Part 51 (1/2)
”I didn't come down here to eat,” Mrs. Fieldstone said, with a catch in her voice.
”Even so, Mrs. Fieldstone, don't you try to start nothing with this woman, as you never know what you're stacking up against in cafes,”
Ralph warned her. ”Young Hartigan, the featherweight champion of the world, used to be a--now--coat boy in Sam's; and they got several waiters working there who has also graduated from the preliminary cla.s.s.”
”I wouldn't open my head at all,” Mrs. Fieldstone promised; and with this a.s.surance they entered the most southerly of the three doors to Sam's.
One of the penalties of being one of the few restaurants in New York permitted to do business between one A.M. and six A.M. was that Sam's Cafe and Restaurant did a light business between six P.M. and one A.M.; and consequently at eleven-thirty P.M. J. Montgomery Fieldstone and Miss Goldie Raymond were the only occupants of the south dining-room.
It is true that there were other customers seated in the middle and north dining-rooms--conspicuously Mr. Sidney Rossmore and Miss Vivian Haig; and it was this young lady who, though hidden from J. Montgomery Fieldstone's view, formed one of the subsidiary heads of his discourse with Miss Raymond.
”Well, I wish you could 'a' seen her, kid!” he said to Miss Raymond.
”My little girl seven years old has took of Professor Rheinberger plain and fancy dancing for three weeks only, and she's a regular Pavlowa already alongside of Haig. She's heavy on her feet like an elephant!”
”You should tell me that!” Miss Raymond exclaimed. ”Ain't I seen her?”
”And yet you claim I considered giving her this part in the new piece,”
Fieldstone said indignantly. ”I'm honestly surprised at you, kid!”
”Oh, you'd do anything to save fifty dollars a week on your salary list,” she retorted.
”About that fifty dollars, listen to me, Goldie!” Fieldstone began, just as Ralph and Mrs. Fieldstone came through the revolving doors. ”I don't want you to think I'm small, see? And if you say you must have it, why, I'll give it to you.” He leaned forward and smiled affably at her. ”After the thirtieth week!” he concluded in seductive tones.
”Right from the day we open!” Miss Raymond said, tapping the tablecloth with her fingertips.
”Now, sweetheart,” Fieldstone began, as he seized her hand and squeezed it affectionately, ”you know as well as I do when I say a thing I mean it, because----”
And it was here that Mrs. Fieldstone, losing all control of herself and all remembrance of Ralph's admonition, took the aisle in as few leaps as her fas.h.i.+onable skirt permitted and brought up heavily against her husband's table.
”Jake!” she cried hysterically. ”Jake, what is this?”
Fieldstone dropped Miss Raymond's hand and jumped out of his chair.
”Why, mommer!” he exclaimed. ”What's the matter? Is the children sick?”
He caught her by the arm, but she shook him off and turned threateningly to Miss Raymond.
”You hussy, you!” she said. ”What do you mean by it?”
Miss Goldie Raymond stood up and glared at Mrs. Fieldstone.
”Hussy yourself!” she said. ”Who are you calling a hussy? Mont, are you going to stand there and hear me called a hussy?”
Fieldstone paid no attention to this demand. He was clawing affectionately at his wife's arm and repeating, ”Listen, mommer!
Listen!” in anguished protest.
”I would call you what I please!” Mrs. Fieldstone panted. ”I would call you worser yet; and----”