AT GEISENHEIMER'S
As I walked to Geisenheimer's that night I was feeling blue andrestless, tired of New York, tired of dancing, tired of everything.Broadway was full of people hurrying to the theatres. Cars rattled by.All the electric lights in the world were blazing down on the GreatWhite Way. And it all seemed stale and dreary to me.
Geisenheimer's was full as usual. All the tables were occupied, andthere were several couples already on the dancing-floor in the centre.The band was playing 'Michigan':
_I want to go back, I want to go back To the place where I was born. Far away from harm With a milk-pail on my arm._
I suppose the fellow who wrote that would have called for the police ifanyone had ever really tried to get him on to a farm, but he hascertainly put something into the tune which makes you think he meantwhat he said. It's a homesick tune, that.
I was just looking round for an empty table, when a man jumped up andcame towards me, registering joy as if I had been his long-lost sister.
He was from the country. I could see that. It was written all over him,from his face to his shoes.
He came up with his hand out, beaming.
'Why, Miss Roxborough!'
'Why not?' I said.
'Don't you remember me?'
I didn't.
'My name is Ferris.'
'It's a nice name, but it means nothing in my young life.'
'I was introduced to you last time I came here. We danced together.'
This seemed to bear the stamp of truth. If he was introduced to me, heprobably danced with me. It's what I'm at Geisenheimer's for.
'When was it?'
'A year ago last April.'
You can't beat these rural charmers. They think New York is folded upand put away in camphor when they leave, and only taken out again whenthey pay their next visit. The notion that anything could possibly havehappened since he was last in our midst to blur the memory of thathappy evening had not occurred to Mr Ferris. I suppose he was soaccustomed to dating things from 'when I was in New York' that hethought everybody else must do the same.
'Why, sure, I remember you,' I said. 'Algernon Clarence, isn't it?'
'Not Algernon Clarence. My name's Charlie.'
'My mistake. And what's the great scheme, Mr Ferris? Do you want todance with me again?'
He did. So we started. Mine not to reason why, mine but to do and die,as the poem says. If an elephant had come into Geisenheimer's and askedme to dance I'd have had to do it. And I'm not saying that Mr Ferriswasn't the next thing to it. He was one of those earnest, perseveringdancers--the kind that have taken twelve correspondence lessons.
I guess I was about due that night to meet someone from the country.There still come days in the spring when the country seems to get astranglehold on me and start in pulling. This particular day had beenone of them. I got up in the morning and looked out of the window, andthe breeze just wrapped me round and began whispering about pigs andchickens. And when I went out on Fifth Avenue there seemed to beflowers everywhere. I headed for the Park, and there was the grass allgreen, and the trees coming out, and a sort of something in theair--why, say, if there hadn't have been a big policeman keeping an eyeon me, I'd have flung myself down and bitten chunks out of the turf.
And as soon as I got to Geisenheimer's they played that 'Michigan'thing.
Why, Charlie from Squeedunk's 'entrance' couldn't have been betterworked up if he'd been a star in a Broadway show. The stage was justwaiting for him.
But somebody's always taking the joy out of life. I ought to haveremembered that the most metropolitan thing in the metropolis is arustic who's putting in a week there. We weren't thinking on the sameplane, Charlie and me. The way I had been feeling all day, what Iwanted to talk about was last season's crops. The subject he fanciedwas this season's chorus-girls. Our souls didn't touch by a mile and ahalf.
'This is the life!' he said.
There's always a point when that sort of man says that.
'I suppose you come here quite a lot?' he said.
'Pretty often.'
I didn't tell him that I came there every night, and that I camebecause I was paid for it. If you're a professional dancer atGeisenheimer's, you aren't supposed to advertise the fact. Themanagement thinks that if you did it might send the public awaythinking too hard when they saw you win the Great Contest for theLove-r-ly Silver Cup which they offer later in the evening. Say, thatLove-r-ly Cup's a joke. I win it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,and Mabel Francis wins it on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It'sall perfectly fair and square, of course. It's purely a matter of meritwho wins the Love-r-ly Cup. Anybody could win it. Only somehow theydon't. And the coincidence of the fact that Mabel and I always do haskind of got on the management's nerves, and they don't like us to tellpeople we're employed there. They prefer us to blush unseen.
'It's a great place,' said Mr Ferris, 'and New York's a great place.I'd like to live in New York.'
'The loss is ours. Why don't you?'
'Some city! But dad's dead now, and I've got the drugstore, you know.'
He spoke as if I ought to remember reading about it in the papers.
'And I'm making good with it, what's more. I've got push and ideas.Say, I got married since I saw you last.'
'You did, did you?' I said. 'Then what are you doing, may I ask,dancing on Broadway like a gay bachelor? I suppose you have left yourwife at Hicks' Corners, singing "Where is my wandering boy tonight"?'
'Not Hicks' Corners. Ashley, Maine. That's where I live. My wife comesfrom Rodney.... Pardon me, I'm afraid I stepped on your foot.'
'My fault,' I said; 'I lost step. Well, I wonder you aren't ashamedeven to think of your wife, when you've left her all alone out therewhile you come whooping it up in New York. Haven't you got anyconscience?'
'But I haven't left her. She's here.'
'In New York?'
'In this restaurant. That's her up there.'
I looked up at the balcony. There was a face hanging over the red plushrail. It looked to me as if it had some hidden sorrow. I'd noticed itbefore, when we were dancing around, and I had wondered what thetrouble was. Now I began to see.
'Why aren't you dancing with her and giving her a good time, then?' Isaid.
'Oh, she's having a good time.'
'She doesn't look it. She looks as if she would like to be down here,treading the measure.'
'She doesn't dance much.'
'Don't you have dances at Ashley?'
'It's different at home. She dances well enough for Ashley, but--well,this isn't Ashley.'
'I see. But you're not like that?'
He gave a kind of smirk.
'Oh, I've been in New York before.'
I could have bitten him, the sawn-off little rube! It made me mad. Hewas ashamed to dance in public with his wife--didn't think her goodenough for him. So he had dumped her in a chair, given her a lemonade,and told her to be good, and then gone off to have a good time. Theycould have had me arrested for what I was thinking just then.
The band began to play something else.
'This is the life!' said Mr Ferris. 'Let's do it again.'
'Let somebody else do it,' I said. 'I'm tired. I'll introduce you tosome friends of mine.'
So I took him off, and whisked him on to some girls I knew at one ofthe tables.
'Shake hands with my friend Mr Ferris,' I said. 'He wants to show youthe latest steps. He does most of them on your feet.'
I could have betted on Charlie, the Debonair Pride of Ashley. Guesswhat he said? He said, 'This is the life!'
And I left him, and went up to the balcony.
She was leaning with her elbows on the red plush, looking down on thedancing-floor. They had just started another tune, and hubby was movingaround with one of the girls I'd introduced him to. She didn't have toprove to me that she came from the country. I knew it. She was a littlebit of a thing, old-fashioned looking. She was dressed in grey, withwhite musl
in collar and cuffs, and her hair done simple. She had ablack hat.
I kind of hovered for awhile. It isn't the best thing I do, being shy;as a general thing I'm more or less there with the nerve; but somehow Isort of hesitated to charge in.
Then I braced up, and made for the vacant chair.
'I'll sit here, if you don't mind,' I said.
She turned in a startled way. I could see she was wondering who I was,and what right I had there, but wasn't certain whether it might not becity etiquette for strangers to come and dump themselves down and startchatting. 'I've just been dancing with your husband,' I said, to easethings along.
'I saw you.'
She fixed me with a pair of big brown eyes. I took one look at them,and then I had to tell myself that it might be pleasant, and a reliefto my feelings, to take something solid and heavy and drop it over therail on to hubby, but the management wouldn't like it. That was how Ifelt about him just then. The poor kid was doing everything with thoseeyes except crying. She looked like a dog that's been kicked.
She looked away, and fiddled with the string of the electric light.There was a hatpin lying on the table. She picked it up, and began todig at the red plush.
'Ah, come on sis,' I said; 'tell me all about it.'
'I don't know what you mean.'
'You can't fool me. Tell me your troubles.'
'I don't know you.'
'You don't have to know a person to tell her your troubles. I sometimestell mine to the cat that camps out on the wall opposite my room. Whatdid you want to leave the country for, with summer coming on?'
She didn't answer, but I could see it coming, so I sat still andwaited. And presently she seemed to make up her mind that, even if itwas no business of mine, it would be a relief to talk about it.
'We're on our honeymoon. Charlie wanted to come to New York. I didn'twant to, but he was set on it. He's been here before.'
'So he told me.'
'He's wild about New York.'
'But you're not.'
'I hate it.'
'Why?'
She dug away at the red plush with the hatpin, picking out little bitsand dropping them over the edge. I could see she was bracing herself toput me wise to the whole trouble. There's a time comes when thingsaren't going right, and you've had all you can stand, when you have gotto tell somebody about it, no matter who it is.
'I hate New York,' she said getting it out at last with a rush. 'I'mscared of it. It--it isn't fair Charlie bringing me here. I didn't wantto come. I knew what would happen. I felt it all along.'
'What do you think will happen, then?'
She must have picked away at least an inch of the red plush before sheanswered. It's lucky Jimmy, the balcony waiter, didn't see her; itwould have broken his heart; he's as proud of that red plush as if hehad paid for it himself.
'When I first went to live at Rodney,' she said, 'two years ago--wemoved there from Illinois--there was a man there named Tyson--JackTyson. He lived all alone and didn't seem to want to know anyone. Icouldn't understand it till somebody told me all about him. I canunderstand it now. Jack Tyson married a Rodney girl, and they came toNew York for their honeymoon, just like us. And when they got there Iguess she got to comparing him with the fellows she saw, and comparingthe city with Rodney, and when she got home she just couldn't settledown.'
'Well?'
'After they had been back in Rodney for a little while she ran away.Back to the city, I guess.'
'I suppose he got a divorce?'
'No, he didn't. He still thinks she may come back to him.'
'He still thinks she will come back?' I said. 'After she has been awaythree years!'
'Yes. He keeps her things just the same as she left them when she wentaway, everything just the same.'
'But isn't he angry with her for what she did? If I was a man and agirl treated me that way, I'd be apt to murder her if she tried to showup again.'
'He wouldn't. Nor would I, if--if anything like that happened to me;I'd wait and wait, and go on hoping all the time. And I'd go down tothe station to meet the train every afternoon, just like Jack Tyson.'
Something splashed on the tablecloth. It made me jump.
'For goodness' sake,' I said, 'what's your trouble? Brace up. I knowit's a sad story, but it's not your funeral.'
'It is. It is. The same thing's going to happen to me.'
'Take a hold on yourself. Don't cry like that.'
'I can't help it. Oh! I knew it would happen. It's happening right now.Look--look at him.'
I glanced over the rail, and I saw what she meant. There was herCharlie, dancing about all over the floor as if he had just discoveredthat he hadn't lived till then. I saw him say something to the girl hewas dancing with. I wasn't near enough to hear it, but I bet it was'This is the life!' If I had been his wife, in the same position asthis kid, I guess I'd have felt as bad as she did, for if ever a manexhibited all the symptoms of incurable Newyorkitis, it was thisCharlie Ferris.
'I'm not like these New York girls,' she choked. 'I can't be smart. Idon't want to be. I just want to live at home and be happy. I knew itwould happen if we came to the city. He doesn't think me good enoughfor him. He looks down on me.'
'Pull yourself together.'
'And I do love him so!'
Goodness knows what I should have said if I could have thought ofanything to say. But just then the music stopped, and somebody on thefloor below began to speak.
'Ladeez 'n' gemmen,' he said, 'there will now take place our greatNumbah Contest. This gen-u-ine sporting contest--'
It was Izzy Baermann making his nightly speech, introducing theLove-r-ly Cup; and it meant that, for me, duty called. From where I satI could see Izzy looking about the room, and I knew he was looking forme. It's the management's nightmare that one of these evenings Mabel orI won't show up, and somebody else will get away with the Love-r-lyCup.
'Sorry I've got to go,' I said. 'I have to be in this.'
And then suddenly I had the great idea. It came to me like a flash, Ilooked at her, crying there, and I looked over the rail at Charlie theBoy Wonder, and I knew that this was where I got a stranglehold on myplace in the Hall of Fame, along with the great thinkers of the age.
'Come on,' I said. 'Come along. Stop crying and powder your nose andget a move on. You're going to dance this.'
'But Charlie doesn't want to dance with me.'
'It may have escaped your notice,' I said, 'but your Charlie is not theonly man in New York, or even in this restaurant. I'm going to dancewith Charlie myself, and I'll introduce you to someone who can gothrough the movements. Listen!'
'The lady of each couple'--this was Izzy, getting it off hisdiaphragm--'will receive a ticket containing a num-bah. The dance willthen proceed, and the num-bahs will be eliminated one by one, thosecalled out by the judge kindly returning to their seats as theirnum-bah is called. The num-bah finally remaining is the winningnum-bah. The contest is a genuine sporting contest, decided purely bythe skill of the holders of the various num-bahs.' (Izzy stoppedblushing at the age of six.) 'Will ladies now kindly step forward andreceive their num-bahs. The winner, the holder of the num-bah left onthe floor when the other num-bahs have been eliminated' (I could seeIzzy getting more and more uneasy, wondering where on earth I'd gotto), 'will receive this Love-r-ly Silver Cup, presented by themanagement. Ladies will now kindly step forward and receive theirnum-bahs.'
I turned to Mrs Charlie. 'There,' I said, 'don't you want to win aLove-r-ly Silver Cup?'
'But I couldn't.'
'You never know your luck.'
'But it isn't luck. Didn't you hear him say it's a contest decidedpurely by skill?'
'Well, try your skill, then.' I felt as if I could have shaken her.'For goodness' sake,' I said, 'show a little grit. Aren't you going tostir a finger to keep your Charlie? Suppose you win, think what it willmean. He will look up to you for the rest of your life. When he startstalking about New York, all you will have to say is, "New York? Ah,y
es, that was the town I won that Love-r-ly Silver Cup in, was it not?"and he'll drop as if you had hit him behind the ear with a sandbag.Pull yourself together and try.'
I saw those brown eyes of hers flash, and she said, 'I'll try.'
'Good for you,' I said. 'Now you get those tears dried, and fixyourself up, and I'll go down and get the tickets.'
Izzy was mighty relieved when I bore down on him.
'Gee!' he said, 'I thought you had run away, or was sick or something.Here's your ticket.'
'I want two, Izzy. One's for a friend of mine. And I say, Izzy, I'dtake it as a personal favour if you would let her stop on the floor asone of the last two couples. There's a reason. She's a kid from thecountry, and she wants to make a hit.'
'Sure, that'll be all right. Here are the tickets. Yours is thirty-six,hers is ten.' He lowered his voice. 'Don't go mixing them.'
I went back to the balcony. On the way I got hold of Charlie.
'We're dancing this together,' I said.
He grinned all across his face.
I found Mrs Charlie looking as if she had never shed a tear in herlife. She certainly had pluck, that kid.
'Come on,' I said. 'Stick to your ticket like wax and watch your step.'
I guess you've seen these sporting contests at Geisenheimer's. Or, ifyou haven't seen them at Geisenheimer's, you've seen them somewhereelse. They're all the same.
When we began, the floor was so crowded that there was hardlyelbow-room. Don't tell me there aren't any optimists nowadays. Everyonewas looking as if they were wondering whether to have the Love-r-ly Cupin the sitting-room or the bedroom. You never saw such a hopeful gangin your life.
Presently Izzy gave tongue. The management expects him to be humorouson these occasions, so he did his best.
'Num-bahs, seven, eleven, and twenty-one will kindly rejoin theirsorrowing friends.'
This gave us a little more elbow-room, and the band started again.
A few minutes later, Izzy once more: 'Num-bahs thirteen, sixteen, andseventeen--good-bye.'
Off we went again.
'Num-bah twelve, we hate to part with you, but--back to your table!'
A plump girl in a red hat, who had been dancing with a kind smile, asif she were doing it to amuse the children, left the floor.
'Num-bahs six, fifteen, and twenty, thumbs down!'
And pretty soon the only couples left were Charlie and me, Mrs Charlieand the fellow I'd introduced her to, and a bald-headed man and a girlin a white hat. He was one of your stick-at-it performers. He had beendancing all the evening. I had noticed him from the balcony. He lookedlike a hard-boiled egg from up there.
He was a trier all right, that fellow, and had things been otherwise,so to speak, I'd have been glad to see him win. But it was not to be.Ah, no!
'Num-bah nineteen, you're getting all flushed. Take a rest.'
So there it was, a straight contest between me and Charlie and MrsCharlie and her man. Every nerve in my system was tingling withsuspense and excitement, was it not? It was not.
Charlie, as I've already hinted, was not a dancer who took much of hisattention off his feet while in action. He was there to do hisdurnedest, not to inspect objects of interest by the wayside. Thecorrespondence college he'd attended doesn't guarantee to teach you todo two things at once. It won't bind itself to teach you to look roundthe room while you're dancing. So Charlie hadn't the least suspicion ofthe state of the drama. He was breathing heavily down my neck in adetermined sort of way, with his eyes glued to the floor. All he knewwas that the competition had thinned out a bit, and the honour ofAshley, Maine, was in his hands.
You know how the public begins to sit up and take notice when thesedance-contests have been narrowed down to two couples. There areevenings when I quite forget myself, when I'm one of the last two leftin, and get all excited. There's a sort of hum in the air, and, as yougo round the room, people at the tables start applauding. Why, if youdidn't know about the inner workings of the thing, you'd be all of atwitter.
It didn't take my practised ear long to discover that it wasn't me andCharlie that the great public was cheering for. We would go round thefloor without getting a hand, and every time Mrs Charlie and her guygot to a corner there was a noise like election night. She sure hadmade a hit.
I took a look at her across the floor, and I didn't wonder. She was adifferent kid from what she'd been upstairs. I never saw anybody lookso happy and pleased with herself. Her eyes were like lamps, and hercheeks all pink, and she was going at it like a champion. I knew whathad made a hit with the people. It was the look of her. She made youthink of fresh milk and new-laid eggs and birds singing. To see her waslike getting away to the country in August. It's funny about people wholive in the city. They chuck out their chests, and talk about littleold New York being good enough for them, and there's a street in heaventhey call Broadway, and all the rest of it; but it seems to me thatwhat they really live for is that three weeks in the summer when theyget away into the country. I knew exactly why they were cheering sohard for Mrs Charlie. She made them think of their holidays which werecoming along, when they would go and board at the farm and drink out ofthe old oaken bucket, and call the cows by their first names.
Gee! I felt just like that myself. All day the country had been tuggingat me, and now it tugged worse than ever.
I could have smelled the new-mown hay if it wasn't that when you're inGeisenheimer's you have to smell Geisenheimer's, because it leaves nochance for competition.
'Keep working,' I said to Charlie. 'It looks to me as if we are goingback in the betting.'
'Uh, huh!' he says, too busy to blink.
'Do some of those fancy steps of yours. We need them in our business.'
And the way that boy worked--it was astonishing!
Out of the corner of my eye I could see Izzy Baermann, and he wasn'tlooking happy. He was nerving himself for one of those quick referee'sdecisions--the sort you make and then duck under the ropes, and runfive miles, to avoid the incensed populace. It was this kind of thinghappening every now and then that prevented his job being perfect.Mabel Francis told me that one night when Izzy declared her the winnerof the great sporting contest, it was such raw work that she thoughtthere'd have been a riot. It looked pretty much as if he was afraid thesame thing was going to happen now. There wasn't a doubt which of ustwo couples was the one that the customers wanted to see win thatLove-r-ly Silver Cup. It was a walk-over for Mrs Charlie, and Charlieand I were simply among those present.
But Izzy had his duty to do, and drew a salary for doing it, so hemoistened his lips, looked round to see that his strategic railwaysweren't blocked, swallowed twice, and said in a husky voice:
'Num-bah ten, please re-tiah!'
I stopped at once.
'Come along,' said I to Charlie. 'That's our exit cue.'
And we walked off the floor amidst applause.
'Well,' says Charlie, taking out his handkerchief and attending to hisbrow, which was like the village blacksmith's, 'we didn't do so bad,did we? We didn't do so bad, I guess! We--'
And he looked up at the balcony, expecting to see the dear little wife,draped over the rail, worshipping him; when, just as his eye is movingup, it gets caught by the sight of her a whole heap lower down than hehad expected--on the floor, in fact.
She wasn't doing much in the worshipping line just at that moment. Shewas too busy.
It was a regular triumphal progress for the kid. She and her partnerwere doing one or two rounds now for exhibition purposes, like thewinning couple always do at Geisenheimer's, and the room was fairlyrising at them. You'd have thought from the way they were clapping thatthey had been betting all their spare cash on her.
Charlie gets her well focused, then he lets his jaw drop, till hepretty near bumped it against the floor.
'But--but--but--' he begins.
'I know,' I said. 'It begins to look as if she could dance well enoughfor the city after all. It begins to look as if she had sort of
put oneover on somebody, don't it? It begins to look as if it were a pity youdidn't think of dancing with her yourself.'
'I--I--I--'
'You come along and have a nice cold drink,' I said, 'and you'll soonpick up.'
He tottered after me to a table, looking as if he had been hit by astreet-car. He had got his.
I was so busy looking after Charlie, flapping the towel and working onhim with the oxygen, that, if you'll believe me, it wasn't for quite atime that I thought of glancing around to see how the thing had struckIzzy Baermann.
If you can imagine a fond father whose only son has hit him with abrick, jumped on his stomach, and then gone off with all his money, youhave a pretty good notion of how poor old Izzy looked. He was staringat me across the room, and talking to himself and jerking his handsabout. Whether he thought he was talking to me, or whether he wasrehearsing the scene where he broke it to the boss that a mere strangerhad got away with his Love-r-ly Silver Cup, I don't know. Whichever itwas, he was being mighty eloquent.
I gave him a nod, as much as to say that it would all come right in thefuture, and then I turned to Charlie again. He was beginning to pickup.
'She won the cup!' he said in a dazed voice, looking at me as if Icould do something about it.
'You bet she did!'
'But--well, what do you know about that?'
I saw that the moment had come to put it straight to him. 'I'll tellyou what I know about it,' I said. 'If you take my advice, you'll hustlethat kid straight back to Ashley--or wherever it is that you said youpoison the natives by making up the wrong prescriptions--before shegets New York into her system. When I was talking to her upstairs, shewas telling me about a fellow in her village who got it in the neckjust the same as you're apt to do.'
He started. 'She was telling you about Jack Tyson?'
'That was his name--Jack Tyson. He lost his wife through letting herhave too much New York. Don't you think it's funny she should havementioned him if she hadn't had some idea that she might act just thesame as his wife did?'
He turned quite green.
'You don't think she would do that?'
'Well, if you'd heard her--She couldn't talk of anything except thisTyson, and what his wife did to him. She talked of it sort of sad, kindof regretful, as if she was sorry, but felt that it had to be. I couldsee she had been thinking about it a whole lot.'
Charlie stiffened in his seat, and then began to melt with pure fright.He took up his empty glass with a shaking hand and drank a long drinkout of it. It didn't take much observation to see that he had had thejolt he wanted, and was going to be a whole heap less jaunty andmetropolitan from now on. In fact, the way he looked, I should say hehad finished with metropolitan jauntiness for the rest of his life.
'I'll take her home tomorrow,' he said. 'But--will she come?'
'That's up to you. If you can persuade her--Here she is now. I shouldstart at once.'
Mrs Charlie, carrying the cup, came to the table. I was wondering whatwould be the first thing she would say. If it had been Charlie, ofcourse he'd have said, 'This is the life!' but I looked for somethingsnappier from her. If I had been in her place there were at least tenthings I could have thought of to say, each nastier than the other.
She sat down and put the cup on the table. Then she gave the cup a longlook. Then she drew a deep breath. Then she looked at Charlie.
'Oh, Charlie, dear,' she said, 'I do wish I'd been dancing with you!'
Well, I'm not sure that that wasn't just as good as anything I wouldhave said. Charlie got right off the mark. After what I had told him,he wasn't wasting any time.
'Darling,' he said, humbly, 'you're a wonder! What will they say aboutthis at home?' He did pause here for a moment, for it took nerve to sayit; but then he went right on. 'Mary, how would it be if we went homeright away--first train tomorrow, and showed it to them?'
'Oh, Charlie!' she said.
His face lit up as if somebody had pulled a switch.
'You will? You don't want to stop on? You aren't wild about New York?'
'If there was a train,' she said, 'I'd start tonight. But I thought youloved the city so, Charlie?'
He gave a kind of shiver. 'I never want to see it again in my life!' hesaid.
'You'll excuse me,' I said, getting up, 'I think there's a friend ofmine wants to speak to me.'
And I crossed over to where Izzy had been standing for the last fiveminutes, making signals to me with his eyebrows.
You couldn't have called Izzy coherent at first. He certainly hadtrouble with his vocal chords, poor fellow. There was one of thoseAfrican explorer men used to come to Geisenheimer's a lot when he washome from roaming the trackless desert, and he used to tell me abouttribes he had met who didn't use real words at all, but talked to oneanother in clicks and gurgles. He imitated some of their chatter onenight to amuse me, and, believe me, Izzy Baermann started talking thesame language now. Only he didn't do it to amuse me.
He was like one of those gramophone records when it's getting into itsstride.
'Be calm, Isadore,' I said. 'Something is troubling you. Tell me allabout it.'
He clicked some more, and then he got it out.
'Say, are you crazy? What did you do it for? Didn't I tell you as plainas I could; didn't I say it twenty times, when you came for thetickets, that yours was thirty-six?'
'Didn't you say my friend's was thirty-six?'
'Are you deaf? I said hers was ten.'
'Then,' I said handsomely, 'say no more. The mistake was mine. Itbegins to look as if I must have got them mixed.'
He did a few Swedish exercises.
'Say no more? That's good! That's great! You've got nerve. I'll saythat.'
'It was a lucky mistake, Izzy. It saved your life. The people wouldhave lynched you if you had given me the cup. They were solid for her.'
'What's the boss going to say when I tell him?'
'Never mind what the boss will say. Haven't you any romance in yoursystem, Izzy? Look at those two sitting there with their headstogether. Isn't it worth a silver cup to have made them happy for life?They are on their honeymoon, Isadore. Tell the boss exactly how ithappened, and say that I thought it was up to Geisenheimer's to givethem a wedding-present.'
He clicked for a spell.
'Ah!' he said. 'Ah! now you've done it! Now you've given yourself away!You did it on purpose. You mixed those tickets on purpose. I thought asmuch. Say, who do you think you are, doing this sort of thing? Don'tyou know that professional dancers are three for ten cents? I could goout right now and whistle, and get a dozen girls for your job. Theboss'll sack you just one minute after I tell him.'
'No, he won't, Izzy, because I'm going to resign.'
'You'd better!'
'That's what I think. I'm sick of this place, Izzy. I'm sick ofdancing. I'm sick of New York. I'm sick of everything. I'm going backto the country. I thought I had got the pigs and chickens clear out ofmy system, but I hadn't. I've suspected it for a long, long time, andtonight I know it. Tell the boss, with my love, that I'm sorry, but ithad to be done. And if he wants to talk back, he must do it by letter:Mrs John Tyson, Rodney, Maine, is the address.'
The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories Page 7