Bambi Part 19

"What time does Mr. Belasco usually come?"

"There is nothing usual about him. He is liable to land here any time between now and midnight, if he comes at all."

"He doesn't come every day, then?"

The man grinned.

"Say, you're new to this game, ain't you? Sometimes he don't show up for days. The steno can tell you whether he is coming to-day."

"The steno?"

"Yes. The skirt that's in his office."

"When does she come?"

"Oh, about ten or eleven."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

Jarvis made the ascent again. He stood about for nearly an hour before the office girl arrived. "Those stairs is the limit," she gasped. "You waiting for me?"

"I am waiting for Mr. Belasco."

"Oh! Appointment?"

"No."

"Got a letter to him?"

"No."

"What do you want to see him about? A job?"

"No. About a play."

She ushered him in, opened the windows, took off her hat, looked at herself in the mirror, while she patted her wonderful hair. She powdered her nose, fixed her neck ruffle, apparently oblivious of Jarvis.

"What time do you expect Mr. Belasco?"

"Goodness only knows."

"Do you think he will come to-day?"

"Far be it from me to say."

"But I wish to see him."

"Many a blond has twirled his thumbs around here for weeks for the same reason."

"But I am only in New York for a little while."

"I should worry," said she, opening her typewriter desk. "Give me your play. I'll see that it gets to him."

"I'd rather talk to him myself."

"Suit yourself."

"I suppose I can wait here?"

"No charge for chairs," said the cheerful one.

An hour pa.s.sed, broken only by the click of the typewriter. Conventional overtures from the cheerful one being discouraged, she smashed the keys in sulky silence. From eleven to twelve things were considerably enlivened. Many sleek youths, of a type he had seen on Broadway, arrived. They saluted the cheerful one gayly as "Sally" and indulged in varying degrees of witty persiflage before the inevitable "The Governor in?"

"Nope."

"Expect him to-day?"

"I dunno."

"Billy here?"

"Dunno."

"Thank you, little one."

Sometimes they departed, sometimes they joined Jarvis's waiting party.

Lovely ladies, and some not so lovely. Old and young, fat and thin, they climbed the many stairs and met their disappointment cheerfully. They usually fell upon Jack, or Billy, or Jim, of the waiters, who, in turn, fell upon Belle, or Susan, or Fay.

"What are you with? How's business?" were always the first questions, followed by shop talk, unintelligible to Jarvis. One youth said that he had been to this office ten successive mornings without getting an appointment. The others laughed, and one woman boasted that she had the record, for she had gone twenty-eight times before she saw Frohman, the last engagement she sought.

"But he engaged me the 29th," she laughed.

They impressed Jarvis as the lightest-hearted set he had ever encountered. They laughed over everything and nothing. By one o'clock Jarvis and the cheerful one were again in sole possession.

"Don't you ever eat?" she asked him.

"Oh, is it lunch time?" he inquired.

"Come out of the trance."

She went through the entire performance before the mirror, in putting on her hat.

"Shall I bring you anything, dearie?" she asked him, as she completed her toilette.

"I'm going, too," he said. "I'll be back."