A Damsel in Distress | Page 9

see a rose nowadays, I shake its hand and say:
'Well, well, Cyril, how's everything with you? And how are Joe and
Jack and Jimmy and all the rest of the boys at home?' Do you know
how I used to put in my time the first few nights I was over here in
London? I used to hang around Covent Garden with my head back,
sniffing. The boys that mess about with the flowers there used to stub
their toes on me so often that they got to look on me as part of the
scenery."

"That's where we ought to have been last night."
"We'd have had a better time. Say, George, did you see the awful
mistake on Nature's part that Babe Sinclair showed up with towards the
middle of the proceedings? You must have noticed him, because he
took up more room than any one man was entitled to. His name was
Spenser Gray."
George recalled having been introduced to a fat man of his own age
who answered to that name.
"It's a darned shame," said Billie indignantly. "Babe is only a kid. This
is the first show she's been in. And I happen to know there's an awfully
nice boy over in New York crazy to marry her. And I'm certain this
gink is giving her a raw deal. He tried to get hold of me about a week
ago, but I turned him down hard; and I suppose he thinks Babe is easier.
And it's no good talking to her; she thinks he's wonderful. That's
another kick I have against the show business. It seems to make girls
such darned chumps. Well, I wonder how much longer Mr. Arbuckle is
going to be retrieving my mail. What ho, within there, Fatty!"
Mac came out, apologetic, carrying letters.
"Sorry, miss. By an oversight I put you among the G's."
"All's well that ends well. 'Put me among the G's.' There's a good title
for a song for you, George. Excuse me while I grapple with the
correspondence. I'll bet half of these are mash notes. I got three
between the first and second acts last night. Why the nobility and
gentry of this burg should think that I'm their affinity just because I've
got golden hair--which is perfectly genuine, Mac; I can show you the
pedigree--and because I earn an honest living singing off the key, is
more than I can understand."
Mac leaned his massive shoulders comfortably against the building,
and resumed his chat.
"I expect you're feeling very 'appy today, sir?"

George pondered. He was certainly feeling better since he had seen
Billie Dore, but he was far from being himself.
"I ought to be, I suppose. But I'm not."
"Ah, you're getting blarzy, sir, that's what it is. You've 'ad too much of
the fat, you 'ave. This piece was a big 'it in America, wasn't it?"
"Yes. It ran over a year in New York, and there are three companies of
it out now."
"That's 'ow it is, you see. You've gone and got blarzy. Too big a 'elping
of success, you've 'ad." Mac wagged a head like a harvest moon. "You
aren't a married man, are you, sir?"
Billie Dore finished skimming through her mail, and crumpled the
letters up into a large ball, which she handed to Mac.
"Here's something for you to read in your spare moments, Mac. Glance
through them any time you have a suspicion you may be a chump, and
you'll have the comfort of knowing that there are others. What were
you saying about being married?"
"Mr. Bevan and I was 'aving a talk about 'im being blarzy, miss."
"Are you blarzy, George?"
"So Mac says."
"And why is he blarzy, miss?" demanded Mac rhetorically.
"Don't ask me," said Billie. "It's not my fault."
"It's because, as I was saying, 'e's 'ad too big a 'elping of success, and
because 'e ain't a married man. You did say you wasn't a married man,
didn't you, sir?"
"I didn't. But I'm not."

"That's 'ow it is, you see. You pretty soon gets sick of pulling off good
things, if you ain't got nobody to pat you on the back for doing of it.
Why, when I was single, if I got 'old of a sure thing for the three o'clock
race and picked up a couple of quid, the thrill of it didn't seem to linger
somehow. But now, if some of the gentlemen that come 'ere put me on
to something safe and I make a bit, 'arf the fascination of it is taking the
stuff 'ome and rolling it on to the kitchen table and 'aving 'er pat me on
the back."
"How about when you lose?"
"I don't tell 'er," said Mac simply.
"You