An understanding with Lolita which contained certain qualifying clauses
was one of the net results of the Adventure of the Lost Dirigible. Jimmy
filed a number of demurrers, but they were over-ruled as soon as they
were entered on the docket. He had been foolish enough to imagine on the
celebrated morning after the night before that a perceptible scent of
orange blossoms clogged the circumambient air, but this belief was soon
dissipated by the young lady herself.
“I can’t get married, Jimmy,” she said earnestly, “until I find out
about my career.”
“What’s that got to with it?”
“Why, just—why, everything. I was reading an article only the other day
by Mary Garden in which she said that marriage cramped the career of a
woman on the stage. She said that husbands were a handicap—that they
held you back with the tail end of the procession and kept you from
getting on. She said——”
Jimmy broke in with a scornful laugh.
“I suppose she mentioned Mrs. Fiske and Laurette Taylor and Ethel
Barrymore and Blanche Bates and all the other selling platers who’ve
been left at the post because they were foolish enough to enter the
matrimonial stakes,” he scoffed. “It’s really too bad about ’em. It
looked once as if they had a chance.”
Her mouth stiffened at this and she tossed her head with a little
gesture that spelled stubborn defiance.
“Well—anyway—,” she said, “I’m going to see how it works—for a little
while. Maybe there isn’t going to be any career for me beyond—well,
beyond ‘Secret Service Sallie.’ If there isn’t I might possibly——”
She paused thoughtfully. Jimmy’s scornful mood had passed and he looked
at her appealingly.
“You might possibly what?” he ventured, cautiously. “There isn’t goin’
to be _another_ catch in it, is there?”
“I’m afraid there is,” she replied, quietly. “You’ll have to settle down
some place first. I don’t think I’d ever learn how to keep house
permanently in a hotel bed-room and besides——”
Again a disturbing pause. Jimmy was rapidly becoming a pitiful object to
behold.
“Get it all out of your system, sister,” he said, weakly. “I’m a glutton
for punishment.”
“Well,” she resumed evenly, “besides settling down you’d have to have
some money in the bank—quite a little. That’s the most important thing.
There was a girl in our town once who ran off with a fellow in the show
business and lived a hand-to-mouth sort of a life for several seasons
after passing up a lot of good chances among the boys she knew. She’s
back selling stockings in Boyd’s Emporium on First avenue now and she
looks kind of faded out and tired. I like you a lot, Jimmy, and you’ve
treated me better than I deserved and you’re the nicest fellow I ever
knew, but we’ve got to be sensible and wait and see how things work out.
Won’t you—please?”
The “please” was long drawn out and a bit plaintive. It touched the
heart-strings of the hapless press agent and played a tender little
strain upon them. He meekly agreed to all the qualifying clauses in the
agreement and he would have signed on the dotted line if they had been
three times as numerous.
Filled with a new enthusiasm his imagination began to run riot and
within two weeks his surprise assaults upon the front line trenches of
the forces defending the serried columns of the metropolitan daily
newspapers resulted in space returns that established new records.
He contrived to have a member of the President’s cabinet who happened to
take a ride on the Dippy Dip stalled in his gondola one hundred and
seventy-five feet in the air for half an hour while a squad of
mechanicians labored feverishly to get things straightened out. That
landed on the front page of every paper in town. He married off the
Armless Wonder in Bisbee’s Carnival of Freaks to the Legless Marvel with
a new result of six “picture spreads” and five and a half columns of
solid reading matter. His discovery that the little dark-haired girl who
danced on the open air stage in the big free show every afternoon and
evening was the daughter of a grand duke who had fled in disguise from
Soviet Russia and who had feared to reveal her identity because of the
possibility of attack by Bolshevik sympathizers in this country was his
biggest coup, however. This was sensationally played up for all it was
worth and considerably more in every New York daily and had been
telegraphed all over the country. As a “follow-up” on this he arranged
to have two uniformed guards accompany the young woman wherever she
went. This, too, landed heavily and Jimmy’s customary high opinion of
his own prowess was perhaps more noticeable than ever.
One evening while he was sauntering through the incandescent splendor of
Jollyland in a mood of supreme elevation, he heard the booming voice of
McClintock hailing him from the porch of the administration building.
“Come out of it,” the manager shouted.
Jimmy dropped back to earth with a start and sauntered toward the
office.
“Gosh,” observed McClintock, “you looked as if you were off on a long
journey. I hope you brought an idea back with you. We need one. That’s
what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Jimmy smiled the inscrutable smile of one who is the custodian of the
wisdom of the ages.
“I’ve got a neat little assortment of goods I picked up,” he responded
cockily. “What can I offer you?”
“Well, it’s this way,” returned McClintock. “You haven’t pulled anything
yet about our co-worker, Signor Antonio Amado, and his trained animal
show. He’s just been bawling his head off to me. Says there’s a
conspiracy on foot to keep him out of the papers and threatens all kinds
of trouble if we don’t slip something over about his concession right
away. I know you planned to get around to him before long, but you’d
better start something right off. Can you think of anything?”
Jimmy didn’t reply for nearly half a minute. His general manner
betokened profound mental concentration.
“I guess we can accommodate that bird,” he finally remarked. “I don’t
want to hurl any purple pansies at myself, but I think I’ve got a stunt
that’ll pretty nearly crowd everything else on to the back page. I’ve
got seven other animal stories ready, but I think this one has a shade
on all of ’em. I’ll slip over and ooze it into our Dago friend’s
intellect.”
The manager laughed good-naturedly.
“Say,” he commented, “you’re the best little friend of yourself you ever
had, aren’t you? Just hand out a little of that conversation to Tony and
he’ll lie down and behave for a few hours. Tell him you’ll get his
picture in all the papers. That’ll make a hit with him. He’s a member of
your lodge.”
The implications of the last remark made about as much impression on
Jimmy as did the idle wind which at that moment was lightly brushing his
cheek. He strolled over to the garish and gaudy building which housed
Amado’s Colossal and Gargantuan Collection of Trained Wild Beasts from
the Trackless Jungle; paused just long enough at the main entrance to
tell the dark-eyed lady cashier that she looked like a pocket edition of
Maxine Elliott and passed into the auditorium where Signor Amado was
directing the progress of the final show of the night.
The animal trainer was a short, stocky, swarthy-hued Latin with beady
eyes, shiny black hair, and a moustache to the care of which he devoted
himself with self-effacing solicitude. It was a fierce looking affair
with ends pointed like a rapier, which thrust themselves aggressively
upwards at a sharp angle giving the signor’s dark countenance a look of
great ferocity. He tried desperately hard at all times to live up to
that moustache and he had a habit of working himself into violent rages
which were, in reality, rather hollow and empty affairs, as even the
most casual observer could see. He was at heart, a weak and excessively
vain little man. Only the animals who leaped or cowered at his command
were fooled by his appearance of ferocity.
At the conclusion of the show he retired to his office and began to pour
into the unreceptive ears of the general director of promotion and
publicity a voluble stream of protest against the neglect of himself
which Jimmy was able to check only with great difficulty.
“Listen, Signor,” he finally managed to remark. “You’re wastin’ gas
you’ll need some day when you’re climbin’ uphill. I came in to tell you
about a scheme I’ve got that’ll put you and your show right in the
center of the map in bright green, and you begin this eruption stuff
that doesn’t get you even a look-in. Will you listen to me?”
“All right. I makea de listen,” replied Signor Amado, “but eef eet eesa
nota one gooda schema thata makea me hava de face—Signor Antonio Amado’s
face—all ever de—what you call?—all over de whole damned place—I queeta
de park—so.”
He snapped his fingers airily and shrugged his shoulders. Jimmy
proceeded to expound and expatiate, and as he did so the signor’s face
took on a look of intense interest. Presently it was wreathed in smiles,
and he was patting the press agent on the back and uttering words
expressive of pleased delight. The conspirators conferred for a half an
hour, carefully going over Jimmy’s plan of campaign and adjusting the
smallest details thereof so that there would be no disturbing faux pas
on the morrow. They pledged the success of the enterprise just before
midnight in brimming glasses of Chianti which the signor drew from a
secret hiding place in his desk.
At about ten o’clock on the following morning an express wagon drove up
in front of Signor Amado’s concession and four husky attendants brought
out a large box which was placed on it. Jimmy drew the driver aside and
gave him final instructions.
“Get right near the tower on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn bridge,”
he said, “and figure on making it at just about noon. Drive slowly and
if anyone near you makes a noise like a cop don’t pull anything just
then. Wait till there’s no one lookin’ and then reach back, unfasten the
hasp and lift the lid. Then you’ve got to register surprise,
consternation and annoyance and suggest calling up Signor Amado when the
plot begins to thicken, if you get what I mean.”
The driver, a typical “wise” product of the New York streets, nodded his
head, Signor Amado spoke a few mystic words through a wire netting at
one end of the box and the “plant” started on its way after Jimmy gave a
final parting instruction.
“I’ll probably be in the immediate vicinity when things begin to break,”
he cautioned, “but for the love of P. T. Barnum don’t make any signs of
recognition.”
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