted morning and in the end I would of been thegoat anyways, so I thought why not do it single-handed in the firstplace and be done? I could print all their names on the leaflets andthey would be perfectly satisfied.
So having got over the necessary formalities as you might say, Iaccepted the nomination and got to work. Fortunately I wasn't doinganything except a solo dance at the Palatial at supper-time and onepicture. And so I had most of my days to myself. The Fixings on theAvenue grew and blossomed and so did my contribution to the Welcome HomeCommittee. I didn't get to go to any of their meetings but I don'timagine they even missed me at the time. And while the arches and othermotion-picture scenery was being as completed as they ever would be, sowas my list. My monument took up less space, but when you gave it theonce-over it seemed maybe a little more rain-proof than the others.Apparently all there was to it was slips of paper six by eight with thisprinted on them. At the top it says:
"WELCOME HOME"
"HOWDY BOYS, AND OUR HEARTFELT THANKS!
DO YOU NEED A JOB? HERE ARE THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY AND A VICTORY NOTE
GOES WITH EVERY ONE!"
Then come the list. I will put down a part of it so you can realize whata assortment of things has to be done to keep the seive in civilization.
4 handsome juveniles for motion-picture work--stage experience unnecessary.
2 experienced camera men.
2 marcel-wavers.
6 chemists, Marie La Tour Complexion Powder Co.
2 salesmen, Marie La Tour Turkish Cigarette Co.
16 waiters, Palatial Hotel.
1 traveling man, Marie La Tour Silk Underwear Co.
2 experienced lineotypers, Motion Picture Gazette.
2 experienced pressmen, Motion Picture Gazette.
1 publicity man, experienced, Motion Picture Gazette.
3 fillum cutters.
1 stylish floorman. Must be handsome and refined, not over 30. Apply Maison Rosabelle, Hats and Gowns.
1 orchestra complete, with leader. Apply "Chez La Tour" (my old joint of parlour-dancing days).
30 chorus men.
2 sparring partners for Madame Griselda, the famous lady-boxer.
And etc, add affinities, as the Romans used to say. And every one a realgenuine job paying good money. And getting them nailed was no cinch,believe you me, except, of course, I being such a prominent person Ididn't have as much trouble as some would of. Especially where a firmwas using my name on something, they could hardly refuse me. I seeneverybody personally myself, and only the bosses and in the end nobodyhad turned me down except the one from which I had bought my newbear-cat roadster for Jim's welcome home present and it was _some_roadster, being neatly finished in pale lavender with yellowrunning-gear and a narrow red trim and tapestry upholstery on the seatswhich was so low and easy you involuntarily started to pull up theblankets after you got settled. You know, the kind of a car you have tolook up from to see which way the cop is waving.
Well, anyways, you would of thought the bird which had sold it to me forcash money, him being the manager of the luxurious car-corrall himself,would offer to take on some of the boys. But no, he says there was toomany auto salesmen in the world already, and that they had ought to bediverted into selling some of the new temperance drinks where theirtrained imagination would undoubtedly be of great value.
Well, anyways, he was the only one turned me down and I had the slipsprinted and stored away in a couple of cretone hat-boxes and commencedallotting the victory-note pledges. And then I tripped over the factthat I was a job short. There was the stuff all printed, and a job tooshort and it the night before the big parade! Well, I decided that whenthe time come I would make the extra job if I couldn't find it, andbelieve you me, I was as wore out looking for them as a Ham with hishair cut like a Greenwic
h village masterpiece. Not that I ever saw oneand I have often wondered where the artists which drew them that way,did.
But in the meantime I had got hold of the Dahlia sisters, and MadameBroun and La Estelle, and Queenie King and a lot of other easy-lookersand had it all fixed for them to be on hand below Fourteenth Street atten o'clock to give out the slips while the boys was mobilizing orwhatever they call it. And then just as I was getting into the limousinewith Musette and the two cretone hat boxes full and the two fool dogsand Ma, who would come up to me but Ruby Roselle with a new spring setof sables which it is remarkable how she does it in burlesque, still farbe it from me to say a word about any person, having been in thetheatrical world too long not to realize that it is seldom as red as itis painted and that the coating of black is only on the outside.
Well, anyways, up she comes from her new flat which is only two doorsfrom mine and a awful mean look in those green eyes of hers under asixty dollar hat that looked it, while mine cost seventy-five and lookedfifteen, which is far more refined only Ruby would never believe that:which is one main difference between her and I. And she stopped me withone of those deadly sweet womanly smiles and says in a voice all milkand honey and barbed wire, she says:
"How's this, dearie, about the Theatrical Ladies Committee," she says."I only just heard of it from Dottie Dahlia," she says. "What was itmade you leave me off?"
Well, seeing that the armistice was not yet broken I felt I might lether distribute a few leaflets, although I had left her name off thesignatures at the bottom on account of her never having proved shewasn't a alien enemy to anything besides dramatic art, which hadn't tobe proved. So I handed her a string of talk about this being a smallaffair and how I had thought she would of been too busy to do anythingjust now, which made her mad because there is some talk on account ofthat she wasn't working just then. But she took a few leaflets and readthe signature at the bottom. "Theatrical Ladies' Welcome Committee" andgot real red in the face.
"Why, my friend Mr. Mulvaney spoke to me about this!" she says. "I wasto of been treasurer, or something! Do you mean to say you spent tenthousand dollars on _them!"_ and she pointed to the leaflets like aone-act small-time.
"Yep!" I says. "Take 'em home and try 'em on your piano!" I says. "Butyou will have please to pardon me now. I got to beat it!"
And with that I climbed in with the rest of the family and we was rusheddown town to N. Y.'s Bohemian Quarter, where the 70th Division was aboutto hang around waiting to parade. Which it is certainly remarkable theplaces the highly moral U. S. A. Government picks out for her soldiersto wait about in say from Paris to Washington Square, and I think theirwives and sweethearts have stood for a good deal of this sort of thing,to say nothing of wives and sisters being kept from going abroad. Idon't know have any homes been broken up this way, but I will say thatMarsailles and Harlem would of listened better to the patiently waitinghomebodies.
Well, anyways, down we went to the amateur white lights, and by the timewe reached Twenty-Third we begun to run into bunches of the boys. Bandswas playing and all, and--oh my Gawd, what's the use trying to tellabout it? There was plenty to tell, but ain't every one _seen_ it? Ifnot at N. Y. C., why in some town which may be more jay but with itsheart in the right place, and the heart is the thing which counted thistime as per usual. Believe you me, mine was in my throat and so waseverybody elses when they seen them lean brown boys with their grown-upfaces!
Well, we stopped down to Eleventh and Sixth and got out and commencedwalking around handing out the leaflets, and at first they weren'ttaking 'em very seriously, but pretty soon they began to get on to who Iwas and of course that caught them and a good many tucked the slipsinside their tin hats and all of them pretty near had seen me in "TheKaiser's Killing" and I got pretty near as big a ovation as I had triedto offer them. And as for the parade they was very good-natured, but itseemed to me that as usual the stay-at-homes in the grandstands wasgetting the best of it and the boys doing all the work, for parading, nomore than a first-class dancing act, ain't quite the pleasure to theones that does it, that it is to them that only stands and waits, as thesaying is.
V
The crowds on the Avenue was something fierce, and the only ones whichhad the right of way, outside of officers and cops, was themotion-picture men. I seen Ted Bearson, my own camera man from theGoldringer Studios, and Rosco, my publicity man, and they was talkingtogether. I stepped back in among the boys, because I wasn't looking forany personal publicity myself on this particular day, wishing to leaveall that to the division and I knew that if Ted was to see me he wouldshoot me.
But ain't it the truth that the modester a public person like me is, themore attention they attract? My sweet, quiet voice, silent though snappyclothes, and retiring manner have been in Sunday spreads andmotion-picture magazine articles practically all over the world andAmerica, and my refinement is my best-known characteristic. Publicity islike men. Leave 'em alone and they simply chase you. Pretend you don'twant them, and you can't lose them. And the more reluctant I am aboutbeing noticed, the wilder the papers get! Only, of course, without agood publicity man this wouldn't, perhaps, be a perfectly safe bet.
So this day, having got rid of all my leaflets, I was slowly working myway toward the Avenue, when publicity was thrust upon me.
You know this Bohemian part of New York is made up of old houses whichis so picturesque through not having much plumbing and so forth and heatbeing furnished principally by the talk of the tenants on Bolshevism andetc. These inconveniences makes a atmosphere of freedom and all that andfurnishes a district where the shoe-clerk can go and be his true selfamong the many wild, free spirits from Chicago and all points west.Well, this neighborhood could stand a lot of repairs, not alone in thepersonal sense, but in a good many of the buildings, but these areseldom made until interfered with by the police or building departments.And on the corner of the street which I was now at there was a big oldhouse full of people who _did_ something, I suppose, and these weremostly bursting out through the open windows or sitting on the littlebalconies which looked like they couldn't hold a flower pot and a pintof milk with any safety much less a human. But there they was, sitting,with all the indifference to fate, for which they are so well known. Icouldn't but notice the risk they ran, but I should worry how manyradicals are killed, and so I paid but little heed until I noticed thatthere was three little kids--all ragged children of the dearproletariat--which some of the Bohemians had hauled up on a balconywhich was too frail for adults. The minute I see that balcony I wasscared to death, although the short-haired girl and the long-haired manwhich was letting the kids out on it was laughing and care-free as youplease. The kids got out all right, and then something awful happened.
Right below was a open space at the head of this particular column,where the officers and color-bearers and etc was. Rosco and Ted wasgetting a picture of them. But while I generally watch a camera, thistime I didn't on account of watching the kids. And as I looked thatrotten old balcony broke and one them, a little girl, fell through andhung there, caught by her skirt, and it a ragged one at that. Everybodyscreamed and yelled and sort of drew back, which is the first way peopleact at a horror before they begin to think. I yelled myself, but Istarted toward her, because the radicals couldn't reach her from aboveand from below the ground was fully twenty feet away and nothing but afence with spikes and a dummy window-ledge way to one side. But I had aidea I might make it for what with two generations on the center trapezeand never a drop of liquor and not to mention what I done in pictures, Ithink quicker than some and act the same. But my new skirt prevented,and ahead of me dashed a soldier.
In a minute he had scaled the wall and worked his way along the spikesto that ledge, and then while the crowd watched breathlessly he hadthat kid under one arm and was back on the wall again. He held herclose, turned around, crouched down and then jumped. And as he jumped Iscreamed and run forward, for Oh My Gawd, it was Jim!
I don't know how I got there, but when
I come to I and that scared kidwas all mixed up in his arms and the three of us crying to beat the bandwhich had struck up and the crowd yelling like mad. And it was a peachof a stunt, believe you me.
"Didn't you get my cable?" Jim says. And I says no, and we clinchedagain. And then we heard a funny, purring sound right behind and brokeloose and turned around and there was that devil of a Ted taking aclose-up!
"Hold it! Damn you, hold it another ten feet!" yells Rosco, who wasdancing around like a regulation director, just back of Ted. "Fine,Fine! Oh, boy, what a pair of smiles! Say, folks, we shot the wholescene--_some_ News Weekly Feature. Oh say, can you see me, Rosco, _the_publicity man!"
Honest to Gawd you would of thought he had gone crazy! And thatbone-headed crowd couldn't make out was the whole thing staged or real.Believe you me, I had to pinch myself to know was it real or not, butthank Gawd it was, it was! And after nearly two years! Do you know howthat feels? Give a guess! And then, just as I thought now this cruel warand everything is over, why that roughneck of a officer give the orderto fall in and of course Jim had to and left me there with that kid inmy arms for Ted to make a couple of stills for the papers.
Believe you me, I couldn't tell how many he took, or when, becauseseeing Jim so sudden and unexpected had pretty near killed me, and Icouldn't say anything much about the parade either, because somethingkept me from seeing it and I guess it was my own glad tears. Anyways, Ihad three wet handkerchiefs in my bag when I got home and one of them aperfect stranger's.
Well, of course, I expected the parade would break up when it struckHarlem and the boys would hurry right home. And did they? They _did_not! I hurried right home, all right, all right, but not so Jim. And fora long while I was sitting there in one of my trousseau dresses and afearful state of mind over what had he done to get killed since I lastseen him. But hours went by and still he didn't come. And I didn't knowhis 'phone or where he was or anything. The only clue I had that thewhole business was a fact and no dream was the cable, which had comeafter he did, saying he would be home as arranged after all.
Believe you me, I hope never to live through another twenty-four hourslike them that followed, because I couldn't eat or sleep, not knowingwhere he was.
