"Don't kid about that kind of money, Guy," I says solemnly. "And--don't
tempt me!"
"I never was more serious in my life!" he quickly assures me. "Why, have
_you_ an idea? By Jove, Gladys, if you if _have_--you are the goddess
from the machine----"
"Be of good cheer," I interrupt. "I'll go home and sleep over matters,
which is what you better do, too--you look like you fell out of a well
or something, really! I'll see you tomorrow. I don't think I'll have a
plot for you by then, but----"
"Naturally--still, if you even have a suggestion that I might use," says
Guy eagerly, "I----"
"I say I don't _think_ I'll have a plot by then, I know I'll have one!"
I finish.
And I did, really!
When I got home that night I went right to bed, but somehow Mr. Slumber
and me couldn't seem to come to terms. My brain just refused to call it
a union day but kept mulling over Guy and his magnanimous offer of
twenty-five thousand lire for a plot. Good heavens, he could buy a plot
with a house and barn on it for that! Then my half-sleepy mind turns to
Jimmy Burns, the gloomy bellhop, whose deathless ambition is to corral a
fortune and dumfound Europe with his progress from then on! Suddenly
these two trains of thought collide with a crash and out of the wreck
comes an idea that I think will make Jimmy Burns famous and give Guy
Tower his play! That trifling matter being all settled, I turned over
and slept the sleep of the just.
The very next evening I propositioned Guy, who listened with flattering
attention. After telling him I had his play all set, I furnished him
with a short but interesting description of the life, habits and desires
of James Joseph Aloysius Burns. I then proposed that Guy place his
twenty-five thousand to the bellboy's credit for one month, James to be
allowed free rein with the jack. If Burns has increased the amount at
the end of thirty days, he is to return the original twenty-five
thousand to Guy. If not, he must give back whatever amount he has left.
All the principals are to be sworn to secrecy and that's all there is to
my scheme--it's as simple as the recipe for hot chocolate!
"If Jimmy Burns is really miscast in life and has a brain and business
ability far above hopping bells," I explain, "why, the use of
twenty-five thousand for thirty days might make him one of the world's
most famous men! It's a sporting chance, Guy--will you gamble?"
Guy looks somewhat perplexed. He stares into my excited face and clears
his throat nervously.
"Well--I--of course, I am interested in _anything_ you suggest, Gladys,"
he says. "I--eh--suppose I am unusually stupid this evening, but I
cannot see how my dowering this bellboy will assist me in writing my
play."
"Listen," I says. "You claimed you'd put out twenty-five thousand for a
plot, didn't you? Well, believe me, the movements of Jimmy Burns with
twenty-five thousand dollars to do what he wants with will supply all
the ideas you can handle--if you don't think so, you're crazy!"
"But----" begins Guy.
"Don't butt!" I cut him off, impatiently. "You're not the goat yet and
you won't be if you listen to teacher. All you have to do is give Jimmy
the sugar, watch his stuff for the next thirty days, and you'll get a
true-to-life masterpiece for your drama--probably a play that will show
the making of a financial, scientific or artistic Napoleon! If you can't
get a play out of the effect of sudden wealth on a lowly bellhop, then
you got no business In the same room with a typewriter!"
Guy rubs his chin, smooths back his wavy hair and gazes out of the
window at New York City.
"By Jove!" he busts out suddenly, slapping his hands together. "The
thing is fantastic--grotesque--but I'll do it!"
So it came to pass that the next day Guy, Jimmy Burns, and myself met by
appointment in the cashier's office of the Plumbers & Physicians
National Bank. As I was on my lunch hour and minutes were at a premium,
there was little time squandered on preliminaries, Guy making his
proposition to the thunderstruck James in simple words of one syllable.
At first M. Burns refused to believe he wasn't being kidded, then he got
hysterical with delight. When the startled cashier solemnly asked for
his signature and handed him a bank book showing there was $25,000 to
his credit in the vaults, Jimmy broke down and cried like a baby!
"Now listen to me, young man," I tell the panting Burns when he has hid
the bank book in his shoe to the open amusement of Guy and the wondering
cashier. "You want to get an immediate rush of brains to the head and
make that twenty-five thousand _mean_ something, because that's the last
you get if you cry your eyes out! That's all there is, there isn't any
more, get me? You been going around squawking about what a world-beater
you'd be if you had money. Well, now you got plenty of it and we look
for big things from you. No clowning, remember, you _must_ make good! Is
all that clear?"
Still in a happy trance, Jimmy Burns removes his cap with a start.
"Ye-ye-yes, ma'am!" he gulps, the first time he was ever polite to
anyone, before or since.
Well, really, the effect of that $25,000 suddenly showered on Jamesy was
every bit as startling as I expected--only in a slightly different way
than I fondly hoped! Those pennies went right to his shapely head, and
instead of stimulating his brain, why, they just _removed_ it
altogether. First of all, Jimmy got a wild and uncontrollable desire to
leave the art of bell-hopping flat on its back. Not satisfied to resign
his portfolio in a dignified way, he kidded the guests, insulted the
manager, rode Jerry Murphy till Jerry wanted his heart, and wound up by
punching Pete Kift, the bell captain, right on the nose. By an odd
coincidence, these untoward actions got Jimmy the gate.
The plutocrat bellhop's next imitation was to apply for the most
expensive suite in the hotel. They just laughed Hon. Burns off, telling
him there was nothing but standing room left in the inn and try to get
_that!_ But Guy Tower came to the rescue and got Jimmy the suite, as Guy
wanted to keep his experiment under as close observation as possible
while making notes for his play. Once settled in his gorgeous apartment,
Jimmy swelled up like a mump and run his former colleagues ragged
getting him ice water, stationery, telegram blanks and drug-store gin.
He staggered around in the most fashionable lobby in New York making
cracks like "Hey, d'ye think Prohibition will ever come back?" to
astounded millionaires and their ladies. Honestly, he was a wow I When
one of the fellows he used to work with called him "Jimmy," the nee
bellboy angrily insists that the manager fire him for undue familiarity,
remarking, "A guy has got to keep them servants in their proper places!"
He sent a wire to the Standard Oil Company asking if they couldn't use a
younger man in Rockefeller's place, paid the dinge elevator pilots a
dollar twenty times a day to stop the car and tie his shoe laces,
panicked the highest priced tailor in Manhattan by ordering seven suits
of "mufti," having read that the King of England occasionally dresses in
that, and generally misplayed his hand till everybody was squawking and
in no time at all Jimmy Burns was about as popular as a mad deg in the
St. Moe hotel. He failed to go through college like he promised he
would, but he certainly went through everything else, and only for Guy,
Jimmy would have been streeted fifty times a day!
The next desire that attacks James is the ambition to see his name in
the newspapers, so he advertises for a press agent. The first publicity
purveyor who showed up made James think he was good by using nothing but
adjectives in his conversation and asking for a honorarium of $250 the
week. Mr. Burns thought the salary was more than reasonable, but as he's
the type that would ask President Coolidge for a reference, he demanded
one from the candidate for the job. "You have asked the man who owns
one--just a minute!" says the press agent cheerily, and not at all
abashed he dashes out of the room. I heard all this when he stopped at
my switchboard with Jimmy and asked me where the writing room was. In
five minutes he's back, waving a paper in Jimmy's face. "Look _that_
over!" he says.
James read it out loud for my entertainment. According to this
testimonial, the bearer had did about everything in the publicity line
but act as press representative for a school where middle-aged eagles
are taught how to fly. James seems to get quite a kick out of it.
"I think I'll take this guy," he remarks, as he looks up from the
reference.
"Fine!" says the delighted applicant. "That's a good thought. I'll snap
right into it and----"
"Tomato sauce!" butts in James sneeringly. "I don't wish no part of
_you_, the baby _I_ want to hire is the bozo which wrote this
recommendation of you. He's good, what I mean, a letter-writin' idiot!"
"A bit odd that we should both be thinking the same thing," says Mr.
Press Agent coolly. "As a matter of fact, I wrote that recommendation
myself. So now that I'm engaged as your publicity expert, let me have a
few of your photos and----"
The following morning nearly every front page in town displayed a
picture of James Burns and this glaring headline:
BELL BOY LEFT MILLION BY GUEST
HE ONCE LOANED DIME!
That was the press agent's first effort and, as far as I was ever able
to see, his last. But it got ample results, as with your permission I'll
be glad to show you.
Within a week, Jimmy Burns had discovered what millions have discovered
before _his_ little day--that the mere possession of lucre does not mean
happiness, and for some it means positive misery! Not only did James
become the prey of the charity solicitors, confidence workers, stock
swindlers, "yes men," phony promoters and other parasites that infest
the hotel, but he was constantly in boiling water through his cuckoo
escapades growing out of sudden wealth that sent his brains on location.
After purchasing a diamond as big as Boston, only brighter, he bought
the highest priced horseless carriage he could find in the market and
the same identical day it slipped out of his hands and tried to climb
the steps of the Fifth Avenue library. The gendarmes pinched him for
reckless driving, though Jimmy protested that it wasn't really
"wreckless" as he had plenty wreck, and his worship tossed the trembling
James into the hoosegow for three days, remarking, "I'll teach you rich
men a lesson!" Then the income-tax beagles read that newspaper headline
and came down on Burns like a cracked ceiling. So all in all, Jimmy was
finding few chuckles connected with his pieces of eight.
When the rich but unhappy James got out of the Bastille, he decided to
throw a party in his costly suite at the St. Moe for his former
associates of the bellhops' bench. As Jimmy confided to me, apparently
his only friend, he felt the immediate need of mixing with people who
spoke his language. He wanted to forget his troubles and get back on a
friendly footing with the boys, who had severed diplomatic relations
with him on account of his acting like he was Sultan of Goitre or
something when he became a thousandaire overnight. Jimmy felt that a
first-class soiree would do the trick.
The party came off as advertised, but all it meant to the poor little
rich man was more grief! It was really a respectable enough affair, no
hats being broken or that sort of thing, and a pleasant time was had by
all with the slight exception of the charming host. Our hero made two
fatal mistakes. The first was not inviting Jerry Murphy and the second
was laying in a stock of canny Scotch for medicinal purposes, in case
any of his guests should get stricken with the dread disease of thirst.
The result was that an epidemic of parched throats broke out early in
the evening and pretty soon the other habitues of the St. Moe began
complaining bitterly about the unusually boisterous race riot that was
being staged with a top-heavy cast on the sixth floor. Mr. Williams, the
manager, who liked Jimmy Burns and arsenic the same way, called upon
Jerry Murphy to quell the disturbance and Jerry licked his lips with
delight. The man-mountain house detective run all the way upstairs,
figuring the elevators too slow to whisk him to a job as tasty to him as
cream is to puss. Jerry pounded on the door of Jimmy's salon and
demanded admittance. Recognizing his voice, James climbed unsteadily on
a chair, opened the transom and peered with a rolling eye at Jerry.
"Go roll yer hoop--hic--you big shtiff, thish is
gen'lemen's--hic--gen'lemen's blowout!" says Jimmy, carelessly pouring a
pitcher of water, cracked ice and all, on Jerry's noble head. "Hic--shee
kin you _laugh off!_"
Foaming at the mouth and uttering strange cries, the infuriated Jerry
broke through the door and the panic was on! The beauty and chivalry
present fled before the charging sleuth like they'd flee before a
charging hippo, but the unfortunate Jimmy got left at the post. After
cuffing him around the room till the sport palled on him, Jerry dragged
James off to durance vile and once again Jamesy is put under glass, this
time credited with illegally possessing spirits frumenti. They held him
under lock and key all night and it took all of Guy Tower's influence
and quite a few of his quarters to get Jerry to withdraw the charge and
free Jimmy the next morning.
Well, honestly, I felt sorry for Jimmy Burns, who was certainly taking
cruel and unusual punishment and being made to like it. I thought
perhaps if I injected a lady into the situation it might make things a
bit more pleasant for him, so I introduced Hazel Killian to the
"millionaire bellboy," as the newspapers were still calling James. _O
sole mia!_ as they say in Iowa, what an off day my brain was having when
it cooked up _that_ idea! With visions clouding her usually painstaking
taste, of the Riviera, Paris, Monte Carlo, gems, yachts, Boles-Joyce
limousines or what have you, Hazel took to Jimmy like a goldfish takes
to a bowl and our evening expeditions now consisted of your
correspondent and Guy, assisted by Hazel and Jimmy. We went everywhere
together, with James insisting upon paying most of the bills. But while
Jimmy was civil enough to the easy-to-look-at Hazel, he simply showered
his attentions on your little friend Gladys, grabbing every chance to
make the most violent love to me. This greatly annoyed Guy and Hazel and
equally greatly amused _me_--Jimmy was just a giggle to me, not a gasp!
In the meanwhile, Mr. Williams and Jerry Murphy had banded together to
make James sick and tired of living in the Hotel St. Moe. He seldom
found his room made up, there was always something wrong with the
lights, the water and the steam, none of the help would answer his
bells, and when he hollered for service he was told he would find it in
the dictionary under S. But Pete Kift pulled the worst trick of all on
him. With the radiant Hazel on his arm and Guy keeping military distance
behind, Jimmy was proudly strutting through the lobby one fine evening.
All were resplendent in evening clothes, and to show you I'm not catty
I'll say that Hazel in an evening gown would attract attention away from
the Yosemite. As the party neared the desk, Pete Kift suddenly looks at
Jimmy and bawls "_Front!_" at the top of his bull elephant's voice, and
mechanically responding to the habit of a lifetime, poor Jimmy Burns
grabs an amazed guest's suitcase and hastily starts for the elevator!
The witnesses just screamed when they grasped the situation and
recognized James as the ex-bellhop. Even Guy smiled, but it was
different with Hazel, who could have shot down Mr. Burns on the spot in
cold blood. As for Jimmy, well, honestly, he would have welcomed the
bullet!
Nevertheless, in spite of this fox pass Hazel believed Jimmy had
actually inherited an even million, and evidently James had not gone out
of his way to make her think different. So one day Hazel tells me she's
all through posing for artists and is determined to make Jimmy her very
own. When she adds that he has sworn to star her in a musical comedy or
back her in a movie production, I nearly passed out! Can you imagine
Jimmy, with only a few thousand left, making any such maniacal promises
as that to a girl with a memory like Hazel's? _Oo la la_, what a fine
disturbance James was readying himself for!
As I had vowed to say nothing about how Jimmy got his bankroll, I
couldn't very well give the ambitious Hazel the lowdown on matters, but
I _did_ try most earnestly to lay her off him. I got nowhere! Refusing
to be warned, Hazel point-blankly accused me of having a yen for Jimmy
myself, and then she set sail for this gilded youth in dead earnest.
Well, knowing nothing of Hazel's plans with regard to himself, the
doomed Jimmy kept on entertaining like his first name was Astor, his
middle name Vanderbilt and his last name Morgan. He took me, Hazel and
Guy to the races at Belmont Park and stabled us all in a box. As James
had loudly declared that he knew more about horses than Vincent Ibanez,
we all played his-feed-box tips for five races and we learned about
losers from him. When the sixth and last scramble arrived, Guy had
donated $1,500, I had sent in $50, and Hazel had parted with $80 to the
oral books and was fit to be tied I What Jimmy lost, nobody knows.
Anyhow, he gazed over the program for the sixth race, a mile handicap,
and suddenly let out a yell.
"Hot dog!" he says, much excited. "Here's where we all get independent
for life. They's a beagle in this dash by the name of Bellhop and if
that ain't a hunch then Pike's Peak's a pimple. Get down on this baby
with the family jools and walk outa here rancid with money!"
We split a contemptuous grin between us and presented it to Jimmy before
getting down on the favorite in a last attempt to break even on the day.
Jimmy milled his way back to our box, flushed and panting, and gayly
announced that he had shot the works on Bellhop's nose. He said we were
all paranoiacs for not doing the same. Well, it was all over in a
twinkling! The favorite found the handicap of our bets a bit too much
and finished an even last. Bellhop tripped the mile in something like
0.96 and won from here to the Ruhr, clicking off $15,000 for Mr. James
Joseph Aloysius Burns. James then announced his intention of buying the
horse and presenting it to Hazel for Arbor Day, and it was only with the
greatest of difficulty that me and Guy talked him out of it. Hazel gave
us a murderous glare and for the rest of the day you couldn't have got a
nail file between her and Jimmy, honestly!
Whirling back to New York in Jimmy's car, now steered by a uniformed
chauffeur, I began to reprove James for this gambling and stepping out
when he should be using his money and time to secure his future. What
about all his promises to me? How about all the big things he was going
to do? When was he going to enter business, or whatever he thought he
could do best?
"Don't make me laugh!" says Jimmy, tapping an imported cigarette on a
solid gold case. "I'm sittin' pretty. What a sucker _I'd_ be to pester
myself about work when I got all this sugar!"
"Of course," says Hazel, nestling closer to him. "Imagine a millionaire
_working!_"
And the only thing that really burned me up was Jimmy's grin at Guy and
the sly dig in the ribs he gave me, the little imp!
Well, from then on Jimmy had lots of luck and all of it bad. The fellow
who invented money was a clever young man, but he really should have
stayed around the laboratory for another couple of hours and invented an
antidote for the trouble it brings. The well-to-do ex-bellhop used his
jack as a wedge to get into one jam after another, till finally came the
worst blow of all, and Miss Hazel Killian delivered it.
It seems that Hazel got fatigued waiting for Jimmy to unbelt the roll
and star her in a musical comedy or a super-production, so she requested
a showdown. Jimmy checked up and discovered he had blown all but about
five thousand of his ill-gotten gains, and as trustworthy reports had
reached him that it would take about ten times that much to group a show
around the beauteous Hazel, he calmly told her all bets were off. Hazel
promptly fainted, but Jimmy's idea of first aid being an alarmed glance
and a dash for the door, she quickly snapped out of it and demanded ten
thousand dollars for the time she put in entertaining him.
"Aha--a gold digger, hey?" says Jimmy indignantly. "So you wish ten
grand for entertainin' me? Where d'ye get that stuff? They ain't no ten
thousand dollars' worth of laughs in you for _me_, I'll tell the world!
Take the air!"
Infuriated beyond speech, Hazel brought suit for $100,000 against James
the following day, charging that promising young man had promised to wed
her. Further, deponent sayeth not!
That was the end of the high life for Jimmy Burns. Honestly, he was
scared stiff and he got little comfort from _me_, for I was absolutely
disgusted with the way he had carried on from the time Guy gave him that
money. Opportunity had knocked on this little fool's door and he had
pretended he wasn't at home. Not only that, but I felt he had got me in
wrong with Guy Tower, whose $25,000 investment for a plot now seemed a
total loss. I told Guy tearfully how sorry I was that my scheme had
failed to pan out, but he cut me off in the middle of my plea for
forgiveness, his face a mass of smiles.
"My dear girl, you owe me no apology," says Guy, patting my shoulder.
"It is I who owe you a debt of gratitude. I've written a farce-comedy
around Jimmy's adventures with the twenty-five thousand, and Rosenblum
predicts it will be the hit of the season! I've never seen him so
enthusiastic. Your idea was more than successful, and Jimmy is welcome
to whatever he has left of the money when the time limit expires!"
Wasn't that lovely?
In the meantime, the miserable Jimmy had tried to forget his worries
again by mixing with his former fellow workmen about the hotel. Jerry
Murphy and Pete Kift wouldn't give him a tumble, so he sat on the
bellhops' bench all night, trying to square things with his
ex-playmates. But now that he was a "millionaire" they put on the ice
and treated him like a maltese would be treated at a mouse's reception.
A great longing comes over Jimmy to be a care-free bellboy again,
without the burden of wealth. He felt the irresistible call of the ice
water, the stationery and the tip! So, unable to lick the temptation, he
sneaked the baggage of a few guests upstairs and was promptly run out of
the hotel by the other boys for poaching on their preserves. To make
things perfect, a couple of days later he was served with the papers in
Hazel's suit.
Unable to cope with the situation and hysterical with fear, Jimmy rushed
to the switchboard and made an appeal to me that would have melted a
Chinese executioner. He placed the blame for the trouble he was in on my
georgetted shoulders--manlike--and insisted that I had to get him out of
the mess. The legal documents Hazel had him tagged with smacked to the
terrified Jimmy of pitiless judges, stern juries, jail--perhaps even the
gallows! Honestly, James was in fearful shape, no fooling. I shut off
his moans finally, and told him to get rid of whatever money he had left
and I would take on myself the horrible job of explaining everything to
Hazel. With a wild whinny, Jimmy dashed out of the hotel without even
thanking me, gambled his remaining ducats in one wild stock-market
plunge--and two days later the ticker informed him that he was worth
$25,000 again!
But money was now smallpox to Jimmy Burns. It was just three weeks and
four days since Guy Tower gave him the original $25,000, and under the
agreement Jimmy still had three days left to splurge. Nothing stirring!
What he wanted to do now was to get rid of his wealth, as I had told him
Hazel's barristers would never let her sue him should they find out the
defendant had no more nickels. Jimmy wanted to go to law with Hazel the
same way he wanted to part with his ears, so he busts in on Guy and
tells him to take back his gold because he don't wish any part of it.
Before the astonished Guy can open his mouth, Jimmy hurls twenty-five
one-thousand-dollar bills on the table and flees the room!
Well, being an important customer of the St. Moe, Guy got Jimmy back his
old job hopping bells, broke, but happy for the first time in a month.
Then Guy insisted on me accepting a small royalty from his play for
producing Jimmy Burns as the plot. That left everybody taken care of but
the raging Hazel, who declared herself off me for life and was packed
and ready to leave me alone in New York. Guy solved that problem and
made Hazel crazily happy by engaging her to play _herself_ in his
comedy, "Money to Burns." Merry Flag Day!
[Illustration]
[Footnote 6: _Copyright, 1923, International Magazine Company
(Cosmopolitan Magazine)_]