Part 3

“I have an idea; eet ees a wondair.” She turned to my friend. “Meester Carpentair, they tell me that you heal the pains. I think eet would be a vairy fine thing eef you would come to my parlor and attend the ladies while I give them the permanent wave, and while I skeen them, and make them the dimples and the sweet smiles. They suffer so, the poor dears, and eef you would seet and hold their hands, they would love eet, they would come every day for eet, and you would be famous, and you would be reech. You would meet--oh, such lovely ladies! The best people in the ceety come to my beauty parlors, and they would adore you, Meester Carpentair--what do you say to eet?”

It struck me as curious, as I looked back upon it; Madame Planchet so far had not heard the sound of Carpenter's voice. Now she forced him to speak, but she did not force him to look at her. His gaze went over her head, as if he were seeing a vision; he recited:

“Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet; therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.”

“Oh, mon Dieu!” cried Madame Planchet.

“In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their twinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils. And it shall come to pass that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth: and burning instead of beauty.”

And at that moment the door from the corridor was flung open, and Mary Magna came in.

XI

“My God, will you look who's here! Billy, wretched creature, I haven't laid eyes on you for two months! Do you have to desert me entirely, just because you've fallen in love with a society girl with the face of a Japanese doll-baby? What's the matter with me, that I lose my lovers faster than I get them? Edgerton Rosythe, come in here--you've got a good excuse, I admit--I'm almost as much scared of your wife as you are yourself. But still, I'd like a chance to get tired of some man first. Hello, Planchet, how's my old grannie making out in your scalping-shop? Say, would you think it would take three days labor for half a dozen Sioux squaws to pull the skin off one old lady's back? And a week to tie up the corners of her mouth and give her a permanent smile! 'Why, grannie,' I said, 'good God, it would be cheaper to hire Charlie Chaplin to walk round in front of you all the rest of your life!' And--why, what's this? For the love of Peter, somebody introduce me to this gentleman. Is he a friend of yours, Billy? Carpenter? Excuse me, Mr. Carpenter, but we picture people learn to talk about our faces and our styles, and it isn't every day I come on a million dollars walking round on two legs. Who does the gentleman work for?”

The storm of Mary Magna stopped long enough for her to stare from one to another of us. “What? You mean nobody's got him? And you all standing round here, not signing any contracts? You, Edgerton--you haven't run to the telephone to call up Eternal City? Well, as it happens, T-S is going to be here in five minutes--his wife is being made beautiful once again somewhere in this scalping-shop. Take my advice, Mr. Carpenter, and don't sign today--the price will go up several hundred per week as long as you hold off.”

Mary stopped again; and this was most unusual, for as a general rule she never stopped until somebody or something stopped her. But she was fascinated by the spectacle of Carpenter. “My good God! Where did he come from? Why, it seems like--I'm trying to think--yes, it's the very man! Listen, Billy; you may not believe it, but I was in a church a couple of weeks ago. I went to see Roxanna Riddle marry that grand duke fellow. It was in a big church over by the park--St. Bartholomew's, they call it. I sat looking at a stained glass window over the altar, and Billy, I swear I believe this Mr. Carpenter came down from that window!”

“Maybe he did, Mary,” I put in.

“But I'm not joking! I tell you he's the living, speaking image of that figure. Come to think of it, he isn't speaking, he hasn't said a word! Tell me, Mr. Carpenter, have you got a voice, or are you only a close up from 'The Servant in the House' or 'Ben Hur'? Say something, so I can get a line on you!”

Again I stood wondering; how would Carpenter take this? Would he bow his head and run before a hail-storm of feminine impertinence? Would she “vamp” him, as she did every man who came near her? Or would this man do what no man alive had yet been able to do--reduce her to silence?

He smiled gently; and I saw that she had vamped him this much, at least--he was going to be polite! “Mary,” he said, “I think you are carrying everything but the nose jewels.”

“Nose jewels? What a horrid idea! Where did you get that?”

“When you came in, I was quoting the prophet Isaiah. Some eighty generations of ladies have lived on earth since his day, Mary; they have won the ballot, but apparently they haven't discovered anything new in the way of ornaments. Some of the prophet's words may be strange to you, but if you study them you will see that you've got everything he lists: 'their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings, the rings, and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins, the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the veils.'”

As Carpenter recited this list, his eyes roamed from one part to another of the wondrous “get up” of Mary Magna. You can imagine her facing him--that bold and vivid figure which you have seen as “Cleopatra” and “Salome,” as “Dubarry” and “Anne Boleyn,” and I know not how many other of the famous courtesans and queens of history. In daily life her style and manner is every bit as staggering; she is a gorgeous brunette, and wears all the colors there are--when she goes down the street it is like a whole procession with flags. I'll wager that, apart from her jewels, which may or may not have been real, she was carrying not less than five thousand dollars worth of stuff that fall afternoon. A big black picture hat, with a flower garden and parts of an aviary on top--but what's the use of going over Isaiah's list?

“Everything but the nose jewels,” said Carpenter, “and they may be in fashion next week.”

“How about the glasses?” put in Rosythe, entering into the fun.

“Oh, shucks!” said I, protecting my friend. “Turn out the contents of your vanity-bag, Mary.”

“And the crisping-pins?” laughed the critic.

“Hasn't Madame Planchet just shown us those?”

All this while Mary had not taken her eyes off Carpenter. “So you are really one of those religious fellows!” she exclaimed. “You'll know exactly what to do without any directing! How perfectly incredible!” And at that appropriate moment T-S pushed open the door and waddled in!

XII

You know the screen stars, of course; but maybe you do not know those larger celestial bodies, the dark and silent and invisible stars from which the shining ones derive their energies. So, permit me to introduce you to T-S, the trade abbreviation for a name which nobody can remember, which even his secretaries have to keep typed on a slip of paper just above their machine--Tszchniczklefritszch. He came a few years ago from Ruthenia, or Rumelia, or Roumania--one of those countries where the consonants are so greatly in excess of the vowels. If you are as rich as he, you call him Abey, which is easy; otherwise, you call him Mr. T-S, which he accepts as a part of his Americanization.

He is shorter than you or I, and has found that he can't grow upward, but can grow without limit in all lateral directions. There is always a little more of him than his clothing can hold, and it spreads out in rolls about his collar. He has a yellowish face, which turns red easily. He has small, shiny eyes, he speaks atrocious English, he is as devoid of culture as a hairy Ainu, and he smells money and goes after it like a hog into a swill-trough.

“Hello, everybody! Madame, vere's de old voman?

“She ees being dressed--”

“Vell, speed her up! I got no time. I got--Jesus Christ!”

“Yes, exactly,” said Mary Magna.

The great man of the pictures stood rooted to the spot. “Vot's dis? Some joke you people playin' on me?” He shot a suspicious glance from one to another of us.

“No,” said Mary, “he's real. Honest to God!”

“Oh! You bring him for an engagement. Vell, I don't do no business outside my office. Send him to see Lipsky in de mornin'.”

“He hasn't asked for an engagement,” said Mary.

“Oh, he ain't. Vell, vot's he hangin' about for? Been gittin' a permanent vave? Ha, ha, ha!”

“Cut it out, Abey,” said Mary Magna. “This is a gentleman, and you must be decent. Mr. Carpenter, meet Mr. T-S.”

“Carpenter, eh? Vell, Mr. Carpenter, if I vas to make a picture vit you I gotta spend a million dollars on it--you know you can't make no cheap skate picture fer a ting like dat, if you do you got a piece o' cheese. It'd gotta be a costume picture, and you got shoost as much show to market vun o' dem today as you got vit a pauper's funeral. I spend all dat money, and no show to git it back, and den you actors tink I'm makin' ten million a veek off you--”

“Cut it out, Abey!” broke in Mary. “Mr. Carpenter hasn't asked anything of you.”

“Oh, he ain't, hey? So dat's his game. Vell, he'll find maybe I can vait as long as de next feller. Ven he gits ready to talk business, he knows vere Eternal City is, I guess. Vot's de matter, Madame, you got dat old voman o' mine melted to de chair?”

“I'll see, I'll see, Meester T-S,” said Madame, hustling out of the room.

Mary came up to the great man. “See here, Abey,” she said, in a low voice, “you're making the worst mistake of your life. Apparently this man hasn't been discovered. When he is, you know what'll happen.”

“Vere doss he come from?”

“I don't know. Billy here brought him. I said he must have come out of a stained glass window in St. Bartholomew's Church.”

“Oho, ho!” said T-S.

“Anyhow, he's new, and he's too good to keep. The paper's 'll get hold of him sure. Just look at him!”

“But, Mary, can he act?”

“Act? My God, he don't have to act! He only has to look at you, and you want to fall at his feet. Go be decent to him, and find out what he wants.”

The great man surveyed the figure of the stranger appraisingly. Then he went up to him. “See here, Mr. Carpenter, maybe I could make you famous. Vould you like dat?”

“I have never thought of being famous,” was the reply.

“Vell, you tink of it now. If I hire you, I make you de greatest actor in de vorld. I make it a propaganda picture fer de churches, dey vould show it to de headens in China and in Zululand. I make you a contract fer ten years, and I pay you five hunded dollars a veek, vedder you vork or not, and you vouldn't have to vork so much, because I don't catch myself makin' a million dollar feature picture vit gawd amighty and de angels in it for no regular veekly releases. Maybe you find some cheap skate feller vit some vild cat company vot promise you more; but he sells de picture and makes over de money to his vife's brudders, and den he goes bust, and vere you at den, hey? Mary Magna, here, she tell you, if you git a contract vit old Abey, it's shoost like you got libbidy bonds. I make dat lovely lady a check every veek fer tirty-five hunded dollars, an' I gotta sign it vit my own hand, and I tell you it gives me de cramps to sign so much money all de time, but I do it, and you see all dem rings and ribbons and veils and tings vot she buys vit de money, she looks like a jeweler's shop and a toy-store all rolled into vun goin' valkin' down de street.”

“Mr. Carpenter was just scolding me for that,” said Mary. “I've an idea if you pay him a salary, he'll feed it to the poor.”

“If I pay it,” said T-S, “it's his, and he can feed it to de dicky-birds if he vants to. Vot you say, Mr. Carpenter?”

I was waiting with curiosity to hear what he would say; but at that moment the door from the “maternity-room” was opened, and the voice of Madame Planchet broke in: “Here she ees!” And the flesh-mountain appeared, with the two caryatids supporting her.

XIII

“My Gawd!” gasped Mrs. T-S. “I'm dyin'!”

Her husband responded, beaming, “So you gone and done it again!”

Said Mrs. T-S: “I'll never do it no more!”

Said the husband: “Y'allus say dat. Fergit it, Maw, you're all right now, you don't have to have your hair frizzed fer six mont's!”

Said Mrs. T-S: “I gotta lie down. I'm dyin', Abey, I tell you. Lemme git on de sofa.”

Said the husband: “Now, Maw, we gotta git to dinner--”

“I can't eat no dinner.”

“Vot?” There was genuine alarm in the husband's voice. “You can't eat no dinner? Sure you gotta eat your dinner. You can't live if you don't eat. Come along now, Maw.”

“O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oh!”

T-S went and stood before her, and a grin came over his face. “Sure, now, ain't it fine? Say, Mary, look at dem lovely curves. Billy, shoost look here! Vy, she looks like a kid again, don't she! Madame, you're a daisy--you sure deliver de goods.”

Madame Planchet beamed, and the flesh-mountain was feebly cheered. “You like it, Abey?”

“Sure, I like it! Maw, it's grand! It's like I got a new girl! Come on now, git up, we go git our dinner, and den we gotta see dem night scenes took. Don't forgit, we're payin' two tousand men five dollars apiece tonight, and we gotta git our money out of 'em.” Then, taking for granted that this settled it, he turned to the rest. “You come vit us, Mary?”

“I must wait for my grannie.”

“Sure, you leave your car fer grannie, and you come vit us, and we git some dinner, and den we see dem mob scenes took. You come along, Mr. Carpenter, I gotta have some talk vit you. And you, Billy? And Rosythe--come, pile in.”

“I have to wait for the missus,” said the critic. “We have a date.”

“Vell,” said T-S, and he went up close. “You do me a favor, Rosythe; don't say nuttin' about dis fellow Carpenter tonight. I feed him and git him feelin' good, and den I make a contract vit him, and I give you a front page telegraph story, see?”

“All right,” said the critic.

“Mum's de vord now,” said the magnate; and he waddled out, and the two caryatids lifted the flesh-mountain, and half carried it to the elevator, and Mary walked with Carpenter, and I brought up the rear.

The car of T-S was waiting at the door, and this car is something special. It is long, like a freight-car, made all of shining gun-metal, or some such material; the huge wheels are of solid metal, and the fenders are so big and solid, it looks like an armored military car. There is an extra wheel on each side, and two more locked on to the rear. There is a chauffeur in uniform, and a footman in uniform, just to open the doors and close them and salute you as you enter. Inside, it is all like the sofas in Madame's scalping shop; you fall into them, and soft furs enfold you, and you give a sigh of Contentment, “O-o-o-o-o-o-oh!”

“Prince's,” said T-S to the chauffeur, and the palace on wheels began to glide along. It occurred to me to wonder that T-S was not embarrassed to take Carpenter to a fashionable eating-place. But I could read his thoughts; everybody would assume that he had been “on location” with one of his stars; and anyhow, what the hell? Wasn't he Abey Tszchniczklefritszch?

“Wor-r-r-r-r! Wor-r-r-r-r-r!” snarled the horn of the car; and I could understand the meaning of this also. It said: “I am the car of Abey Tszchniczklefritszch, king of the movies, future king of the world. Get the hell out o' my way!” So we sped through the crowded streets, and pedestrians scattered like autumn leaves before a storm. “My Gawd, but I'm hungry!” said T-S. “I ain't had nuttin' to eat since lunch-time. How goes it, Maw? Feelin' better? Vell, you be all right ven you git your grub.”

So we came to Prince's, and drew up before the porte-cochere, and found ourselves confronting an adventure. There was a crowd before the place, a surging throng half-way down the block, with a whole line of policemen to hold them back. Over the heads of the crowd were transparencies, frame boxes with canvas on, and lights inside, and words painted on them. “Hello!” cried T-S. “Vot's dis?”

Suddenly I recalled what I had read in the morning's paper. The workers of the famous lobster palace had gone on strike, and trouble was feared. I told T-S, and he exclaimed: “Oh, hell! Ain't we got troubles enough vit strikers in de studios, vitout dey come spoilin' our dinner?”

The footman had jumped from his seat, and had the door open, and the great man began to alight. At that moment the mob set up a howl. “For shame! For shame! Unfair! Don't go in there! They starve their workers! They're taking the bread out of our mouths! Scabs! Scabs!”

I got out second, and saw a spectacle of haggard faces, shouting menaces and pleadings; I saw hands waved wildly, one or two fists clenched; I saw the police, shoving against the mass, poking with their sticks, none too gently. A poor devil in a waiter's costume stretched out his arms to me, yelling in a foreign dialect: “You take de food from my babies!” The next moment the club of a policeman came down on his head, crack. I heard Mary scream behind me, and I turned, just in the nick of time. Carpenter was leaping toward the policeman, crying, “Stop!”

There was no chance to parley in this emergency. I grabbed Carpenter in a foot-ball tackle. I got one arm pinned to his side, and Mary, good old scout, got the other as quickly. She is a bit of an athlete--has to keep in training for those hoochie-coochies and things she does, when she wins the love of emperors and sultans and such-like world-conquerors. Also, when we got hold of Carpenter, we discovered that he wasn't much but skin and bones anyhow. We fairly lifted him up and rushed him into the restaurant; and after the first moment he stopped resisting, and let us lead him between the aisles of diners, on the heels of the toddling T-S. There was a table reserved, in an alcove, and we brought him to it, and then waited to see what we had done.

XIV

Carpenter turned to me-and those sad but everchanging eyes were flashing. “You have taken a great liberty!”

“There wasn't any time to argue,” I said. “If you knew what I know about the police of Western City and their manners, you wouldn't want to monkey with them.”

Mary backed me up earnestly. “They'd have mashed your face, Mr. Carpenter.”

“My face?” he repeated. “Is not a man more than his face?”

You should have heard the shout of T-S! “Vot? Ain't I shoost offered you five hunded dollars a veek fer dat face, and you vant to go git it smashed? And fer a lot o' lousy bums dat vont vork for honest vages, and vont let nobody else vork! Honest to Gawd, Mr. Carpenter, I tell you some stories about strikes vot we had on our own lot--you vouldn't spoil your face for such lousy sons-o'-guns--”

“Ssh, Abey, don't use such langwich, you should to be shamed of yourself!” It was Maw, guardian of the proprieties, who had been extracted from the car by the footman, and helped to the table.

“Vell, Mr. Carpenter, he dunno vot dem fellers is like--”

“Sit down, Abey!” commanded the old lady. “Ve ain't ordered no stump speeches fer our dinner.”

We seated ourselves. And Carpenter turned his dark eyes on me. “I observe that you have many kinds of mobs in your city,” he remarked. “And the police do interfere with some of them.”

“My Gawd!” cried T-S. “You gonna have a lot o' bums jumpin' on people ven dey try to git to dinner?”

Said Carpenter: “Mr. Rosythe said that the police would not work unless they were paid. May I ask, who pays them to work here? Is it the proprietor of the restaurant?”

“Vell,” cried T-S, “ain't he gotta take care of his place?”

“As a matter of fact,” said I, laughing, “from what I read in the 'Times' this morning, I gather that an old friend of Mr. Carpenter's has been paying in this case.”

Carpenter looked at me inquiringly.

“Mr. Algernon de Wiggs, president of the Chamber of Commerce, issued a statement denouncing the way the police were letting mobs of strikers interfere with business, and proposing that the Chamber take steps to stop it. You remember de Wiggs, and how we left him?”

“Yes, I remember,” said Carpenter; and we exchanged a smile over that trick we had played.

I could see T-S prick forward his ears. “Vot? You know de Viggs?”

“Mr. Carpenter possesses an acquaintance with our best society which will astonish you when you realize it.”

“Vy didn't you tell me dat?” demanded the other; and I could complete the sentence for him: “Somebody has offered him more money!”

Here the voice of Maw was heard: “Ain't we gonna git nuttin' to eat?”