Torchy and Vee
about how one looks. It has been a long time since I've given it a
thought. But now--Well, it's different. Seeing that picture. No, I can't
ask it of you."
"Mr. Ellins will ask me, though, when he gets back," says I. "Besides, I
don't mind. Maybe you are a little overweight, but I'm beginnin' to
suspect you're a reg'lar person, after all; and if I can qualify as a
guide----"
Say, don't let on to Vee, but that's where I got hugged. It seems Bonnie
does want to have one glimpse of New York with the lights on; wants it
the worst way. For when she'd come up from Rio her one idea was to get
back to the old farm, fix it up regardless of expense, and camp down
there quiet for the rest of her days. She'd had a bully time doin' it,
too, for three or four months. She'd enjoyed havin' people around her
who could talk English, and watchin' the white clouds sail over the
green hills, and seein' her cattle and sheep browsin' about the fields.
It had rested her eyes and her soul.
And then, all of a sudden, she had this hunch that maybe she was missin'
something. Not that she thought she could come back reg'lar, or break
into the old life where she left off. She says she wasn't so foolish in
the head as all that. Her notion was that she might be happier and more
contented if she just looked on from the side-lines.
"I wanted to hear music," says she, "and see the lights, and watch gay
and beautiful young people doing the things I used to do. It
might--Well, it might shake off some of my years. Who knows?"
"Sure! That's the dope," says I. "Course, a lot of their old-time joints
ain't runnin' now--Koster & Bial's, Harrigan's, the Cafe Martin but
maybe some you remember are still open."
"Silly!" says she, shakin' a pudgy forefinger at me. "That isn't what I
want at all. Not the old, but the new; the very newest and most
fashionable. I'm not trying to go back, but trying to keep up."
"Oh!" says I. "In that case it'll be easy. How about startin' in with
the tea dance at the Admiral, just opened? Begins at 4:15."
"Tell me, Torchy," says she, "did you ever see anyone as--as huge as I
am at a tea dance? No, I think we'll not start with that."
"Then suppose we hop off with dinner on the Plutoria roof?" I suggests.
"The Tortonis are doing a dancin' turn there and they have the swellest
jazz band in town."
"It sounds exciting," says Bonnie. "I will try to be ready by 7:30. And
you surely are a nice boy. Now if you will help me out to the
elevator----"
And it's while I'm tryin' to steady her on one side as she goes rollin'
waddly through the main office that I gets a little hint of what's
comin' to me. Maybe you've seen a tug-boat bobbin' alongside a big liner
in a heavy sea. I expect we must have looked something like that. Even
so, that flossy bunch of lady typists showed poor taste in cuttin' loose
with the smothered snickers as we wobbles past.
And I could get a picture of myself towin' the Senora Concita Maria
What's-Her-Name, alias Bonnie Sutton, through the Plutoria corridors.
What if her feet should skid and after ten or a dozen bell hops had
boosted her up again they should find me underneath? Still I was in for
it. No scoutin' around for back-number restaurants, as I'd planned at
first. No, Bonnie had asked to be brought up-to-date. So she should,
too. But I did wish she'd come to town in something besides that late
Queen Victoria costume.
Yet I maps out the evenin' as if I had a date with Peggy Hopkins or
Hazel Dawn. At 5:30 I'm slippin' a ten-spot into the unwillin' palm of a
Plutoria head waiter to cinch a table for two next to the dancin'
surface, and from there I drops into a cigar store where I pays two
prices for a couple of end seats at the Midnight Follies. Then I slicks
up a bit at a Turkish bath and at 7:25 I'm waitin' with the biggest taxi
I can find in front of Bonnie's hotel.
I expect I must have let out a sigh of relief when she shows up and I
notice that she's shed the unsteady velvet lid. It's some creation she's
swapped it for, a pink satin affair with a wing spread of about three
feet, but I must admit it kind of sets off that big face of hers and the
grayish hair.
That's nothing to the jolt I gets, though, after she's been loaded into
the cab and the fur-trimmed opera cape slips back a bit. Say, take it
from me, Bonnie has bloomed out. She must have speeded up some Fifth
Avenue modiste's establishment to the limit, but she's turned the trick,
I'll say. Uh-huh! Not only the latest model evening gown, but she's had
her hair done up spiffy, and she's got on a set of jewels that would
make a pawnbroker's bride turn green.
"Z-z-zing!" says I, catchin' my breath. "Excuse me, but I didn't know
you were going to dress the part."
"You didn't think I could, did you, Torchy?" says she. "Well, I haven't
quite forgotten, you see."
So all them gloomy thoughts I'd indulged in was so much useless worry,
as is usually the case. I'll admit we was some conspicuous durin' the
evenin', with folks stretchin' their necks our way, but I didn't hear
any snickers. They gazed at Bonnie sort of awed and impressed, like
tourists starin' at the Woolworth Buildin' when it's lighted up.
Some classy dinner that was we had, even if I did order it myself, with
only two waiters to coach me. I couldn't say exactly what it was we had
for nourishment, only I know it was all tasty and expensive. You
wouldn't expect me to pick out the cheap things for a lady plutess from
Brazil, would you? So we dallies with Canaps Barbizon, Portage de la
Reine, breasts of milk-fed pheasants, and such trifles as that. Bonnie
says it's all good. But she can't seem to get used to the band brayin'
out impetuous just as she's about to take another bite of something.
"Tell me," says she, "is that supposed to be music?"
"Not at all," says I. "That's jazz. We've got so we can't eat without
it, you know."
Also I suspect the Tortonis' dancin' act jarred her a bit. You've seen
'em do the shimmy-plus?
"Well!" says she, drawin' in a long breath and lookin' the other way.
"So that is an example of modern dancing, is it?"
"It's the kind of stunt the tired business man has to have before he
gets bright in the eyes again," says I. "But wait until we get to the
Follies if you want to see him really begin to live."
We had to kill a couple of hours between times so we took in the last
half of the latest bedroom farce and I think that got a rise or two out
of Bonnie. I gathered from her remarks that Lillian Russell or Edna
Wallace Hopper never went quite that far in her day.
"It's pajamas or nothing now," says I.
"And occasionally," she adds, "I suppose it is--Well, I trust not, at
least."
After the Follies she hadn't a word to say. Only, as I landed her back
at her hotel, along about 2:30 a.m., she slumps into a big chair in the
Egyptian room and lets her chin sag.
"It's no use, Torchy," says she. "I--I couldn't."
"Eh?" says I.
"End my days to jazz time," says she. "No. I shall go back to my quiet
hills and my calm-eyed Holsteins. And I shall go entirely contented. I
can't tell you either, how thankful I am that it was you who showed me
my mistake instead of my dear old friend. You've been so good about it,
too."
"Me?" says I. "Why, I've had a big night. Honest."
"Bless you!" says she, pattin' my hand. "And just one thing more,
Torchy. When you tell Mr. Ellins that I've been here, and gone, couldn't
you somehow forget to say just how I looked? You see, if he remembers me
as I was when that photo was taken--Well, where's the harm?"
"Trust me," says I. "And I won't be strainin' my conscience any at
that."
But I didn't need to juggle even a word. When Old Hickory hears how I've
subbed in for him with Bonnie he just pulls out the picture, gazes at it
fond for a minute or so, and then remarks:
"Ah, you lucky young rascal!" Then he picks up a note from his desk.
"Oh, by the way," he goes on, "here's a little remembrance she sent you
in my care."
Little! Say, what do you guess? Oh, only an order for a 1920 model
roadster with white wire wheels to be delivered to me when I calls for
it! She's merely tipped me an automobile, that's all. And after I'd read
it through for the third time, and was sure it was so, I manages to gasp
out:
"Lucky is right, Mr. Ellins; that's the only word."
CHAPTER XV
A LATE HUNCH FOR LESTER
You might not guess it, but every now and then I connect with some true
thought that makes me wiser above the ears. Honest, I do. Sometimes they
just come to me by accident, on the fly, as it were. And then again,
they don't come so easy.
Take this latest hunch of mine. I know now that my being a high-grade
private sec. don't qualify me to hand out any fatherly advice to the
female sex. Absolutely it doesn't. And yet, here only a few weeks back,
that was just what I was doin'. Oh, I don't mean I was scatterin' it
around broadcast. It had to be a particular and 'special case to tempt
me to crash in with the Solomon stuff. It was the case of Lester
Biggs--and little Miss Joyce.
Now you'd almost think I'd seen too many lady typists earnin' their
daily bread and their weekly marcelle waves for me to get stirred up
over anything they might do. And as a rule, I don't waste much thought
on 'em unless they develop the habit of parkin' their gum on the corner
of my desk, or some such trick as that. I sure would be busy if I did
more, for here in the Corrugated general offices we have fifteen or
twenty more or less expert key pounders most of the time. Besides, it's
Mr. Piddie's job to worry over 'em, and believe me he does it thorough.
But somehow this little Miss Joyce party was different. I expect it was
the baby blue tam-o'-shanter that got me noticin' her first off. You
know that style of lid ain't worn a great deal by our Broadway stenogs.
Not the home crocheted kind. Hardly. I should judge that most of our
flossy bunch wouldn't be satisfied until they'd swapped two weeks'
salary for some Paris model up at Mme. Violette's. And how they did
snicker when Miss Joyce first reported for duty wearin' that tam and
costumed tacky in something a cross-roads dressmaker had done her worst
on.
Miss Joyce didn't seem to mind. By rights she should have been a shy,
modest little thing who would have been so cut up that she'd have rushed
into the cloak room and spilled a quart of salt tears. But she never
even quivers one of her long eyelashes, so Piddie reports. She just
comes back at 'em with a sketchy, friendly little smile and proceeds to
tackle her work business-like. And inside of ten days she has the lot of
'em eatin' out of her hand.
But while I might feel a little sympathetic toward this stray from the
kerosene circuit I didn't let it go so far but what I kicked like a
steer when I finds that Piddle has wished her on me for a big forenoon's
work.
"What's the idea, Piddie?" says I. "Why do I get one of your awkward
squad who'll probably spell 'such' with a t in it and punctuate by the
hit-or-miss method?"
"Miss Joyce?" says he, raisin' his eyebrows, pained. "I beg your pardon,
Torchy, but she is one of our most efficient stenographers. Really!"
"She don't look the part," says I. "But if you say she is I'll take a
chance."
Well, she was all he'd described. She could not only scribble down that
Pitman stuff as fast as I could feed the dictation to her, but she could
read it straight afterward and the letters she turns out are a joy to
look over. From then on I picks her to do all my work, being careful not
to let either Mr. Robert or Old Hickory know what an expert I've
discovered in disguise.
For one thing she's such a quiet, inoffensive little party. She don't
come in all scented with Peau d'Espagne, nor she don't stare at you