Gigolo | Page 7

among the leaves. Nick slept.
He awoke in half an hour refreshed. He lay there, thinking of nothing--a charming gift. He found a stray peanut in his pocket and fed it to a friendly squirrel. His hand encountered the cool metal of his harmonica. He drew out the instrument, placed his coat, folded, under his head, crossed his knees, one leg swinging idly, and began to play rapturously. He was perfectly happy. He played Gimme Love, whose jazz measures are stolen from Mendelssohn's Spring Song. He did not know this. The leaves rustled. He did not turn his head.
"Hello, Pan!" said a voice. A girl came down the slope and seated herself beside him. She was not smiling.
Nick removed the harmonica from his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Hello who?"
"Hello, Pan."
"Wrong number, lady," Nick said, and again applied his lips to the mouth organ. The girl laughed then, throwing back her head. Her throat was long and slim and brown. She clasped her knees with her arms and looked at Nick amusedly. Nick thought she was a kind of homely little thing.
"Pan," she explained, "was a pagan deity. He played pipes in the woods."
"'S all right with me," Nick ventured, bewildered but amiable. He wished she'd go away. But she didn't. She began to take off her shoes and stockings. She went down to the water's edge, then, and paddled her feet. Nick sat up, outraged. "Say, you can't do that."
She glanced back at him over her shoulder. "Oh, yes, I can. It's so hot." She wriggled her toes ecstatically.
The leaves rustled again, briskly, unmistakably this time. A heavy tread. A rough voice. "Say, looka here! Get out of there, you! What the----" A policeman, red-faced, wroth. "You can't do that! Get outa here!"
It was like a movie, Nick thought.
The girl turned her head. "Oh, now, Mr. Elwood," she said.
"Oh, it's you, miss," said the policeman. You would not have believed it could be the same policeman. He even giggled. "Thought you was away."
"I was. In fact, I am, really. I just got sick of it and ran away for a day. Drove. Alone. The family'll be wild."
"All the way?" said the policeman, incredulously. "Say, I thought that looked like your car standing out there by the road; but I says no, she ain't in town." He looked sharply at Nick, whose face had an Indian composure, though his feelings were mixed. "Who's this?"
"He's a friend of mine. His name's Pan." She was drying her feet with an inadequate rose-coloured handkerchief. She crept crabwise up the bank, and put on her stockings and slippers.
"Why'n't you come out and set on a bench?" suggested the policeman, worriedly.
The girl shook her head. "In Arcadia we don't sit on benches. I should think you'd know that. Go on away, there's a dear. I want to talk to this--to Pan."
He persisted. "What'd your pa say, I'd like to know!" The girl shrugged her shoulders. Nick made as though to rise. He was worried. A nut, that's what. She pressed him down again with a hard brown hand.
"Now it's all right. He's going. Old Fuss!" The policeman stood a brief moment longer. Then the foliage rustled again. He was gone. The girl sighed, happily. "Play that thing some more, will you? You're a wiz at it, aren't you?"
"I'm pretty good," said Nick, modestly. Then the outrageousness of her conduct struck him afresh. "Say, who're you, anyway?"
"My name's Berry--short for Bernice.... What's yours, Pan?"
"Nick--that is--Nick."
"Ugh, terrible! I'll stick to Pan. What d'you do when you're not Panning?" Then, at the bewilderment in his face: "What's your job?"
"I work in the Ideal Garage. Say, you're pretty nosey, ain't you?"
"Yes, pretty.... That accounts for your nails, h'm?" She looked at her own brown paws. "'Bout as bad as mine. I drove one hundred and fifty miles to-day."
"Ya-as, you did!"
"I did! Started at six. And I'll probably drive back to-night."
"You're crazy!"
"I know it," she agreed, "and it's wonderful.... Can you play the Tommy Toddle?"
"Yeh. It's kind of hard, though, where the runs are. I don't get the runs so very good." He played it. She kept time with head and feet. When he had finished and wiped his lips:
"Elegant!" She took the harmonica from him, wiped it brazenly on the much-abused, rose-coloured handkerchief and began to play, her cheeks puffed out, her eyes round with effort. She played the Tommy Toddle, and her runs were perfect. Nick's chagrin was swallowed by his admiration and envy.
"Say, kid, you got more wind than a factory whistle. Who learned you to play?"
She struck her chest with a hard brown fist. "Tennis ... Tim taught me."
"Who's Tim?"
"The--a chauffeur."
Nick leaned closer. "Say, do you ever go to the dances at Englewood Masonic Hall?"
"I never have."
"'Jah like to go some