"So I gave up my job in the hotel and went with Mrs. Brown. I certainly seemed to have a mash on her. She'd look at me for half an hour at a time when I was sitting, reading, or looking at the magazines.
"One time I says to her: 'Do I remind you of some deceased relative or friend of your childhood, Mrs. Brown? I've noticed you give me a pretty good optical inspection from time to time.'
"'You have a face,' she says, 'exactly like a dear friend of mine – the best friend I ever had. But I like you for yourself, child, too,' she says.
"And say, Man, what do you suppose she did? Loosened up like a Marcel wave in the surf at Coney. She took me to a swell dressmaker and gave her a la carte to fit me out – money no object. They were rush orders, and madame locked the front door and put the whole force to work.
"Then we moved to – where do you think? – no; guess again – that's right – the Hotel Bonton. We had a six-room apartment; and it cost $100 a day. I saw the bill. I began to love that old lady.
"And then, Man, when my dresses began to come in – oh, I won't tell you about 'em! you couldn't understand. And I began to call her Aunt Maggie. You've read about Cinderella, of course. Well, what Cinderella said when the prince fitted that 3½ A on her foot was a hard-luck story compared to the things I told myself.
"Then Aunt Maggie says she is going to give me a coming-out banquet in the Bonton that'll make moving Vans of all the old Dutch families on Fifth Avenue.
"'I've been out before, Aunt Maggie,' says I. 'But I'll come out again. But you know,' says I, 'that this is one of the swellest hotels in the city. And you know – pardon me – that it's hard to get a bunch of notables together unless you've trained for it.'
"'Don't fret about that, child,' says Aunt Maggie. 'I don't send out invitations – I issue orders. I'll have fifty guests here that couldn't be brought together again at any reception unless it were given by King Edward or William Travers Jerome. They are men, of course, and all of 'em either owe me money or intend to. Some of their wives won't come, but a good many will.'
"Well, I wish you could have been at that banquet. The dinner service was all gold and cut glass. There were about forty men and eight ladies present besides Aunt Maggie and I. You'd never have known the third richest woman in the world. She had on a new black silk dress with so much passementerie on it that it sounded exactly like a hailstorm I heard once when I was staying all night with a girl that lived in a top-floor studio.
"And my dress! – say, Man, I can't waste the words on you. It was all hand-made lace – where there was any of it at all – and it cost $300. I saw the bill. The men were all bald-headed or white-whiskered, and they kept up a running fire of light repartee about 3-per cents. and Bryan and the cotton crop.
"On the left of me was something that talked like a banker, and on my right was a young fellow who said he was a newspaper artist. He was the only – well, I was going to tell you.
"After the dinner was over Mrs. Brown and I went up to the apartment. We had to squeeze our way through a mob of reporters all the way through the halls. That's one of the things money does for you. Say, do you happen to know a newspaper artist named Lathrop – a tall man with nice eyes and an easy way of talking? No, I don't remember what paper he works on. Well, all right.
"When we got upstairs Mrs. Brown telephones for the bill right away. It came, and it was $600. I saw the bill. Aunt Maggie fainted. I got her on a lounge and opened the bead-work.
"'Child,' says she, when she got back to the world, 'what was it? A raise of rent or an income-tax?'
"'Just a little dinner,' says I. 'Nothing to worry about – hardly a drop in the bucket-shop. Sit up and take notice – a dispossess notice, if there's no other kind.'
"But say, Man, do you know what Aunt Maggie did? She got cold feet! She hustled me out of that Hotel Bonton at nine the next morning. We went to a rooming-house on the lower West Side. She rented one room that had water on the floor below and light on the floor above. After we got moved all you could see in the room was about $1,500 worth of new swell dresses and a one-burner gas-stove.
"Aunt Maggie had had a sudden attack of the hedges. I guess everybody has got to go on a spree once in their life. A man spends his on highballs, and a woman gets woozy on clothes. But with forty million dollars – say, I'd like to have a picture of – but, speaking of pictures, did you ever run across a newspaper artist named Lathrop – a tall – oh, I asked you that before, didn't I? He was mighty nice to me at the dinner. His voice just suited me. I guess he must have thought I was to inherit some of Aunt Maggie's money.
"Well, Mr. Man, three days of that light-housekeeping was plenty for me. Aunt Maggie was affectionate as ever. She'd hardly let me get out of her sight. But let me tell you. She was a hedger from Hedgersville, Hedger County. Seventy-five cents a day was the limit she set. We cooked our own meals in the room. There I was, with a thousand dollars' worth of the latest things in clothes, doing stunts over a one-burner gas-stove.
"As I say, on the third day I flew the coop. I couldn't stand for throwing together a fifteen-cent kidney stew while wearing, at the same time, a $150 house-dress, with Valenciennes lace insertion. So I goes into the closet and puts on the cheapest dress Mrs. Brown had bought for me – it's the one I've got on now – not so bad for $75, is it? I'd left all my own clothes in my sister's flat in Brooklyn.
"'Mrs. Brown, formerly "Aunt Maggie,"' says I to her, 'I'm going to extend my feet alternately, one after the other, in such a manner and direction that this tenement will recede from me in the quickest possible time. I am no worshipper of money,' says I, 'but there are some things I can't stand. I can stand the fabulous monster that I've read about that blows hot birds and cold bottles with the same breath. But I can't stand a quitter,' says I. 'They say you've got forty million dollars – well, you'll never have any less. And I was beginning to like you, too,' says I.
"Well, the late Aunt Maggie kicks till the tears flow. She offers to move into a swell room with a two-burner stove and running water.
"'I've spent an awful lot of money, child,' says she. 'We'll have to economize for a while. You're the most beautiful creature I ever laid eyes on,' she says, 'and I don't want you to leave me.'
"Well, you see me, don't you? I walked straight to the Acropolis and asked for my job back, and I got it. How did you say your writings were getting along? I know you've lost out some by not having me to type 'em. Do you ever have 'em illustrated? And, by the way, did you ever happen to know a newspaper artist – oh, shut up! I know I asked you before. I wonder what paper he works on? It's funny, but I couldn't help thinking that he wasn't thinking about the money he might have been thinking I was thinking I'd get from old Maggie Brown. If I only knew some of the newspaper editors I'd – "
The sound of an easy footstep came from the doorway. Ida Bates saw who it was with her back-hair comb. I saw her turn pink, perfect statue that she was – a miracle that I share with Pygmalion only.
"Am I excusable?" she said to me – adorable petitioner that she became. "It's – it's Mr. Lathrop. I wonder if it really wasn't the money – I wonder, if after all, he – "
Of course, I was invited to the wedding. After the ceremony I dragged Lathrop aside.
"You are an artist," said I, "and haven't figured out why Maggie Brown conceived such a strong liking for Miss Bates – that was? Let me show you."
The bride wore a simple white dress as beautifully draped as the costumes of the ancient Greeks. I took some leaves from one of the decorative wreaths in the little parlour, and made a chaplet of them, and placed them on née Bates' shining chestnut hair, and made her turn her profile to her husband.
"By jingo!" said he. "Isn't Ida's a dead ringer for the lady's head on the silver dollar?"
V
"NEXT TO READING MATTER"
He compelled