The next day they laid their clever heads together and wrote a letter
to Elmer P. It was appreciative but peremptory. He must mail his
latest photograph at once. And he had better send that old green
album, too, with all those snapshots in it of Cowbarn, Iowa, including
some interesting views of the exterior and the interior of the office
building of the good old _Independent_.
Mame gave a solemn undertaking to get out the big drum and to go around
with it. She and her friends, in fact, would organise such a publicity
campaign as would astonish even a booster like himself. But he, too,
must be ready to do his bit. By the time London had the book in its
hands, it would be dying to see the author. He must come over, if only
for a week, he must, he must! That final imperative word was three
times underscored.
The thirteen days that followed the letter’s posting were rather
anxious ones. Lady Violet feared that when Mame’s excitement had time
to cool a bad reaction would set in. By judicious fanning, however, she
was able to keep the flame alive; sufficiently, at any rate, to provide
a highly necessary distraction.
Elmer’s reply came promptly. The urgent skill of the summons had at
least stirred him to that. Moreover, in the pompous language of the
British House of Go-getters, which Mame had heard for herself from
the Ladies’ Gallery, the answer was in the affirmative. The great man
actually promised to come to London. His coming, moreover, should
synchronise with the British publication of his book, which since he
wrote last had sold three more editions in these United States.
“He doesn’t let the grass grow!” Mame crowed her triumph. It was
disinterested triumph. She had nothing to gain, as far as she knew, by
the coming of Elmer, except in the way of humble-minded ministry to his
rapidly growing fame. “One of the up-and-coming ones is Elmer, for all
he’s so quiet. Tell me, Vi, what do you think of his photograph?”
“Is it like him?”
“He’s changed some, I’ll say, since I left him in the editor’s office
at Cowbarn, twenty months ago to-morrow.”
“A clever face.” A good face, too, Lady Violet might have added. She
certainly saw something oddly attractive in the fair, open countenance
of Elmer P.
“I guess there’s something better than clever in it.” Mame gazed
critically at the photograph.
“Well, dear child, I guess there is, too.”
Her friend looked at her tenderly and then laughed to herself softly.