Torchy and Vee

by Sewell Ford

  CHAPTER XV

  A LATE HUNCH FOR LESTER

  You might not guess it, but every now and then I connect with some truethought that makes me wiser above the ears. Honest, I do. Sometimes theyjust 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-gradeprivate sec. don't qualify me to hand out any fatherly advice to thefemale 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' itaround broadcast. It had to be a particular and 'special case to temptme to crash in with the Solomon stuff. It was the case of LesterBiggs--and little Miss Joyce.

  Now you'd almost think I'd seen too many lady typists earnin' theirdaily bread and their weekly marcelle waves for me to get stirred upover anything they might do. And as a rule, I don't waste much thoughton 'em unless they develop the habit of parkin' their gum on the cornerof my desk, or some such trick as that. I sure would be busy if I didmore, for here in the Corrugated general offices we have fifteen ortwenty more or less expert key pounders most of the time. Besides, it'sMr. 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 wasthe baby blue tam-o'-shanter that got me noticin' her first off. Youknow 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 ourflossy bunch wouldn't be satisfied until they'd swapped two weeks'salary for some Paris model up at Mme. Violette's. And how they didsnicker when Miss Joyce first reported for duty wearin' that tam andcostumed tacky in something a cross-roads dressmaker had done her worston.

  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 rushedinto the cloak room and spilled a quart of salt tears. But she nevereven quivers one of her long eyelashes, so Piddie reports. She justcomes back at 'em with a sketchy, friendly little smile and proceeds totackle 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 thekerosene circuit I didn't let it go so far but what I kicked like asteer when I finds that Piddle has wished her on me for a big forenoon'swork.

  "What's the idea, Piddie?" says I. "Why do I get one of your awkwardsquad who'll probably spell 'such' with a t in it and punctuate by thehit-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 achance."

  Well, she was all he'd described. She could not only scribble down thatPitman stuff as fast as I could feed the dictation to her, but she couldread it straight afterward and the letters she turns out are a joy tolook over. From then on I picks her to do all my work, being careful notto let either Mr. Robert or Old Hickory know what an expert I'vediscovered in disguise.

  For one thing she's such a quiet, inoffensive little party. She don'tcome in all scented with Peau d'Espagne, nor she don't stare at youbored, or pat her hair or polish her nails while you're waitin' to thinkof the right word. She don't seem to demand the usual chat or fish foran openin' to confide what a swell time she had last night. In fact, shedon't make any remarks at all outside of the job in hand, which is somerelief when you're scratchin' your head to think what to tell theassistant Western manager about renewin' them dockage contracts.

  Yet she ain't one of the scared-mouse kind. She looks you square in theeye when there's any call for it and she don't mumble her remarks whenshe has something to say. Not Miss Joyce. Her words come out clear andcrisp, with a slight roll to the r's and all the final letters sounded,like she'd been taking elocution or something.

  In the course of five or six weeks she has shed the blue tam for a neatlittle hat and has ditched the puckered seam effect dress for a blackoffice costume with white collar and cuffs. She still sticks to partin'her hair in the middle and drawin' it back smooth with no ear tabs orwaves to it. So she does look some old-fashioned.

  That was why I'm kind of surprised to notice this Lester Biggs beginhoverin' around her at lunch time and toward the closin' hour. She ain'tthe type Lester usually picks out to roll his eyes at. Not in the least.For of all them young hicks in the bond room I expect Lester is aboutthe most ambitious would-be sport we've got.

  You see, I've known Lester Biggs more or less for quite some time. Hestarted favorin' the Corrugated with his services back in the days whenI was still on the gate and rated myself the highest paid and easiestworked office boy between Greeley Square and Forty-second Street. Andall the good I ever discovered about him wouldn't take me long to tell.

  As for the other side of the case--Well, I ain't much on office scandal,but I will say that it always struck me Lester had the kind of a mindthat needed chloride of lime on it. I never saw the time when he wasn'tstretchin' his neck after some flossy typist or other, and as sure as anew one with the least hint of hair bleach showed up it would meananother affair for Lester. Maybe you know the kind.

  And he sure dressed the part, on and off. The Tin-Horn Sport Cut clothesthat you see advertised so wide must be made and designed 'special forLester. I remember he sprung the first pinch-back coat that came intothe office. Same way with the slit pockets, the belted vest and othercute little innovations that the Times Square chicken hounds drapethemselves in.

  I wouldn't quite say that he'd pass for the perfect male, either. Notunless you count the bat ears, face pimples, turkey neck and the cast inone eye as points of beauty. But that don't seem to bother Lester in theleast. He knows he has a way with him. His reg'lar openin' is "Hello,Girlie, what you got on the event card for tonight?" and from that tomakin' a date at Zinsheimer's dance hall is just a step. Oh, yes, Lesteris some gay bird, if you want to call it that.

  And all on twenty a week. So of course that interferes some with hisgreat ambition. He used to tell me about it back in the old days when Iwas on the gate and hadn't sized him up accurate. Chorus girls! If hecould only get to know some squab pippin from the Winter Garden or theFollies that would be all he'd ask. He would pick out his favorite fromthe new musical shows, lug around half-tone pictures of 'em cut fromnewspapers, and try to throw the bluff that he expected to meet 'emearly next week; but as we all knew he never got nearer than the secondbalcony he never got away with the stuff.

  "Suppose by some miracle you did, Lester?" I'd ask him. "What then?Would you blow her to a bowl of chow mein at some chop suey joint, orcould you get by with a nut sundae at a cut-rate drug store? And supposesome curb broker was waitin' to take her out to Heather Blossom Inn?You'd put up a hot competition, you would, with nothing but the changefrom a five left in your jeans."

  "Ah, just leave that to me, old son," he'd say, winkin' devilish.

  And the one time when he did pull it off I happened to hear about. Afriend of his who was usher at the old Hippodrome offered to tow him toa little Sunday night supper at the flat of one of the chorus ladies.Lester went, too, and found a giddy thing of about forty fryin' onionsfor a fam'ly of five, includin' three half-grown kids and ascene-shiftin' hubby.

  That blow seems to discourage Lester for a week or so, since which hehas run true to form. He'll run around with lady typists, or girls fromthe cloak department, or most anything that wears skirts, until theydiscover what a tight-wad he is and give him the shunt. But his greataim in life is to acquire a lady-friend that he can point out in thesecond row and hang around for at the stage door about midnight.

  So when I sees him flutterin' about Miss Joyce, and her making motionslike she was fallin' for him, I didn't quite know what to make of it.Course, now that she's bucked up a bit on her costume she is more orless easy to look at. For a little thing, almost a half portion, as youmight put it, she has quite a figure, slim and graceful. And them
pansybrown eyes can light up sort of fascinatin', I expect. And being sofresh from the country I suppose she can't dope out what a cheap shimmylizard Lester is. It's a wonder some of the other typists hadn't put herwise. They're usually good at that. But it looks like they'd missed atrick in her case, for one noon I overhears Lester datin' her up for anevenin' at Zinsheimer's. And when he drifts along I can't resistthrowin' out a hint, on my own account.

  "With Lester, eh?" says I, humpin' my eyebrows.

  "Oh, I know," says Miss Joyce. "But I do love to dance and I--I've beenrather lonely, you see."

  I saw. And of course after that there was nothing more to say. Shedidn't tell me as much, but I understand that it got to be a regularthing. You could tell that by the intimate way Lester tips her the winkas he swaggers by. He didn't take any pains to hide it, or to lower hisvoice when he remarks, "Well, kiddo, see you at eight thirt., eh?"

  As long as she kept her work up to the mark, which she does, it wasn'tany funeral of mine. I never have yearned to be a volunteer chaperon.But I was kind of sorry for little Miss Joyce. I expect I said somethingof the kind to Vee, and she was all for having Mr. Piddie give her agood talking to.

  "No use," says I. "Piddie wouldn't know how. All he can do is hire 'emand fire 'em, and even that's turnin' his hair gray. It'll all work outone way or another, I expect."

  It does, too. But not exactly along the lines I was looking for it todevelop. First off, Lester quits the Corrugated. As he'd been on thesame job for more'n six years, and gettin' worse at it right along, theblow didn't quite put us out of business. We're still staggerin' ahead.

  "What's the scheme, Lester?" says I. "Beatin' the office manager toit?"

  "Huh!" says Lester. "I've been plannin' to make a shift for more'n ayear. Just waitin' for the right openin'. I got it now."

  "The Morgan people sent for you, did they?" says I.

  "They might have, at that," says Lester, "only I'm through bein' anoffice slave for anybody. I'm goin' in with some live wires this time,where I'll have a chance."

  But it turns out that he's been taken on as a sidewalk man by a pair ofticket speculators--Izzy Goldman and his pal, who used to run the cigarstand down in the arcade. They handled any kind of pasteboards, fromgrandstand parade tickets to orchestra seats.

  "Yes," says I, "that'll be a great career. Almost in the theatricalgame, eh? You'll be knowin' all the pippins now, I expect."

  "Watch me," says Lester.

  Well, I didn't strain my eyes. I'd have been just as pleased to knowthat Lester was going to slip out of my young life forever and to forgethim complete within the next two days. Only I couldn't. There was MissJoyce to remind me. Not that she says a word. She ain't the chatty,confidential kind. But it was natural for me to wonder now and then ifthey was still as chummy as at the start.

  He'd been away a month or more I expect, before either of us passed hisname, and then it came out accidental. I starts dictatin' a letter to afirm in St. Louis, Lester & Riggs. The name sort of startles Miss Joyce.

  "I beg pardon?" says she, her pencil poised over the pad.

  "No, not Lester Biggs," says I. "By the way, how is he these days?"

  "I'm sure I don't know," says she. "I--I haven't seen him for weeks."

  "Oh!" says I. "Kind of thought you'd be droppin' him down the coal shuteor something."

  She shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. "It was he who droppedme," says she. "Flat."

  "Considerin' Lester," says I, "that's more or less of a compliment."

  "I am not so sure of that," says Miss Joyce. "You see, he was quitefrank about it. He--he said I had no style or zipp about me. Well, I'mafraid it's true."

  "Even so," says I, "it was sweet of him to throw it at you, wasn't it?"

  She indulges in a sketchy, quizzin' smile. "I think some of the girls atZinsheimer's had been teasing him about me," she goes on. "They calledme 'the poor little working girl,' I believe. I've no doubt I looked it.But I haven't been able to spend much for clothes--as yet."

  "Of course," says I, throwin' up a picture of an invalid mother and acoon-huntin' father back in the alfalfa somewhere. "And so far youain't missed much by not havin' 'em. I should put Lester's loss down onthe credit side if I was makin' the entry."

  "He could dance, though," says Miss Joyce, as she gets busy with herpencil again.

  Then a few weeks later I was handed my big jolt. We was gettin' out aspecial report for the directors' meetin' one day after lunch when rightin the middle of a table of costs Miss Joyce glances anxious at theclock and drops her note book.

  "I'm so sorry," says she, "but couldn't we finish this tomorrowmorning?"

  "Why, I suppose we might," says I, "if it's anything important."

  "It is," says she. "If I'm not there by 3 o'clock the stage manager willnot see me at all, and I do so want to land an engagement this time."

  "Eh?" says I gawpin'. "Stage manager! You?"

  "Why, yes," says she. "You see, I tried once before. I was almost takenon, too. They liked my voice, they said, but I wasn't up on my dancing.So I've been taking lessons of a ballet master. Frightfully expensive.That's where all my money has gone. But I think they'll give me a chancethis time. It's for the chorus of that new 'Tut! Tut! Marie' thing, youknow, and they've advertised for fifty girls."

  I suppose I must have let loose a gasp. This meek, modest young thing,who looked like she wouldn't know a lip-stick from a boiled carrot,plannin' cold-blooded to throw up a nice respectable job and enterherself in the squab market! Why, I wouldn't have been jarred more ifPiddie had announced that next season he was going to do bareback ridin'for some circus.

  "Excuse me, Miss Joyce," says I, "but I wouldn't say you was just thekind they'd take on."

  "Oh, they take all kinds," says she.

  "Better brace yourself for a turndown, though," says I, "I see it comingto you. You ain't the type at all."

  "Perhaps you don't know," says she, trippin' off to get her hat.

  Ever see one of them mobs that turns out when there's a call for a newchorus? I've had to push my way through 'em once or twice up in some ofthem office buildings along the Rialto, and believe me, it's a weirdcollection; all sorts, from wispy little flappers who should be ingrammar school still, to hard-faced old battle axes who used to travelwith Nat Goodwin. So I couldn't figure little Miss Joyce gettin'anything more'n a passing glance in that aggregation. Yet when she showsup in the mornin' she's lookin' sort of smilin' and chirky.

  "Well," said I, "did you back out after lookin' 'em over?"

  "Oh, no," says she. "I was tried out with the first lot and engagedright away. They're rushing the production, you see, and I happened tofit in. Why, inside of an hour they had twenty of us rehearsing. I'm tobe in the first big number, I think--one of the Moonbeam girls. Isn'tthat splendid?"

  "If that's what you want," says I, "I expect it is. But how about thefolks back home? What'll they say to this wide jump of yours?"

  "I've decided not to tell them anything about it," says she. "Not for along time, anyway."

  "They might hear, though," I suggests. "Just where do you come from?"

  "Why, Saskatoun," says she, without battin' an eyelash.

  "Oh, all right, if you don't want to tell," says I.

  "But I have told you," says she. "Saskatoun."

  "Is it a new hair tonic, or what?" says I.

  "It's a city," says she. "One of the largest in British Columbia."

  "Think of that!" says I. "They don't care how they mess up the map thesedays, do they? And your folks live there?"

  "Most of them," says she. "Two of my brothers are up at Glen Bow,raising sheep; one of my sisters is at Alberta, giving piano lessons;and another sister is doing church singing in Moose Jaw. If I had stayedat home I would be doing something like that. We are a musical family,you know. Daddy is a church organist and wanted me to keep on in thechoir and perhaps get to be a soloist, at $50 a month. But I couldn'tsee it. If I am going to make a living out of my
music I want to make agood one. And New York is the place, isn't it!"

  "It depends," says I. "You don't think you'll get rich in the 'Tut! Tut!Marie' chorus, do you?"

  "Perhaps they'll not keep me in the chorus," says she. "It's the backdoor, I know, but it was the only way I could get in. And I'm going towork for something better. You'll see."

  Yep, I saw. Miss Joyce resigned at the end of the week, and it wasn'tten days before I gets a little note from her saying how she'd beenpicked out to do a specialty dance and duet with Ronald Breen. Mr. Breenhad done the picking himself. And she did hope I would look in somenight when the company opened on Broadway.

  "I expect we'll have to go; eh, Vee?" says I when I gets home.

  "Surely," says Vee.

  Well, maybe you've noticed what a hit this "Tut! Tut!" thing has beenmaking. It's about the zippiest, peppiest girl show in town, and that'ssaying a lot. It's the kind of stuff that makes the tired business manget bright in the eyes and forget how near the sixteenth of January is.I thought first off we'd have to put off seeing it until afterChristmas, for when I finally got to the box office there was nothingdoing in orchestra seats. Sold out five weeks in advance. But by luck Ihappens to run across Lester Biggs in the lobby and for five a throw hefixes me up with two places in G, middle row.

  "It's a big winner," says he.

  "Seen it yourself?" I asks.

  "Not yet," says he. "Think I can pull it off tonight, though."

  "Good!" says I. "I'll be looking for you out front after the first act."

  And, say, when this party who's listed on the program as Jean Jollycomes boundin' in with Ronald Breen I'll admit she had me sittin' upwith my ears tinted pink. No use goin' into details about her costume.It's hardly worth while--a little white satin here and there and a touchof black tulle.

  "Well!" gasps Vee. "Is that your little Miss Joyce?"

  "I can hardly believe it," says I.

  "I should hope not," says Vee. "But she is cute, isn't she? And see thatkick! Oh-h-h-h!"

  I was still red in the face, I expect, when I trails out at the end ofthe act and discovers Lester leanin' against the lobby wall.

  "Say, Torchy," says he husky, "did--did you see her?"

  "Miss Joyce?" says I. "Sure. Some pippin in the act, isn't she? Didn'tshe send you word she was goin' to be in this with Ronald Breen?"

  "Me?" says he. "No."

  "That's funny," says I. "She told me weeks ago. I hear she's pullingdown an even hundred and fifty a week. By next season she'll bestarrin'."

  "And to think," moans out Lester, "that I passed her up only a fewmonths ago!"

  "Yes," says I, "considerin' your chronic ambition, that was once whenyou were out of luck. And the worst of it is that maybe she was onlyusin' you to practice on all along. Eh?"

  Perhaps it wasn't a consolin' thought to leave with Lester, but somehowI couldn't help grinnin' as I tossed it over. And me, I'm doping out nomore advice to young ladies from Saskatoun or elsewhere. I'm off thatside-line permanent.