below. "Ready partner--you, Wrenn?"
Tom was to initiate Mr. Wrenn into the game, playing with him
against Mrs. Arty and Miss Mary Proudfoot.
Mrs. Arty sounded the occasion's pitch of high merriment by
delivering from the doorway the sacred old saying, "Well, the
ladies against the men, eh?"
A general grunt that might be spelled "Hmmmmhm " assented.
"I'm a good suffragette," she added. "Watch us squat the men, Mary."
"Like to smash windows? Let's see--it's red fours, black fives
up?" remarked Tom, as he prepared the pack of cards for playing.
"Yes, I would! It makes me so tired," asseverated Mrs. Arty, "to
think of the old goats that men put up for candidates when they
_know_ they're solemn old fools! I'd just like to get out and
vote my head off."
"Well, I think the woman's place is in the home," sniffed Miss
Proudfoot, decisively, tucking away a doily she was finishing
for the Women's Exchange and jabbing at her bangs.
They settled themselves about the glowing, glancing, glittering,
golden-oak center-table. Miss Proudfoot shuffled sternly. Mr.
Wrenn sat still and frightened, like a shipwrecked professor on
a raft with two gamblers and a press-agent, though Nelly was
smiling encouragingly at him from the couch where she had
started her embroidery--a large Christmas lamp mat for the wife
of the Presbyterian pastor at Upton's Grove.
"Don't you wish your little friend Horatio Hood Teddem was here
to play with you?" remarked Tom.
"I _do_ not," declared Mrs. Arty. "Still, there was one thing
about Horatio. I never had to look up his account to find out
how much he owed me. He stopped calling me, Little Buttercup,
when he owed me ten dollars, and he even stopped slamming the
front door when he got up to twenty. O Mr. Wrenn, did I ever
tell you about the time I asked him if he wanted to have Annie
sweep----"
"Gerty!" protested Miss Proudfoot, while Nelly, on the couch,
ejaculated mechanically, "That story!" but Mrs. Arty chuckled
fatly, and continued:
"I asked him if he wanted me to have Annie sweep his nightshirt
when she swept his room. He changed it next day."
"Your bid, Mr. Poppins, "said Miss Proudfoot, severely.
"First, I want to tell Wrenn how to play. You see, Wrenn,
here's the schedule. We play Avondale Schedule, you know."
"Oh yes," said Mr. Wrenn, timorously.... He had once heard of
Carbondale--in New Jersey or Pennsylvania or somewhere--but that
didn't seem to help much.
"Well, you see, you either make or go back," continued Tom.
"Plus and minus, you know. Joker is high, then right bower,
left, and ace. Then--uh--let's see; high bid takes the
cat--widdie, you know--and discards. Ten tricks. Follow suit
like whist, of course. I guess that's all--that ought to give
you the hang of it, anyway. I bid six on no trump."
As Tom Poppins finished these instructions, given in the
card-player's rapid don't-ask-me-any-more- fool-questions manner,
Mr. Wrenn felt that he was choking. He craned up his neck,
trying to ease his stiff collar. So, then, he was a failure, a
social outcast already.
So, then, he couldn't learn Five Hundred! And he had been very
proud of knowing one card from another perfectly, having played
a number of games of two-handed poker with Tim on the cattle-boat.
But what the dickens did "left--cat--follow suit" mean?
And to fail with Nelly watching him! He pulled at his collar again.
Thus he reflected while Mrs. Arty and Tom were carrying on the
following brilliant but cryptic society-dialogue:
_Mrs. Arty:_ Well, I don't know.
_Tom:_ Not failure, but low bid is crime, little one.
_Mrs. Arty:_ Mary, shall I make----
_Tom:_ Hey! No talking 'cross table!
_Mrs. Arty:_ Um-- let--me--see.
_Tom:_ Bid up, bid up! Bid a little seven on hearts?
_Mrs. Arty:_ Just for that I _will_ bid seven on hearts, smarty!
_Tom:_ Oh, how we will squat you!... What you bidding, Wrenn?
Behind Mr. Wrenn, Nelly Croubel whispered to him: "Bid seven on
no suit. You've got the joker." Her delicate forefinger, its
nail shining, was pointing at a curious card in his hand.
"Seven nosut," he mumbled.
"Eight hearts," snapped Miss Proudfoot.
Nelly drew up a chair behind Mr. Wrenn's. He listened to her
soft explanations with the desperate respect and affection which
a green subaltern would give to a general in battle.
Tom and he won the hand. He glanced back at Nelly with awe,
then clutched his new hand, fearfully, dizzily, staring at it as
though it might conceal one of those malevolent deceivers of
which Nelly had just warned him--a left bower.
"Good! Spades--see," said Nelly.
Fifteen minutes later Mr. Wrenn felt that Tom was hoping he
would lead a club. He played one, and the whole table said:
"That's right. Fine!"
On his shoulder he felt a light tap, and he blushed like a
sunset as he peeped back at Nelly.
Mr. Wrenn, the society light, was Our Mr. Wrenn of the Souvenir
Company all this time. Indeed, at present he intended to keep
on taking The Job seriously until that most mistily distant time,
which we all await, "when something turns up." His fondling of
the Southern merchants was showing such results that he had grown
from an interest in whatever papers were on his desk to a belief
in the divine necessity of The Job as a whole. Not now, as of old,
did he keep the personal letters in his desk tied up, ready for a
sudden departure for Vienna or Kamchatka. Also, he wished to earn
much more money for his new career of luxury. Mr. Guilfogle had
assured him that there might be chances ahead--business had been
prospering, two new road salesmen and a city-trade man had been
added to the staff, and whereas the firm had formerly been jobbers
only, buying their novelties from manufacturers, now they were
having printed for them their own Lotsa - Snap Cardboard Office
Mottoes, which were making a big hit with the trade.
Through his friend Rabin, the salesman, Mr. Wrenn got better
acquainted with two great men--Mr. L. J. Glover, the
purchasing agent of the Souvenir Company, and John Hensen, the
newly engaged head of motto manufacturing. He "wanted to get
onto all the different lines of the business so's he could step
right in anywhere"; and from these men he learned the valuable
secrets of business wherewith the marts of trade build up
prosperity for all of us: how to seat a selling agent facing the
light, so you can see his face better than he can see yours.
How much ahead of time to telephone the motto-printer that
"we've simply got to have proof this afternoon; what's the matter
with you, down there? Don't you want our business any more?" He
also learned something of the various kinds of cardboard and
ink-well glass, though these, of course, were merely matters of
knowledge, not of brilliant business tactics, and far less
important than what Tom Poppins and Rabin called "handing out a
snappy line of talk."
"Say, you're getting quite chummy lately--reg'lar society
leader," Rabin informed him.
Mr. Wrenn's answer was in itself a proof of the soundness of
Rabin's observation:
"Sure--I'm going to borrow some money from you fellows. Got to
make an impression, see?"
A few hours after this commendation came Istra's second letter:
Mouse dear, I'm so glad to hear about the simpatico boarding-
house. Yes indeed I would like to hear about the people in it.
And you are reading history? That's good. I'm getting sick of
Paris and some day I'm going to stop an absinthe on the
boulevard and slap its face to show I'm a sturdy moving-picture
Western Amurrican and then leap to saddle and pursue the bandit.
I'm working like the devil but what's the use. That is I mean
unless one is doing the job well, as I'm glad you are. My Dear,
keep it up. You know I want you to be _real_ whatever you are.
I didn't mean to preach but you know I hate people who aren't
real--that's why I haven't much of a flair for myself.
_Au recrire_,
I. N.
After he had read her letter for the third time he was horribly
shocked and regarded himself as a traitor, because he found that
he was only pretending to be enjoyably excited over it.... It
seemed so detached from himself. "Flair" -- "_au recrire_."
Now, what did those mean? And Istra was always so discontented.
"What 'd she do if she had to be on the job like Nelly?... Oh,
Istra _is_ wonderful. But--gee!--I dunno----"
And when he who has valorously loved says "But--gee!--I
dunno----" love flees in panic.
He walked home thoughtfully.
After dinner he said abruptly to Nelly, "I had a letter from
Paris to-day."
"Honestly? Who is she?"
"G-g-g-g----"
"Oh, it's always a she."
"Why--uh--it _is_ from a girl. I started to tell you about
her one day. She's an artist, and once we took a long tramp in
the country. I met her--she was staying at the same place as I
was in London. But--oh, gee! I dunno; she's so blame literary.
She _is_ a _fine_ person---- Do you think you'd like a girl like that?"
"Maybe I would."
"If she was a man?"
"Oh, yes-s! Artists are so romantic."
"But they ain't on the job more 'n half the time," he said, jealously.
"Yes, that's _so_."
His hand stole secretly, craftily skirting a cushion, to touch
hers--which she withdrew, laughing:
"Hump-a! You go hold your artist's hand!"
"Oh, Miss Nelly! When I _told_ you about her _myself!_"
"Oh yes, of course."
She was contrite, and they played Five Hundred animatedly all evening.
CHAPTER XVI
HE BECOMES MILDLY RELIGIOUS AND HIGHLY LITERARY
The hero of the one-act play at Hammerstein's Victoria
vaudeville theater on that December evening was, it appeared, a
wealthy young mine-owner in disguise. He was working for the
"fake mine promoter" because he loved the promoter's daughter
with a love that passed all understanding except that of the
girls in the gallery. When the postal authorities were about to
arrest the promoter our young hero saved him by giving him a
real mine, and the ensuing kiss of the daughter ended the
suspense in which Mr. Wrenn and Nelly, Mrs. Arty and Tom had
watched the play from the sixth row of the balcony.
Sighing happily, Nelly cried to the group: "Wasn't that grand?
I got so excited! Wasn't that young miner a dear?"
"Awfully nice," said Mr. Wrenn. "And, gee! wasn't that great,
that office scene--with that safe and the rest of the
stuff--just like you was in a real office. But, say, they
wouldn't have a copying-press in an office like that; those fake
mine promoters send out such swell letters; they'd use carbon
copies and not muss the letters all up."
"By gosh, that's right!" and Tom nodded his chin toward his
right shoulder in approval. Nelly cried, "That's so; they
would"; while Mrs. Arty, not knowing what a copying-press was,
appeared highly commendatory, and said nothing at all.
During the moving pictures that followed, Mr. Wrenn felt
proudly that he was taken seriously, though he had known
them but little over a month. He followed up his conversational
advantage by leading the chorus in wondering, "which one of them
two actors the heroine was married to?" and "how much a week
they get for acting in that thing?" It was Tom who invited them
to Miggleton's for coffee and fried oysters. Mr. Wrenn was
silent for a while. But as they were stamping through the
rivulets of wheel - tracks that crisscrossed on a slushy
street-crossing Mr. Wrenn regained his adva ntage by crying,
"Say, don't you think that play 'd have been better if the
promoter 'd had an awful grouch on the young miner and 'd had to
crawfish when the miner saved him?"
"Why, yes; it would!" Nelly glowed at him.
"Wouldn't wonder if it would," agreed Tom, kicking the December
slush off his feet and patting Mr. Wrenn's back.
"Well, look here," said Mr. Wrenn, as they left Broadway, with
its crowds betokening the approach of Christmas, and stamped to
the quieter side of Forty-second, "why wouldn't this make a
slick play: say there's an awfully rich old guy; say he's a
railway president or something, d' you see? Well, he's got a
secretary there in the office--on the stage, see? The scene is
his office. Well, this guy's --the rich old guy's--daughter
comes in and says she's married to a poor man and she won't tell
his name, but she wants some money from her dad. You see, her
dad's been planning for her to marry a marquise or some kind of
a lord, and he's sore as can be, and he won't listen to her, and
he just cusses her out something fierce, see? Course he doesn't
really cuss, but he's awful sore; and she tells him didn't he
marry her mother when he was a poor young man; but he won't
listen. Then the secretary butts in-- my idea is he's been kind
of keeping in the background, see--and _he's_ the daughter's
husband all the while, see? and he tells the old codger how
he's got some of his--some of the old fellow's--papers that give
it away how he done something that was crooked--some kind of
deal--rebates and stuff, see how I mean?--and the secretary's
going to spring this stuff on the newspapers if the old man
don't come through and forgive them; so of course the president
has to forgive them, see?"
"You mean the secretary was the daughter's husband all along,
and he heard what the president said right there?" Nelly panted,
stopping outside Miggleton's, in the light from the
oyster- filled window.
"Yes; and he heard it all."
"Why, I think that's just a _fine_ idea," declared Nelly, as they
entered the restaurant. Though her little manner of dignity and
even restraint was evident as ever, she seemed keenly joyous
&n
bsp; over his genius.
"Say, that's a corking idea for a play, Wrenn," exclaimed Tom,
at their table, gallantly removing the ladies' wraps.
"It surely is," agreed Mrs. Arty.
"Why don't you write it?" asked Nelly.
"Aw--I couldn't write it!"
"Why, sure you could, Bill," insisted Tom. "Straight; you
ought to write it. (Hey, waiter! Four fries and coffee!)
You ought to write it. Why, it's a wonder; it 'd make a dev----
'Scuse me, ladies. It'd make a howling hit. You might make a
lot of money out of it."
The renewed warmth of their wet feet on the red-tile floor, the
scent of fried oysters, the din of "Any Little Girl" on the
piano, these added color to this moment of Mr. Wrenn's great
resolve. The four stared at one another excitedly. Mr. Wrenn's
eyelids fluttered. Tom brought his hand down on the table with
a soft flat "plob" and declared: "Say, there might be a lot
of money in it. Why, I've heard that Harry Smith--writes the
words for these musical comedies--makes a _mint_ of money."
"Mr. Poppins ought to help you in it--he's seen such a lot of
plays," Mrs. Arty anxiously advised.
"That's a good idea," said Mr. Wrenn. It had, apparently, been
ordained that he was to write it. They were now settling
important details. So when Nelly cried, "I think it's just a
fine idea; I knew you had lots of imagination," Tom interrupted
her with:
"No; you write it, Bill. I'll help you all I can, of course....
Tell you what you ought to do: get hold of Teddem--he's had a
lot of stage experience; he'd help you about seeing the managers.
That 'd be the hard part--you can write it, all right, but you'd
have to get next to the guys on the inside, and Teddem---- Say,
you cer_tain_ly ought to write this thing, Bill. Might make a lot
of money."
"Oh, a lot!" breathed Nelly.
"Heard about a fellow," continued Tom-- " fellow named Gene
Wolf, I think it was--that was so broke he was sleeping in
Bryant Park, and he made a _hundred thousand dollars_ on his
first play--or, no; tell you how it was: he sold it outright for
ten thousand--something like that, anyway. I got that right
from a fellow that's met him."
"Still, an author's got to go to college and stuff like that."
Mr. Wrenn spoke as though he would be pleased to have the
objection overruled at once, which it was with a universal:
Our Mister Wren Page 22