Jimmy wasn’t able to concentrate on his regular duties that afternoon.
He had acquired an obsession and he couldn’t shake it off. The problem
of how to make good on his promise to the gushy Miss Slosson occupied
his entire time and attention. A more careless or indifferent wayfarer
in the field of theatrical publicity might have been content to let that
plump and pleasing person print her story on the following day and let
it go at that, neglecting to follow the idea up and failing to redeem
his pledges. Jimmy knew a dozen of his confreres who would just drop the
thing on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, but he
wasn’t that kind of press agent. He didn’t know it, but he was really a
great creative artist in his own sphere and he got just the same inner
satisfaction out of seeing his ideas blossom into realities that a great
painter gets as he watches an imagined color harmony spring into life on
the easel before him, or that a stylist thrills to when he achieves a
perfect phrase after a tiresome search for the inevitable word.
The thought of apple pie haunted him. He just had to have one delivered
from Chicago for Miss Slosson, but how to accomplish this feat without
notifying Madame Stephano or her manager worried him. He didn’t know
anyone in that city he could trust to ship one on in time and he rather
figured that even if he did wire or telephone an acquaintance there the
latter would take the request as a weird practical joke of some sort and
pay no serious attention to it.
He found himself out in the street peering into bakeshop windows and
critically appraising the more or less appetizing pastry displayed
therein. No use to buy one of those pies and attempt to work it off on
Miss Slosson, he thought. They were all too obviously the apple pies of
commerce, pale, anaemic affairs bearing not even a remote resemblance to
the succulent product of the home kitchen. His artist’s soul revolted at
the thought of utilizing one of them to further his nefarious designs.
He exhausted the possibilities of the bakeries on three of the principal
avenues in the center of the city and worked himself into a fine frenzy
of despair from which he sought relief in a motion picture theatre. What
was programmed as a Nonpareil Comedy was unfolding itself on the screen
when he entered and just as he slid into a seat in the back row he
beheld a large object hurtling through the air propelled by the
principal comedian. It struck the comedy villain of the piece full in
the face with a disastrously liquid and messy result.
“My God, apple pie,” murmured Jimmy to himself as he clambered out into
the aisle, barking the shins and stirring up the latent profanity of an
irascible looking man who had slipped into a seat alongside him.
He met Tom Wilson again that evening in the hotel lobby and they went
into dinner together.
“Don’t ask me about that story, Tom,” he pleaded as they sat down. “I
want to forget it for a little while.”
And he did. The dinner was excellent, the waiter was alert and extremely
polite and his companion unbosomed himself of a flow of anecdotes that
kept him in a constant state of merriment.
“Mighty good dinner, Tom,” he remarked heartily near the end of the
meal, “and mighty fine service.”
The waiter cleared away the dishes and presented the menu to Jimmy.
“If I may be permitted, sir,” he said deferentially, “I might suggest
that the apple pie is excellent tonight.”
Jimmy pushed his chair back from the table with such violence that he
almost upset it.
“You’ll be permitted to take a punch in the eye, Mr. Fresh,” he said
bitterly and then hastened to apologize.
His companion laughed uproariously.
“Still on your mind, Jimmy?” he inquired.
“Yes,” retorted the other; “seems like we’re hooked up to do a double
act for life.”
Jimmy had a sleepless night. Every time he dropped off into a fitful
slumber he was bothered by a dream in which apple pie played a central
part. Once he dreamt that he was chained to a pillar in a great room and
that Madame Stephano was forcing him to devour an apparently
inexhaustible pie which stood on a table and which she fed him with an
enormous long handled spoon. He choked so hard on one spoonful that he
awoke with a start.
At the breakfast table he read Miss Slosson’s promised story in the
Star. It was all that the most ambitious purveyor of publicity could
desire. There was a four column headline reading:
STEPHANO HURLS
HER ROLLING PIN
INTO THE RING
––––
Russian-American Actress Soon
to Visit This City Enters the
Star’s Popular Pie Contest.
––––
STAGE VERSUS THE HOME
––––
Underneath was a big picture of a kitchen table on each side of which a
woman was shown busily engaged in the culinary operations that usually
accompany the creation of a pie. The bodies of these feminine figures
had been sketched in by an artist, but the heads were excellent
half-tone likenesses of Madame Stephano and Mrs. Jefferson Andrews,
society leader.
One look at the lay-out simply added to Jimmy’s misery. After that he
just _had_ to make good. He strode out of the hotel determined to take a
long walk to see if he couldn’t clarify his mental processes and get his
imagination oiled up again. He was so busy with his thoughts that he
paid little heed to the general direction he was taking and presently
found himself in a corner of the city with which he was not familiar. It
was a quiet residential section and rows of modest homes of the bungalow
type lined both sides of the streets. There was a little group of shops
in a stucco building on a corner and as Jimmy passed him he let his eyes
drift toward them in a desultory fashion.
Presently he stopped directly in front of one which bore this legend
across its front: “The Buy-A-Cake Shop—Home Made Dainties and Pastry.” A
pretty girl dressed in snowy white with a cloth in her hand was lifting
into the window one of the most appetizing looking pies he had ever
seen. It was a single crust affair which had been baked in a deep china
dish of large proportions. The pastry looked flaky enough to crumble at
the touch and was a color symphony in brown. As Jimmy gazed entranced
the girl set down a card in front of the pie. It read: “Mother’s Own
Apple Pie.” Opportunity had knocked and Jimmy answered “present.” He
rushed into the shop.
“I’ll take that pie, miss,” he said eagerly. “I need it in my business.”
As the young woman turned to take it out of the window Jimmy stopped her
for a moment.
“Say,” he said, “I want to send that a long way off and I want you to do
it up so that it will stand the journey—you know, keep fresh and
everything and not get mussed up.”
“I understand,” responded the girl in white. “I’ll wrap a cloth around
it to keep the air out, and I’ll fix it up in a strong pasteboard box
that I’ve got here. Can you wait?”
“Sure I can,” returned Jimmy. “That’s what I’ve been doing for
twenty-four hours. I’ll smoke a cigarette outside. Knock on the window
when you’re ready.”
A half an hour later he breezed into the office of the Standard Theatre
with a large bundle under his arm and greeted Tom Wilson, who was
looking through the morning mail.
“I hear you’ve got a date with an apple pie this morning,” grinned his
friend.
“Here’s the party,” replied Jimmy setting the bundle down on the table.
“The kind that mother used to make out in the summer kitchen under the
lilac vines. You were in for the first act. Do you want to stick around
and watch me take the curtain calls at the finish?”
“Sure,” returned Tom Wilson.
“Then come on back stage,” said Jimmy, picking up his precious bundle.
“I want to interview the house property man. I’ve got to have the right
kind of a production for this little stunt.”
The property man proved equal to the occasion, after explanations had
been made. He brought out a substantial wooden box and began to fill the
bottom of it with crumpled newspapers. Jimmy stopped him.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Never give ’em a chance to have anything on
you is always my motto. These are Cleveland papers and this box is
supposed to come from Chicago. Maybe someone would notice that. Put your
coat on and dust around to that out-of-town newspaper stand over on
Superior Avenue and buy a bunch of yesterday’s Chicago papers.”
When the property man came back a few minutes later and began to crumple
up the newspapers he brought with him, Jimmy turned to his friend again.
“Not a bad little touch, eh, Tom?” he remarked.
“Immense,” agreed the other sincerely. “I’ve got to hand it to you. You
certainly overlook no bets.”
The pasteboard box containing the pie was carefully placed on top of the
bed of newspapers and other papers were packed in tightly around and
above it. The lid was nailed solidly on and Jimmy affixed an express
label addressed to himself. When the box had been carefully loaded on a
push wagon in charge of a small colored boy and was on its way down
Euclid Avenue toward the Star office, personally chaperoned by the two
press agents, the conspiracy was completed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------