Part 7 (1/2)
”Debt of honor. I heard she was due here with some kind of an electric thrill, so I offered her my share of the sweepstakes to further disgrace herself by dancing with me. She's an expensive doll; she needs that thousand--mortgage on the old family opera- house, no shoes for little sister, and mother selling papers to square the landlord.” He caught Lorelei's eye and stared boldly.
”h.e.l.lo! I believe in fairies, too, dad. Introduce me to the Princess.”
Merkle volunteered this service, and Bob promptly hitched his chair closer. Lorelei saw that he was very drunk, and marveled at his control during the recent exhibition.
”Tell me more about the 'Parti-color Petticoat' and 'Dentol Chewing-Gum,' Miss Knight. Your face is a household word in every street-car,” he began.
She replied promptly, quoting haphazard from the various advertis.e.m.e.nts in which she figured. ”It never shrinks; it holds its shape; it must be seen to be appreciated; is cool, refres.h.i.+ng, and prevents decay.”
”How did you meet that French dancer?” Hannibal Wharton queried, sourly, of his son.
”I stormed the stage door, bullied the door-man, and waylaid her in the wings. She thought I was you, dad. Wharton is a grand old name.” He chuckled at his father's exclamation. ”She's a good fellow, though, and I don't blame the King of What's-its-name.
Kings have to spend their money somewhere. Maybe I can induce her to invest some of the royal dough in stocks and bonds. The prospect dizzies me.”
”The crowd in your office would give you a banquet if you sold something,” Merkle told him.
Wharton, Senior, pressed for further information. ”Where did you learn those Argentine wiggles?”
”Hard times are to blame, dad. The old men on the Exchange play golf all day, and the young ones turkey-trot all night. I stay up late in the hope that I may find a quarter that some suburbanite has dropped. It's dangerous to drive an automobile through a dark street these days; one's liable to run down a starving banker or an indigent broker with a piece of lead pipe and a mask. You find it so, don't you, Miss Knight?”
”I have no automobile,” said the girl.
”Strange. Show business on the blink, too, eh?” The elder men rose and sauntered away in the direction of their host, whereupon Bob winked.
”They've left us flat. Why? Because the wicked Mlle. Demorest has finally made her appearance as a guest. My dad is a splendid shock-absorber. Naughty, naughty papa!”
”It's probably well that you came with her; fathers are so indiscreet.”
Young Wharton signaled to a waiter who was pa.s.sing with a wine- bottle in a napkin.
”Tarry!” he cried. ”Remove the shroud, please, and let me look at poor old Roderer. Thanks. How natural he tastes.” Then to Lorelei: ”The governor is a woman-hater; but, just the same, I'm glad you drew Merkle instead of him to-night, or there'd surely be a scandal in the Wharton family. No man is safe in range of your liquid orbs, Miss Knight, unless he has his marriage license sewed into his clothes. Mother keeps hers framed. Wouldn't she enjoy reading the list of Hammon's guests at this party? 'Among those present were Mr. Hannibal C. Wharton, the well-known rolling-mill man; Miss Lorelei Knight, Princ.i.p.al First-Act Fairy of the Bergman Revue; and Mlle. Adoree Demorest, the friend of a king. A good time was had by all, and the diners enjoyed themselves very nice.'” He laughed loudly, and the girl stirred.
”She'd be pleased to read also that you came late, but highly intoxicated.”
”Ah! Salvation Nell.” Bob took no offense. ”If the hour was late she'd know that my intoxication followed as a matter of course. It always does, just as the dew succeeds the sunset, as the track follows the wheelbarrow, as the cracker pursues the cheese. I am a derivative of alcohol, the one and infallible argument against temperance, Miss Knight. In me you behold the s.h.i.+ning example of all that puts the reformer to rout and gladdens the heart of the cafe-keeper.”
”You talk as if you were always drunk.”
”Oh--not always. By day I am frequently sober, but at such times I am fit company for neither man nor beast; I am harsh and unsympathetic; I scheme and I connive. With nightfall, however, there comes a metamorphosis. Ah! Believe ME! When the Clover Club is strained and descends like the gentle dew of heaven, when the Bronx is mixed and the Martini s.h.i.+mmers in the first rays of the electric light, then I humanize and harmonize, For me gin is a tonic, rum a restorative, vermuth a balm. Once I am stocked up with ales, wines, liquors, and cigars, I become attuned to the n.o.bler sentiments of life. I aspire. I make friends with lonely derelicts whose digestions have foundered on seas of vichy and b.u.t.termilk, and I show them the joys of alcoholism--without cost.
We share each other's pleasures and perplexities, at my expense.
They are my brothers. I am optimistic; I laugh; I play cards for money; I turkey-trot. I become a living, palpitating influence for good, spreading happiness and prosperity in my wake.”
”Do you consider yourself in such a condition now?” queried Lorelei, who had been vaguely amused at this Rubaiyat.
”I am, and, since it is long past the, closing hour of one and the tango parlors are dark, suppose we blow this 'Who's Who in Pittsburg' and taxi-cab it out to a roadhouse where the ba.s.s fiddle is still inhabited and the second generation is trotting to the 'Robert E. Lee'?”
Lorelei shook her head with a smile.
”Don't you dance?”