"And here is someone else you know," says he, wavin" to the cab: "Mrs.
Mumford."
Blamed if it ain"t the cooin" widow. She"s right there with the old familiar purry gush, too, squeezin" my fingers kittenish and askin" me how "dear, sweet Verona" is. I was just noticin" that she"d ditched the half mournin" for some real zippy raiment when she leans back so as to exhibit a third party in the taxi--a young gent with one of these dead-white faces and a cute little black mustache--reg"lar lounge-lizard type.
"Oh, and you must meet my dear friend, Mr. Vinton Bartley," she purrs.
"Vinton, this is the Torchy I"ve spoken about so often."
"Ah, ya-a-as," drawls Vinton, blowin" out a whiff of scented cigarette smoke lazy. "Quite so. But--er--hadn"t we best be getting on, Lorina?"
"Yes, yes," coos Mrs. Mumford. "By-by, Captain. Good-by, Torchy."
And off they whirls, leavin" me with my mouth open and Rupert starin"
after "em gloomy.
"Lorina, eh?" says I. "How touchin"!"
Killam only grunts, but it struck me he has tinted up a bit under the eyes.
"Say, Rupert," I goes on, "who"s your languid friend with the cream-of-cabbage complexion?"
"Bartley?" says he. "Oh, he"s a friend of Mrs. Mumford; a drama-tist--so he says."
Now, I might have let it ride at that and gone along about my own affairs, which ain"t so pressin" just then. Yes, I might. But I don"t.
Maybe it was hornin" in where there was no welcome sign on the mat, and then again perhaps it was only a natural folksy feelin" for an old friend I hadn"t seen for a long time. Anyway, I"m prompted sudden to take Rupert by the arm and insist that he must come and have lunch with me.
"Why--er--thanks," says the Captain; "but I have a little business to attend to in here." And he nods to an office buildin".
"That"ll be all right, too," says I. "I"ll wait."
"Will you?" says Rupert, beamin". "I shall be pleased."
So in less"n half an hour I have Rupert planted cozy at a corner table with a mixed grill in front of him, and I"m givin" him the cue for openin" any confidential chat he may have on hand. He"s a good deal of a clam, though, Rupert. And suspicious! He must have been born lookin"
over his shoulder. But in my own crude way I can sometimes josh "em along.
"Excuse me for mentionin" it, Rupert," says I, "but there"s lots of cla.s.s to you these days."
"Eh?" says he. "You mean----"
"The whole effect," says I, "from the gaiters to the new-model lid. Just like you"d strolled out from some Fifth Avenue club and was goin" to "phone your brokers to buy another block of Bethlehem at the market.
Honest!"
He pinks up and shakes his head, but I can see I"ve got the range.
"And here Vee and I had it doped out," I goes on, "how you"d be down on the West Coast by this time, investin" your pile in orange groves and corner lots."
"No," says Rupert; "I"ve been here all the while. You see, I--I"ve grown rather fond of New York."
"You needn"t apologize," says I. "There"s a few million others with the same weakness, not countin" the ones that sleep in New Jersey but always register from here. Gone into some kind of business, have you?"
Rupert does some fancy side-steppin" about then; but all of a sudden he changes his mind, and, after glancin" around to see that no one has an ear out, he starts his confession.
"The fact is," says he, "I"ve been doing a little literary work."
"Writin" ads," says I, "or solicitin" magazine subscriptions?"
"I am getting out a book of poems," says Rupert, dignified.
"Wh-a-a-at?" I gasps. "Not--not reg"lar limerick stuff?"
I can see now that was a bad break. But Rupert was patient with me. He explains that these are all poems about sailors and ships and so on; real salt, tarry stuff. Also, he points out how it"s built the new style way, with no foolish rhymes at the end, and with long lines or short, just as they happen to come. To make it clear, he digs up a roll of galley proofs he"s just collected from the publishers. And say, he had the goods. There it was, yards of it, all printed neat in big fat type.
"Sea Songs" is what he calls "em, and each one has a separate tag of its own, such as "Kittywakes," "Close Hauled," and "Scuppers Under."
"Looks like the real stuff," says I. "Let"s hear how it listens. Ah, come on! Some of that last one, about scuppers, now."
With a little more urgin", Rupert reads it to me. I should call him a good reader, too. Anyway, he can untie one of them deep, boomin" voices, and with that long, serious face of his helpin" out the general effect--well, it"s kind of impressive. He spiels off two or three stickfuls and then stops.
"Which way was you readin" that, backwards or forwards?" says I.
Rupert begins to stiffen up, and I hurries on with the apology. "My mistake," says I. "I thought maybe you might have got mixed at the start. No offense. But say, Cap"n, what"s the big idea? What does it all mean?"
In some ways Rupert is good-natured. He was then. He explains how in this brand of verse you don"t try to tell a story or anything like that.
"I am merely giving my impressions," says he. "That is all.
Interpreting my own feelings, as it were."
"Oh!" says I. "Then there"s no goin" behind the returns. Who"s to say you don"t feel that way? I get you now. But that ain"t the kind of stuff you can wish onto the magazines, is it?"
Which shows just how far behind the ba.s.s-drum I am. Rupert tells me the different places where he"s unloaded his pieces, most of "em for real money. Also, I pumps out of him how he came to get into the game. Seems he"d been roomin" down in old Greenwich Village; just happened to drift in among them long-haired men and short-haired girls. It turns out that the book was a little enterprise that was being backed by Mrs. Mumford.
Yes, it"s that kind of a book--so much down in advance to the Grafter Press. You know, Mrs. Mumford always did fall for Rupert, and after she"s read one of his sea spasms in a magazine she don"t lose any time huntin" him out and renewin" their cruise acquaintance. A real poet!
Say, I can just see her playin" that up among her friends. And when she finds he"s mixin" in with all those dear, delightful Bohemians, she insists that Rupert tow her along too.
From then on it was a common thing for her and Rupert to go browsin"
around among them garlic and red-ink joints, defyin" ptomaines and learnin" to braid spaghetti on a fork. That was her idea of life. She hires an apartment right off Washington Square and moves in from Montclair for the winter. She begun to have what she called her "salon evenings," when she collected any kind of near-celebrity she could get.
Mr. Vinton Bartley was generally one of the favored guests. I didn"t need any second sight, either, to suspect that Vinton was sort of crowdin" in on this little romance of Rupert"s. And by eggin" Rupert along judicious I got the whole tale.
Seems it had been one of Mrs. Mumford"s ambitions to spring Rupert on an unsuspectin" public. Her idea is to have Rupert called on, some night at the Purple Pup, to step up to the head of the long table and give one of his sea songs. She"d picked Vinton to do the callin". And Vinton had balked.
"But say," says I, "is this Vinton gent the only one of her friends that"s got a voice? Why not pick another announcer?"
"I"m sure I don"t know," says Rupert. "She--she hasn"t mentioned the subject recently."
"Oh!" says I. "Too busy listenin" to the voice of the viper, eh?"
Rupert nods and stares sad into his empty demi-ta.s.se. And, say, when Rupert gets that way he"s an appealin" cuss.
"See here, Rupert," says I; "if you got a call of that kind, would you come to the front and make a noise like a real poet?"
"Why," says he, "I suppose I ought to. It would help the sale of the book, and perhaps----"