The She Boss Part 9

It was a grand parlor, Hiram thought. There was a piano, a phonograph, a whatnot filled with specimens of quartz, and four cloth-covered cus.h.i.+on rockers. With rattlesnake fairness the one Hiram chose squeaked a warning before it tried to land him on the back of his neck.

Hiram sat there round-eyed and dreaming, while outside the hired car purred on, indifferent to the flight of time.

Twenty minutes later Hiram's dream was broken by the clatter of Lucy's high heels on the stairs. Lucy entered, dressed in silk and furs and wearing a large picture hat. The savings of many months were on Lucy's back, and Hiram felt further removed from her than ever.

"Where'll we go?" he asked miserably as he clumsily helped her into the car.

"Golden Gate Park, Mr. Hooker," she said.

The driver, having heard, touched his cap, and they rolled away.

"How'd you know my name?" The burden of keeping this question had been overriding Hiram's bashfulness since she had spoken it.

Lucy laughed. "You didn't think I'd go so far as to invite you home with me if I didn't know you, did you? At least kinda know you?"

"I hadn't thought about that at all, ma'am. But when you said 'Mr.

Hooker' it gave me a jolt."

"I'll bet it did. Well, didn't you stand in front of the jewelry shop for over a quarter of an hour before the fire this morning?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And you didn't see your friend come out of the restaurant while you were there?"

"Who, Tweet? No, ma'am--I didn't."

"Well, he did. He'd been in talking with me. I didn't know his name, though. Is that it? Tweet? Heavens above! Say, he's a funny guy.

Well, he'd been in talking about you. He said you were out in front of the jeweler's shop and wondered if he could get out without you seeing him."

Hiram only stared and waited.

"He told me your name was Hiram Hooker, and that you had just come from Mendocino County. That's how I knew."

For quite a time she was silent. Then she said:

"He appears to be sort of b.u.t.ting in, it seems to me."

Hiram waited again.

"He came in and says: 'Say, Lucy, your lifeline and mine are getting tangled. You're crossing my path and frustrating my plans.' You know how he talks!

"'How d'ye get that way?' I says. 'Spring it.'

"'Why, your many charms are leading my business partner from the path of duty,' he says.

"'Go on,' I told him, 'and talk sense, if you've got anything to say.'

"Then he told me that you two were partners, and were going down to southern California together to 'get a toehold,' he said; and that you were keeping the thing back by--by--by wanting to hang around Frisco.

He said you two had a good thing and that you were spoiling it, and that you were nearly broke and getting more so every minute.

"I kind of like him. He's funny, but I'll bet he's right. And he said for me to give you the cold shoul--well, what he meant was for me to advise you to hurry up and get out with him.

"But now listen: If I'd intended to do that I wouldn't have told you that he told me to, would I? Of course not. I wanted to see you about something else. Two things: First, I promised to tell you about the moving picture you helped me with this morning. Then the other thing is Mendocino." She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Listen, I'm from Mendocino County," she finished. "I've been away three years.

I'm nearly dying to talk to some one from up there!"

CHAPTER VIII

LUCY'S AMBITIONS

Learning that Lucy Dalles was from Mendocino County was startling, but surprise over this took second place in Hiram Hooker's thoughts. He was stricken with consternation to think that all the time he had been before the jeweler's window, trying to nerve himself up to enter the restaurant, she had known he was there.

"After your friend left the restaurant," she was saying, "I thought I'd go out and tell you about me being from Mendocino. Just as I left the door the hook-and-ladder came by. Then I stood by you watching the fire, you know, till the Samax people drove up. Then I forgot everything but getting the picture for the fire scene in 'The Crowning Defeat.' I asked you to see Mr. Kenoke for me, and you did--and it was dandy of you, too. Now I'll tell you about my scenarios; then I want to talk about nothing but Mendocino County.

"Well, I write scenarios for moving-picture production," she went on.

"That's one reason why I wanted the cas.h.i.+er's job--so I could have the use of the boss' old typewriter. I've been paying a public stenographer fifty cents a thousand words to copy my work, and it cuts into the profits when you get so little for a scenario.

"I've been writing them a year now. I've sold ten. That's not very many, is it?--when you know; that I have written over fifty. I've sold most of mine to this Samax Company, through the mail; and one day I went to their Western studio, here in the city, and told them who I was and got acquainted with Mr. Kenoke. He's their best producer, I think.

"As it happened, I am now working on a play that calls for a big fire scene. I was worried about it, because they send so many of my scenarios back with the comment that they are too difficult to produce.

It's a dandy plot, and I hated to give it up just because it would require a burning building. They would hardly buy a building and burn it down just to please me, you know.

"But when they hear of a fire they get right to it, if they can, and take rescue scenes, and so forth, then have their contract writers work up a scenario in which the scenes can be used. But that's hack work.

Mine is different, you see. My scenario called for a fire, and couldn't be produced without it. Quite different from having a fire call for a scenario.

"Well, now you know. I couldn't explain then, you see. There wasn't time, and, besides, I was too excited. I doubted if you would have understood, either--you just from the country.

"Now don't think I'm making fun of you. But it's the truth, isn't it?

And it was certainly great of you to go the way you did, not having the least idea of what you were up against."

"It wasn't much," Hiram said in his una.s.suming way.

"Yes, it was," the girl said with a lack of the enthusiasm which had marked her former grateful utterances. Her eyes were far away, and it was apparent that another matter held precedence in her mind. "You just got into Frisco last night, your partner said."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I could see that when you came in the restaurant. Your new suit looks fairly nice." She scanned him frankly.

Hiram squirmed. "Tweet said I looked whittled out in it," he said truthfully.

"You don't any such thing! You don't mind my being so personal, do you? I've taken quite an interest in you since Mr. Tweet talked about you--especially as you are from Mendocino. You looked so forlorn and scared last night when you came in the restaurant. I could see that you didn't know what to order or how to order it, and that you were half starved. I remembered my first day in the city. Honestly, I was scared blue! But tell me--what part of the country are you from?"

"I'm from Bear Valley," Hiram told her.

"Bear Valley! Why, our old place is just on the other side of the range. I've been in Bear Valley lots of times. Our place is in Temple Valley."

"I know Temple Valley," Hiram put in quickly.