Part 16 (1/2)

”You're just like your wife claims,” she grins. ”Full of life and fun!

But I'm keepin' you from your food, ain't I? I wanted to know if you'd let Mister Simmons climb down your fire escape.”

”Feed him some veronal,” I says, ”and he'll no doubt be O.K. in the mornin'. The first day is always tough!”

”Why, what do you mean?” she says. ”I merely asked if my husband could climb down your fire escape.”

I seen I had wild pitched the first time, so I tried my luck again.

”Is your joint on fire?” I says.

”Oh, no!” she tells me. ”But we are locked out. My husband invented a new kind of lock--he's always inventing something that will do everything but work. He put this lock on our door and now he can't open it himself! Isn't that killing?”

”A riot!” I admits. ”Come right in.”

The wife is gettin' nervous at me bein' out there so long, and when she heard a female voice laughin', of course that didn't help matters none.

She meets this dame half way in the hall and the minute they seen each other they fall together in fond embrace. I found out later they'd known each other as long as a week and the last time they met was an hour before.

Well, we get introduced all around and then this bird which invented a lock that n.o.body on earth could open, includin' himself, goes out on the fire escape followed by his charmin' wife. They entered their flat by the novel method of usin' the kitchen window. This guy didn't open his mouth from the time he come in till he went out, and when spoke to, he blushed all over and acted like he wished to Heaven he could hide under the sofa. His wife, though, had nothin' against conversation as a sport. She was talkin' when she come in and she went out the same way. I never seen n.o.body in my life who could talk as fast and frequent as this dame and if her husband had hung that trick lock on her tongue he would of made himself solid with me!

”That's that lovely Mrs. Simmons,” says the wife, when they had went.

”It's too bad her husband ain't a live one.”

”Gettin' married has buried many a good man!” I says.

”It didn't change _you_ none,” she says. ”You was a dead one when I got you!”

”Here!” b.u.t.ts in Alex. ”Don't you people get started again! I wanna finish my supper in peace. What's wrong with Mister Simmons?”

”He ain't got no pep,” says the wife. ”They's many a more ambitious man than he is with a tomb around him! He's been keepin' books for twenty dollars a week since the discovery of arithmetic, and he ain't got a raise since they blowed up the _Maine_. He's afraid to ask for more money for fear the boss will find out he's on the pay roll and fire him. They's one ounce more brains in a billiard ball than they is in his head. He--”

”Wait!” interrupts Alex. ”This here sounds interestin' to me. In the first place, they ain't a doubt in my mind but what you got that feller figured all wrong! Like all the rest of you simple minded and innocent New Yorkers, you get brains and _imagination_ mixed. They is a big difference! _Brains_ is what puts a man over, and _imagination_ is what keeps him back. The ideal combination is all brains and no imagination! The feller with brains sets his mind on what he wants, forgets everything else, goes to it and gets it. He don't for a minute consider what might happen if he fails, or that the thing he proposes has never been done before, or that maybe his scheme ain't really as good as he first thought it was. Why don't he think of them things?

Because he ain't got no imagination! The imaginative feller is beat from the start. He keeps thinkin' from every possible angle, what might happen to him if he _fails_ and, by the time he gets that all figured out, his idea is cold and his enthusiasm for it has drowned in the sea of possibilities his roamin' mind has created! The feller which said, 'look before you leap!' might of been clever, but I bet he thought a five-dollar bill was as big as they made 'em till he went to his grave! If I'd had imagination, I'd never of come to New York and made good. I'd of been afraid the town was too big for me. Now this feller Simmons, I'll betcha, is simply sufferin' from a case of too much imagination. He must have _somethin'_ in his head or he couldn't even keep books. It takes brains to balance accounts, the same as it takes money to pay 'em. Am I right?”

”What d'ye say, if we go to the movies?” I says.

Alex gets up in disgust.

”Is that all the interest I'm gettin' here?” he asks.

”This ain't no bank!” I tells him.

”Be still!” says the wife. ”I heard every word you said, Alex dear. I think you're horribly interestin'. But I still claim Simmons is a fat-head whose butcher bill gives him trouble every month! He never takes that poor wife of his nowheres, but a walk past the Fifth Avenue Library, and she don't know if they have dancin' or swimmin' in cabarets. He's always drawin' things on pieces of paper, and he sits up half the night inventin' what-nots that would be all right, if they wasn't useless.”

”Yes,” says Alex, ”and some day he'll hit on somethin' that'll prob'ly make him famous!”

”I wanna see Beryldine Nearer in 'The Vaccinated Vampire',” I says, reachin' for my hat. ”I seen her last week in 'Almost A Fiend' and she was a knockout!”

”Shut up!” says the wife. ”What was you sayin', again, Alex?”

”I says it's the dreamer which has made the world what it is to-day,”