Tales of the Jazz Age Part 33

JULIE: What do I care! I like O. Henry. I don't see how he ever wrote those stories. Most of them he wrote in prison. "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" he made up in prison.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Biting his lip_) Literature--literature! How much it has meant to me!

JULIE: Well, as Gaby Deslys said to Mr. Bergson, with my looks and your brains there's nothing we couldn't do.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Laughing_) You certainly are hard to keep up with. One day you're awfully pleasant and the next you're in a mood.

If I didn't understand your temperament so well--

JULIE: (_Impatiently_) Oh, you're one of these amateur character-readers, are you? Size people up in five minutes and then look wise whenever they're mentioned. I hate that sort of thing.

THE YOUNG MAN: I don't boast of sizing you up. You're most mysterious, I'll admit.

JULIE: There's only two mysterious people in history.

THE YOUNG MAN: Who are they?

JULIE: The Man with the Iron Mask and the fella who says "ug uh-glug uh-glug uh-glug" when the line is busy.

THE YOUNG MAN: You _are_ mysterious, I love you. You're beautiful, intelligent, and virtuous, and that's the rarest known combination.

JULIE: You're a historian. Tell me if there are any bath-tubs in history. I think they've been frightfully neglected.

THE YOUNG MAN: Bath-tubs! Let's see. Well, Agamemnon was stabbed in his bath-tub. And Charlotte Corday stabbed Marat in his bath-tub.

JULIE: (_Sighing_) Way back there! Nothing new besides the sun, is there? Why only yesterday I picked up a musical-comedy score that mast have been at least twenty years old; and there on the cover it said "The s.h.i.+mmies of Normandy," but s.h.i.+mmie was spelt the old way, with a "C."

THE YOUNG MAN: I loathe these modern dances. Oh, Lois, I wish I could see you. Come to the window.

(_There is a loud bang in the water-pipe and suddenly the flow starts from the open taps. Julie turns them off quickly_)

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Puzzled_) What on earth was that?

JULIE: (_Ingeniously_) I heard something, too.

THE YOUNG MAN: Sounded like running water.

JULIE: Didn't it? Strange like it. As a matter of fact I was filling the gold-fish bowl.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Still puzzled_) What was that banging noise?

JULIE: One of the fish snapping his golden jaws.

THE YOUNG MAN: (_With sudden resolution_) Lois, I love you. I am not a mundane man but I am a forger--

JULIE: (_Interested at once_) Oh, how fascinating.

THE YOUNG MAN:--a forger ahead. Lois, I want you.

JULIE: (_Skeptically_) Huh! What you really want is for the world to come to attention and stand there till you give "Rest!"

THE YOUNG MAN: Lois I--Lois I--

(_He stops as Lois opens the door, comes in, and bangs it behind her. She looks peevishly at _JULIE _and then suddenly catches sight of the young man in the window_)

LOIS: (_In horror_) Mr. Calkins!

THE YOUNG MAN: (_Surprised_) Why I thought you said you were wearing pinkish white!

(_After one despairing stare _LOIS_ shrieks, throws up her hands in surrender, and sinks to the floor._)

THE YOUNG MAN: (_In great alarm_) Good Lord! She's fainted! I'll be right in.

(JULIE'S _eyes light on the towel which has slipped from_ LOIS'S _inert hand._)

JULIE: In that case I'll be right out.

(_She puts her hands on the side of the tub to lift herself out and a murmur, half gasp, half sigh, ripples from the audience.

A Belasco midnight comes quickly down and blots out the stage._)

CURTAIN.

_FANTASIES_

THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ

1

John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades--a small town on the Mississippi River--for several generations. John's father had held the amateur golf champions.h.i.+p through many a heated contest; Mrs. Unger was known "from hot-box to hot-bed," as the local phrase went, for her political addresses; and young John T. Unger, who had just turned sixteen, had danced all the latest dances from New York before he put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home. That respect for a New England education which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly of their most promising young men, had seized upon his parents.

Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School near Boston--Hades was too small to hold their darling and gifted son.

Now in Hades--as you know if you ever have been there--the names of the more fas.h.i.+onable preparatory schools and colleges mean very little. The inhabitants have been so long out of the world that, though they make a show of keeping up-to-date in dress and manners and literature, they depend to a great extent on hearsay, and a function that in Hades would be considered elaborate would doubtless be hailed by a Chicago beef-princess as "perhaps a little tacky."

John T. Unger was on the eve of departure. Mrs. Unger, with maternal fatuity, packed his trunks full of linen suits and electric fans, and Mr. Unger presented his son with an asbestos pocket-book stuffed with money.

"Remember, you are always welcome here," he said. "You can be sure, boy, that we'll keep the home fires burning."

"I know," answered John huskily.

"Don't forget who you are and where you come from," continued his father proudly, "and you can do nothing to harm you. You are an Unger--from Hades."

So the old man and the young shook hands, and John walked away with tears streaming from his eyes. Ten minutes later he had pa.s.sed outside the city limits and he stopped to glance back for the last time. Over the gates the old-fas.h.i.+oned Victorian motto seemed strangely attractive to him. His father had tried time and time again to have it changed to something with a little more push and verve about it, such as "Hades--Your Opportunity," or else a plain "Welcome" sign set over a hearty handshake p.r.i.c.ked out in electric lights. The old motto was a little depressing, Mr. Unger had thought--but now ....

So John took his look and then set his face resolutely toward his destination. And, as he turned away, the lights of Hades against the sky seemed full of a warm and pa.s.sionate beauty.