a good dinner too when all of a sudden I notices there is a feller
sitting at the next table all by himself and he dont seem to have a
thing to do but listen to what we are saying. I gets him out of the
corner of my eye and then I writes a note on the menu and shoves it
over to Mr. Edgerton, “We are being listened to.” So then he begins to
talk about the unusual severe winter we have been having and by and by
he gets a chance to look at the other feller who is attending to what
is in his own plate real hard. And after that we dont talk no more
international affairs.
Well when we get up to go we have hardly got out of the door before I
see the other feller getting up and when we are walking down the street
there he is following us. So we stop to look in a shop-window and I see
him stop too and I says to Mr. Edgerton, “We are being shadowed. I must
get on a street-car right quick and you get on another going the other
way and we will see what happens.”
So we shook hands and I run and caught a car going my way home and that
is all I know about it for I didnt see the feller on my car. But oh Mom
do you suppose that Mr. Edgerton’s wife can of heard how he is taking
out a manicurist to dinner? Or do you suppose it can be some of them
Bolshivikis that is trying to undermine the government by keeping me
from helping the Spokesman keep close to the great heart of the plain
people?
Your scared
MAME.
LETTER VIII
IN WHICH I PEEK INTO A PALACE
DEAR MOM:
If you have got the same habit that I have got of reading everything
in the papers that the Spokesman says you will of saw how many times
He says the things I have said for Him to say. The last time was that
about the government having the right to protect itself against fellers
that wants to talk about over-throwing it. It come out in the papers
just like I said it to Mr. Edgerton.
Yesterday there wasnt so much news only a story about how the Spokesman
had been delayed for a full minute after He had got into His automobile
by the Spokeslady having to coax Her dog to get in too. It made a sweet
story for I like to think of Them having a pet that They love.
Today there is another story very interesting. It seems that the
Spokesman has got to have exercise but He is too busy to go and get it
so up there in the great white house where He stays they have set up an
electric camelephant, that works by machinery and every morning He gets
up on top of it and gives Him a nice ride and shakes Him up and starts
everything inside Him. I think that is a wonderful idea but I should
think it would be rather tiresome riding on a camelephant and not
getting nowhere or any change of scenery like on a real camelephant.
But I suppose the Spokesman would be too busy to look at the scenery
anyhow, He has got to be thinking all the time about what He is going
to say to the reporters when they come to listen to Him again.
There was a customer left a magazine in the Elite Beauty Parlors and
in it I see a picture of the Spokesman. Of course it is not a picture
of Him riding the camelephant but it just shows His face. But I cut it
out and took it home and pasted it on a piece of cardboard and I have
set it up on my bureau so that I can look at Him while I am thinking
up things that I can tell Mr. Edgerton to tell Him to say to the
reporters. I wish that Mr. Edgerton had not told me one thing about Him
that I find myself always thinking while I look at the picture that He
is like a singed cat because He is better than He looks. Of course I
know there is movie actors that is more sheiks but they have not got
the great ideas of the Spokesman.
* * * * *
P. S. Well I have went to dinner with Mr. Edgerton again and it had to
be a cheap place because of that scare that we got from seeing a man
that we thought was following us. Mr. Edgerton says that he does not
know any more about it because the man did not follow him on the street
car. It might be that his wife is having him shadowed because she is
jealous about him giving so much time to trying to understand the plain
people. He says that she is now certain that a wart which she has got
on her shoulder is turning into angina pectoris and when he tries to
persuade her that it is not so she cries and becomes very excited and
says that he no longer loves her and that she knows he is only waiting
for her to die so that he can run off with some peroxide blonde. I asks
him if that means me and he says that my guess about it is better than
any man’s.
The other thing that it might be he says some of his enemies might be
having him watched so as to get something on him. I says, “Have you
got enemies?” And he says, “Up there at the great white house I have
not got anything else and neither has anybody else because everyone is
hating everyone else and watching for a chance to lift his scalp off.”
There is a dozen secretaries up there it seems but Mr. Edgerton is
the special one indeed he is really not a secretary at all he is just
that on the payroll but they dont pay him very much and the greater
part of his pay comes to him on the side out of funds which is put up
by business men that want to have the say about things. And what Mr.
Edgerton is paid for is to be a kind of guardian to the Spokesman to
tell Him what to say that He wouldn’t know if He wasnt told. And of
course Mr. Edgerton has got the right to come into the big white house
at all hours of the day or night and it is not many that have got that
right and them that have not got it are intreeging and trying to pull
down they that have.
He said again that it is just like a palace with a king and his
courtiers but as I was never in a palace I could not tell. And he told
me about the people he has to deal with up there in the big white house
and of course I listened very eager not because I like to gossip but
because I have got to understand about these people if I am going to be
one that has got the job of teaching the Spokesman.
Mr. Edgerton says there is an old gentleman by the name of Mr. Prows
that is a sort of grandaddy to the great Man. He owns a big department
store back in the home town and it runs itself and all the old
gentleman has got to do is to play around in the big white house and
enjoy the thrills of power. People come to him that wants this and
that and he listens and looks wise and says that he will see what can
be done and he toddles round and ask questions of this and that and by
and by he whispers into the Spokesman’s ear that the welfare of the
party depends upon Pete Whizzle being made deputy collector of customs
at Skunk Center Montana and if the Spokesman does it then the old
gentleman is proud and happy for a week.
And there is another guy that is a big mill-owner by the name of
Senator Buttles and he has been the Spokesman’s real boss and now is
the political manager and he is supposed to run the machine and all the
other politicians and the other senators. But he is a flop at the job
because you see he is one of these hard-boiled guys that is used to
running a factory and to say for things to be done just so and if you
dont like it you can get the hell out of here. But the other senators
aint used to the job being done that way they is mostly old guys of
the sporting sort that buy their bootleg liquor right in the lobby and
they dont like the Spokesman and His blue-nose cheese-paring crowd that
He has brought along from the artic regions and there is war between
them and Mr. Edgerton has to work hard to keep it from busting into the
papers some day.
And Mr. Edgerton says the Spokesman is very worried about that story
about the camelephant. He thinks maybe the people will think it is
not dignified for the greatest Man in the world to be riding on a
camelephant in His pajamas in His bedroom. And I says, “Well I should
of thought that is just where they would think He should ride,” I says.
“The undignified part would be if He was to ride a camelephant on the
street in His pajamas.” And Mr. Edgerton says that is quite true and I
always think of things in just the right way and if I am sure that the
plain people will see it that way the Spokesman will be less unhappy.
Mr. Edgerton says there is nothing in the whole world that worries
the Spokesman so much as being made fun of because He is very serious
about His job and wants people to be serious about Him. And I says, “Of
course He would have to be,” I says, “for it is no joke to know that
a hundred millions of people is waiting for you to teach them what to
think and a Man that has got to talk to all the reporters of all the
newspapers of the whole world has got a job that will keep Him looking
serious.”
“Well that is just what it does,” says Mr. Edgerton and he says, “You
feel quite sure that it wont hurt Him about the camelephant?”
I says, “Anybody that laughs about such a thing will be no good
American,” I says. “The plain people like I know back in the gas-house
district of Camden New Jersey,” I says, “will think that a Man that has
to teach them and govern them and manage their international affairs
should be a sober Man and a moral Man with no time for foolishness,” I
says. “I dont suppose He rides that camelephant for fun,” I says.
And Mr. Edgerton says, “No it is for His liver.”
And I says, “Exactly He has got to take care of His liver of course,” I
says. “And while He rides He will have His mind on the government and
He will not let Himself be worried by no laughing jackasses along the
roadside.”
Mr. Edgerton says that when the Spokesman saw the story in print He
was fearful peeved and could not talk about nothing else all day He
demanded to know who had give that camelephant away to the reporters
and He told Mr. Edgerton to go and find out. And Mr. Edgerton went
first to Mr. Grandaddy Prows and the old gentleman said he was not at
liberty to say but in strict confidence he had an idea that it was
Senator Buttles that had give it out. And then Mr. Edgerton went to
Senator Buttles and asked him who had give it out and Senator Buttles
said that he was not at liberty to say but in strict confidence he had
an idea that it was Mr. Prows that had give it out. And gee Mom would
you think that a palace would be so much like the Elite Beauty Parlors?
Well Mom I could of listened all day to international affairs like
this but I had got nervous about all this intreeging and I looks about
and there at one of the tables is sitting the same feller that I seen
at the table the other night trying to listen in on our talk. “Mr.
Edgerton,” I says, “we are being shadowed again.” And after that he was
so uneasy that his mind was not on what I was saying. And he says,
“When we go out you must let me put you into a taxi because it will not
be so easy for him to follow you and I will go another way and lose him
in the crowd,” he says.
So he gives me money for the fare and we goes out and he puts me into a
cab and away I go and pretty soon I look back and there is the lights
of another car behind us and so I watches and that car follows us all
the time so I tell my driver not to take me no farther but to let me
out and I will save most of my fare. And when I get out I see that
the other car stops too and waits to see where I am going and then it
follows slow.
I says to myself, “I will block that little game,” so I slips into
a big hotel right quick. I can do that all right because I have got
on my swell new clothes that Mr. Edgerton give me so I look like I
belonged in one of them places. I goes into an elevator and slips off
at the mezzanine floor and sits there a while in one of the soft plush
seats and a gentleman comes along and spreads his feathers in front
of me--you know they calls them places “Peacock Alley”--but I goes on
staring straight in front of me and he sees that I am not his pea-hen
and so he goes away. This is not the man that is following Mr. Edgerton
and I you understand but just some feller that is intreeged by my swell
new clothes.
I dont see any more of the one that was following us so I go out by
another entrance and get home all right. But gee Mom we are really
being spied on and I wonder how it is they can find us whether they
have got the telephone wires tapped at the Elite Beauty Parlors or
whether they have got one of the girls hired to tip them off to my
dates. You never can tell when you are living in the great world and
have the job of deciding what is to be taught to the whole American
people. Gee Mom it is more thrilling than any movie that I ever was at!
Your excited
MAME.
LETTER IX
IN WHICH I DON’T GET WET
DEAR MOM:
Well, I suppose you have saw in the papers how they are making a lot of
fun of the Spokesman because of the story that He has got a camelephant
in His room, so that He can get His exercise by riding on it every
morning in His pajamas. It is like Mr. Edgerton said He was afraid it
would be they are getting smart about it and not taking Him respectful
like a great Man like Him had ought to be took.
This a. m. there was a girl in the Elite Beauty Parlors that had a
paper and there was no customers so she was reading about it and then
she begun telling it and they was all chuckling. It seems this smart
aleck in the paper was saying that this camelephant went about the room
with the Spokesman on the top of it and that it had got unruly and had
bumped Him against the chandelier and the aleck said the camelephant
was built so the electric contact was got through spurs and that you
stopped it by pulling on a pair of rains and saying, “Ho!” And he
said that why He had got a camelephant not a zebray was because a
camelephant don’t have to be watered more than onced in three weeks and
also because it was the emblem of the dries and so on a lot of silly
stuff that it is a shame to write about a great Man that has got the
hard job of governing and teaching the whole country.
Well it made me hot to listen to them sillies giggling there and I
says, “That is all a bunch of nonsense,” I says, “that camelephant
does not travel but it stays on one place and it goes when you press a
button and the reason it is a camelephant not a zebray is got nothing
to do with prohibition,” I says, “but because it is ordered for His
liver and the camelephant is a beast that has got a very bumpy gate and
it shakes you a lot when you ride on him.”
Well and of course that got the lot of them peeved and Ada Huggins the
silly that wants me to call her Adaire only I won’t fool with such
nonsense she says, “What do you know about it?” And I says, “Never you
mind what I know,” I says, “but I know a lot more than you think I
know.” “Maybe you have been invited up to that big white house to visit
Him,” she says and I says, “Maybe I have been and maybe I will be I
aint telling it to you.”
Well of course that intreegs them a lot, for they have saw there is
something mysterious in my life and they would give a day’s pay to know
but I dont say nothing because it is a state secret as Mr. Edgerton
says and my power to educate him and the Spokesman would be gone if
anybody knowed that I was doing it he says the newspapers would not
respect the ideas that I give them if it was knowed that they come from
a manicure girl in the Elite Beauty Parlors.
* * * * *
P. S. Well Mom I have saw Mr. Edgerton again and it is getting to be
very exciting because there is sure some enemy that is shadowing us
and trying to find out what we are doing. Mr. Edgerton says whenever
he comes out of the big white house there is somebody following him
but he managed to shook him off and we had another dinner in the Greek
restaurant where they cook things with mutton suet and he told me all
what is happening. And it seems that it is very dreadful because the
papers all over the country is laughing about that camelephant and
telling all kinds of silly things like that it makes an awful racket
while it runs or that the Spokesman has got a secretary riding with him
and dictates his male while he goes out for a camelephant gallop.
Mr. Edgerton says he give positive orders to the reporters of all
the newspapers of the country that nothing more was to be sent out
on that camelephant but it done no good because the editors was all
telegraphing for more and even cabling from South Africa and China and
if the editors didnt get no more they would make it up anyhow. And
the Spokesman is so worried that He has not been able to think about
governing the country for the past few days but only scolding about who
let the camelephant out of the stable.
And at last it was found out who done it and it was Mr. Grandaddy Prows
that done it and they had an awful scene and the old gentleman wept
tears and he said that he hadn’t meant no harm but he only thought
that the plain people would want to know all about the homelife of
their great Man and would like to read about His camelephant just as
they liked to read about the Spokeslady’s pet dog and how the family
automobile had been held up a whole minute after the Spokesman had got
into it while the Spokeslady was coaxing Her dog to get in.
And the Spokesman said it was not the same at all because when He was
in the automobile with His wife and Her dog He had something more than
His pajamas on, and so it was proper for the public to think about
Him then. He said that Grandaddy Prows had proved himself without
discretion and that his usefulness to the Spokesman was ended and
the poor old gentleman went off with his heart broken and now it is
announced that him and his wife is starting on a European tour that he
is doing some highly secret diplomatical errands for the Spokesman.
And of course that is very sad and I am upset too because Mr. Edgerton
says he cannot get the Spokesman to think about international affairs
at all no more. The reason for the worry he says is that the Spokesman
got into this great office by accident and He knows that He is wearing
shoes that is many times too big for Him and He is scared to death that
some day the people may get onto the real size of His feet. And I says,
“Oh that explains it then because I could not see why He was so afraid
of being saw in His pajamas. Because after all I have saw lots of
pictures of screen actors in their pajamas and I have thought they was
lovely. And when you see the pictures of defendants and corespondents
and other people in divorce actions they do not look so bad at all in
pajamas,” I says.
Well the big white house is a mean place to live right now Mr. Edgerton
says with everybody in the dumps or scared and anybody can get rich
quick that can find out a way to get the American people to talk about
any other animal in the zoo but the camelephant. I says, “Mr. Edgerton,
it’s not that I want money,” I says, “because I am willing to serve my
country for the love of it and I think it had ought to be possible for
the Spokesman to do His great work without being bothered,” I says, “so
let’s you and me figure out a way to get the people to appreciate and
love Him again.”
So then he looks relieved because he has come to have great confidence
in me because the training I got in the gas-house district of Camden
New Jersey has been better for this job than what he got when he was in
college. So he says, “All right Miss Riggs let us do it. What do you
suggest?”
And I says, “Any good woman would of been able to of told you. The
Spokesman has got virtues that the plain people love and what we have
got to do is to pick out one of them and get the people to think about
that.”
“Which one do you suggest?”
“You say that His great love is for economy and you take it from me
they may pay a lot of money to boot-leggers and jazz-bands but deep
down in their hearts the American people aint forgot that the real way
to make money is to save it.”
“Yes I suppose so,” he says but kind of half-hearted.
“Listen to me,” I says. “It is coming on to be springtime and every man
in this country is worried because he knows he has got to pay a bill
for his wife’s new Easter hat. Now suppose you was to fix it that the
Spokeslady was not to buy no Easter hat and you give out to all the
newspapers of the world a story that She is making over Her old hat for
this season don’t you know that would warm the heart of every man in
the country?”
Well he thinks it over but then he says, “Miss Riggs what about all the
women that want to have their new hats?”
“Take it from me,” I says, “The woman is fretting because her husband
is spending too much on his new spring suit so let there be another
story that the Spokesman is getting only a very cheap spring suit say
twenty-five dollars.”
“No,” he says, “that would be too cheap they would not believe that it
would sound like a shipping-clerk or something.”
“Well,” says I, “it happens that back in Camden New Jersey I have got
a fyansay that is a shipping-clerk and it is nothing to be ashamed
of,” I says. “But make it thirty-five or forty-five or fifty-five or
sixty-five whatever seems right--”
“Sixty-five would be about right,” he says. “And come to think of it
Miss Riggs I shouldn’t wonder if you have saved the day.”
“Let us hope that it is not too late,” I says.
“How do you mean too late?”
“I mean that He has not got His spring suit already and paid too much
for it.”
“But what harm would that do?”
“Well,” I says, “but if it aint a true story it would be no good.”
“That can be fixed up,” he says. “If the Spokesman has got a suit that
is not economical enough it can be for a present to His chef up there
at the big white house or maybe for the captain of His yacht,” he
says. And then he rushes away right off because he thinks that if the
Spokesman knows about this He may be able to get some sleep tonight
which is something He needs even worse than exercise for His liver.
And so then I start out for home and gee Mom it is awful because it has
started to rain. There I am with my new suit and my new hat and shoes
and gloves and I haven’t got my umbrella and besides it is busted and
if I was to buy a new one I should not have no lunch for the rest of
this week and the next. And so I stand in the doorway of the restaurant
waiting for the rain to stop but it gets worse and I stand till my legs
is ready to give away and the tears is running down my cheeks as bad as
the rain and gee Mom it is sure awful to be a poor girl and have only
one chance to look decent in your whole life-time and then see you got
to lose that chance.
Well I look around and standing under the awning of the next store who
do you think I see--the feller that has been shadowing Mr. Edgerton
and me! And suddenly I gets red hot and I goes over to him and I says,
“What are you following me round for?”
Well of course he is rattled and he stammers, “I aint been following
you lady I am waiting for the rain to stop.”
“You husky brute with an umbrella and rubber shoes on?” I says. “Go and
tell that to the judge,” I says. “What is it you want out of me?”
Of course he don’t know what to say but suddenly I make a guess and I
says, “Do you want to know where I live?” I says. “Are you trying to
follow me home? If so,” I says, “I’ll make you a bargain you lend me
them rubbers to put over my new shoes and you put that there umbrella
over my new hat and dress and you can walk home with me as straight as
the streets run.”
And gee Mom he is tickled so that he busts out laughing. It seems that
he is a good sport because he says “All right Miss if you really mean
it I’ll take you up.” And he reaches down and takes off his rubbers.
But before I stoop to put them on I gives him a good look in the eye
and I says, “Look here Mr. Man I want you to understand that I’m a lady
and if you try to get fresh with me I’ll poke you in the mug with your
own umbrella,” I says.
And he says, “Oh no ma’am it aint anything like that,” he says. “I
am a respectable married man and you are quite safe with me.” And so
he escorts me home and bids me good-night at the door as polite as
if I was the daughter of an admiral or of some famous diplomat like
Mr. Edgerton says that I look. And what it is that he’s after well I
suppose I’ll know about it someday when it has happened.
Your uncertain daughter
MAME.
LETTER X
IN WHICH I TAKE A FLOP
DEAR MOM:
I have your letter and also Pop’s and I dont wonder you both find it
fearful exciting to get my letters telling how I have told Mr. Edgerton
what to tell the Spokesman to say to the American people and then
that same day to get the newspaper and see that He has said exactly
what I have said for Him to say. And just think Mom it is not only in
the Camden Republican that you would read it but if you would of been
in Philadelphia then you would of saw it in the Philadelphia Democrat
and it would of been the same in Oshkosh or Lalipalousa wherever them
places is.
Indeed Mr. Edgerton says it would be the same if you was to be in
France or in Japan or any of them European countries because you see
we have got more money than all of them put together and they all have
to borrow from us and so they are all waiting round scared to see what
we are doing and if the Spokesman has et too many pancakes for His
breakfast and they have not agreed with Him then there is factories
got to shut down in South America but if the Spokesman has just had a
visit with a congressman from back in the hog-belt to tell Him that the
hicks is happy over the increase in their bank mortgages why then the
Spokesman perks up and oil promoters in the Faro Islands decides that
it is all right to drill another well.