"Well, nothing much, Mrs. McChesney. Christmas coming on kind of puts a crimp in the show business. Nice little bill on at the Majestic, if you like vaudeville."
"Crazy about it. Always get so excited watching to see if the next act is going to be as rotten as the last one. It always is."
From eight-fifteen until ten-thirty Mrs. McChesney sat absolutely expressionless while a shrill blonde lady and a nasal dark gentleman went through what the program ironically called a "comedy sketch,"
followed by a chummy person who came out in evening dress to sing a sentimental ditty, shed the evening dress to reappear in an ankle- length fluffy pink affair; shucked the fluffy pink affair for a child"s pinafore, sash, and bare knees; discarded the kiddie frock, disclosing a bathing-suit; left the bathing-suit behind the wings in favor of satin knee-breeches and tight jacket--and very discreetly stopped there, probably for no reason except to give way to the next act, consisting of two miraculously thin young men in lavender dress suits and white silk hats, who sang and clogged in unison, like two things hung on a single wire.
The night air was grateful to her hot forehead as she walked from the theater to the hotel.
"Trunks in?" to the porter.
"No sign of "em, lady. They didn"t come in on the ten. Think they"d better wire back to Dayton."
But the next morning Mrs. McChesney was in the depot baggage-room when Dayton wired back:
_"Trunks not here. Try Columbus, Nebraska."_
"Crash!" said Emma McChesney to the surprised baggage-master. "There goes my Haviland vegetable-dish."
"Were you selling china?" he inquired.
"No, I wasn"t," replied Emma McChesney viciously. "And if you don"t let me stand here and give my frank, unbiased opinion of this road, its president, board of directors, stockholders, baggage-men, Pullman porters, and other things thereto appertaining, I"ll probably have hysterics."
"Give it," said the baggage-master." You"ll feel better. And we"re used to it."
She gave it. When she had finished:
"Did you say you was selling goods on the road? Say, that"s a h.e.l.l of a job for a woman! Excuse me, lady. I didn"t mean--"
"I think perhaps you"re right," said Emma McChesney slowly. "It is just that."
"Well, anyway, we"ll do our best to trace it. Guess you"re in for a wait."
Emma McChesney waited. She made the rounds of her customers, and waited. She wired her firm, and waited. She wrote Jock to run along and enjoy himself, and waited. She cut and fitted a shirt-waist, took her hat apart and retrimmed it, made the rounds of her impatient customers again, threatened to sue the road, visited the baggage-room daily--and waited.
Four weary, nerve-racking days pa.s.sed. It was late afternoon of the fourth day when Mrs. McChesney entered the elevator to go to her room.
She had come from another fruitless visit to the baggage-room. She sank into a leather-cushioned seat in a corner of the lift. Two men entered briskly, followed by a bellboy. Mrs. McChesney did not look up.
"Well, I"ll be dinged!" boomed a throaty voice. "Mrs. McChesney, by the Great Horn Spoon! H"are you? Talking about you this minute to my friend here."
Emma McChesney, with the knowledge of her lost sample-trunks striking her afresh, looked up and smiled bravely into the plump pink face of Fat Ed Meyers, traveling representative for her firm"s bitterest rival, the Strauss Sans-silk Skirt Company.
"Talking about me, Mr. Meyers? Sufficient grounds for libel, right there."
The little sallow, dark man just at Meyers" elbow was gazing at her unguardedly. She felt that he had appraised her from hat to heels. Ed Meyers placed a plump hand on the little man"s shoulder.
"Abe, you tell the lady what I was saying. This is Mr. Abel Fromkin, maker of the Fromkin Form-Fit Skirt. Abe, this is the wonderful Mrs.
McChesney."
"Sorry I can"t wait to hear what you"ve said of me. This is my floor."
Mrs. McChesney was already leaving the elevator.
"Here! Wait a minute!" Fat Ed Meyers was out and standing beside her, his movements unbelievably nimble. "Will you have dinner with us, Mrs.
McChesney?"
"Thanks. Not to-night."
Meyers turned to the waiting elevator. "Fromkin, you go on up with the boy; I"ll talk to the lady a minute."
A little displeased frown appeared on Emma McChesney"s face.
"You"ll have to excuse me, Mr. Meyers, I--"
"Heigh-ho for that haughty stuff, Mrs. McChesney," grinned Ed Meyers.
"Don"t turn up your nose at that little Kike friend of mine till you"ve heard what I have to say. Now just let me talk a minute.
Fromkin"s heard all about you. He"s got a proposition to make. And it isn"t one to sniff at."
He lowered his voice mysteriously in the silence of the dim hotel corridor.
"Fromkin started in a little one-room hole-in-the-wall over on the East Side. Lived on a herring and a hunk of rye bread. Wife used to help him sew. That was seven years ago. In three years, or less, she"ll have the regulation uniform--full length seal coat, bunch of paradise, five-drop diamond La Valliere set in platinum, electric brougham. Abe has got a business head, take it from me. But he"s wise enough to know that business isn"t the rough-and-tumble game it used to be. He realizes that he"ll do for the workrooms, but not for the front shop. He knows that if he wants to keep on growing he"s got to have what they call a steerer. Somebody smooth, and polished, and politic, and what the highbrows call suave. Do you p.r.o.nounce that with a long _a_, or two dots over? Anyway, you get me. You"re all those things and considerable few besides. He"s wise to the fact that a business man"s got to have poise these days, and balance. And when it comes to poise and balance, Mrs. McChesney, you make a Fairbanks scale look like a raft at sea."
"While I don"t want to seem to hurry you," drawled Mrs. McChesney, "might I suggest that you shorten the overture and begin on the first act?"
"Well, you know how I feel about your business genius."
"Yes, I know," enigmatically.
Ed Meyers grinned. "Can"t forget those two little business misunderstandings we had, can you?"
"Business understandings," corrected Emma McChesney.
"Call "em anything your little heart dictates, but listen. Fromkin knows all about you. Knows you"ve got a million friends in the trade, that you know skirts from the belt to the hem. I don"t know just what his proposition is, but I"ll bet he"ll give you half interest in the livest, come-upest little skirt factory in the country, just for a few thousands capital, maybe, and your business head at the executive end.
Now just let that sink in before you speak."
"And why," inquired Emma McChesney, "don"t you grab this matchless business opportunity yourself?"
"Because, fair lady, Fromkin wouldn"t let me get in with a crowbar.
He"ll never be able to p.r.o.nounce his t"s right, and when he"s dressed up he looks like a "bus-boy at Mouquin"s, but he can see a bluff farther than I can throw one--and that"s somewhere beyond the horizon, as you"ll admit. Talk it over with us after dinner then?"
Emma McChesney was regarding the plump, pink, eager face before her with keen, level, searching eyes.
"Yes," she said slowly, "I will."
"Cafe? We"ll have a bottle--"
"No."
"Oh! Er--parlor?"