The letter from New York filled Mame with new energy, fresh hope. Next
day she went about the town with a changed outlook. She might not have
been the same girl. A wide vista had astonishingly opened; not that she
had ever doubted really that she was going to make good.
It seldom rains but it pours.
This attitude of simple faith received further justification in the
course of the day. As she passed the Tube bookstall in Leicester Square
a week-old copy of _High Life_ chanced to catch her eye. And there,
on the very front page of that rather mean-looking periodical, was an
article entitled “A Little Hick in London, England.”
She promptly recognised it as one of the two she had submitted to that
journal. The discovery gave her a bit of a shock. Not so much as a word
of acknowledgment had been received from Mr. Digby Judson, let alone
any suggestion of payment, yet here was the stuff in the cold glamour
of print.
Mame was wroth. She had also a feeling of modest elation; but at the
moment anger was paramount.
At all times a believer in action, she promptly made her way down the
street and got a bus that would take her to Tun Court. This business
should be settled without delay.
When she had climbed the dark stairs, however, which led to the
editorial offices of _High Life_, something of a shock awaited her.
Instead of her knock on the door marked Inquiries being answered by the
fair student of Duchess Novelettes, a voice loud and gruff bade her
“Come in!”
The room’s sole occupant was a large, heavy man who exuded a powerful
odour of beer and tobacco. Mame had no difficulty in sizing him up at
once as a common roughneck.
“Can I see Mr. Digby Judson?” Mame had the asperity which springs from
a sense of grievance.
“Mr. Who?” The roughneck blinked torpidly.
“The editor of this journal.” Mame’s asperity grew.
“Editor?” The roughneck looked like falling asleep. “Sorry to
disappoint yer, missy, but I don’t think yer can.”
“Why not?”
“Mr. Bloomin’ Editor’s ’opped it.”
“I don’t get you.”
“Skedaddled. Taken the petty cash. Overdrawn at the bank. Done a
moonlight flit last night.”
“Oh!” said Mame sternly as light broke upon her. “You mean he’s quit.”
The torpid gentleman having reinforced his lucidity by a pull at his
jug of beer, remarked pensively: “Yuss. The pawty in question ’as quit.”
Mame’s vision of being paid on the spot in honest cash for value
honestly given began to recede. “Well, I want my money.” But the
futility of such a demand was clear.
“Other pawties wants it too,” said the roughneck mildly. “That’s why
I’m setting here.”
The light continued to broaden. “Then you must be a-a-what-do-you-call-
em?” Mame was confronted suddenly by a limit to her knowledge of the
British idiom.
“A bailiff.” The roughneck buried his face in the jug.
“Can you tell me how to get the bucks he owes me?” Mame had given up
all hope. But there was no harm in asking the question.
The bailiff shook his large and ugly yet not ill-humoured head. “A bad
egg, I fancy. The paper’s broke. Between you and me, missy”--the beery
voice grew confidential--“I’ve been put in by the debenture holders. As
you might say I represent a little matter of four thousand quid.”
“Sakes! Then I guess I’ll not be able to connect.”
“Clever if you do, missy, take it from me.”
Mame slowly adjusted her thinking cap. She regarded herself as the
possessor of a natural business head. And in the matter of her rights
she did not believe in quitting too early.
She addressed the bailiff sternly. “Who you acting for?”
“The debenture holders.”
“I don’t get you. Who are they anyways?”
The man produced a wad of greasy-looking papers from the interior of
his coat. He moistened his thumb, selected a dirty card and handed it
to Mame. “Them’s the solicitors.”
“Messrs. Ackerman, Barton and Profitt,” the card informed Mame.
“That’s the firm. Their office is just acrost the road in Chawncery
Lane.”
Mame thanked the roughneck for his information and then obtained
permission to keep the card. The address might come in useful. All the
same there was nothing at the moment to lead one to suppose that it
would.
From what the bailiff said, she would be wise to write off the money
due her from _High Life_ as a bad debt.