"Me? I wrote the words and music. Didn't you know I was a country
kid? My dad ran a Bide a Wee Home for flowers, and I used to know
them all by their middle names. He was a nursery gardener out in
Indiana. I tell you, when I 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?
"A nice pleasant gentleman, Mr. Bevan," he said. "Too bad 'e's got
the pip the way 'e 'as, just after 'avin' a big success like this
'ere. Comes of bein' a artist, I suppose."
Miss Dore dived into her vanity case and produced a puff with which
she proceeded to powder her nose.