Part 35 (1/2)
His wife was laughing, yet confused.
”I don't see how you can make yourself so conspicuous,” she protested in a low voice.
”Why not?” he laughed. ”We public characters must boost one another.”
”And the price,” they heard the doctor declaiming, ”is only one dollar _per_ bottle, or six for five dollars, guar-_an_-teed not only to drive sciatic rheumatism from the sys-_tem_, but to cure the most ob-_stin_-ate cases of ague, Bright's disease, cat-a-lepsy, coughs, colds, cholera, _dys_-pepsia, ery-_sip_-_e_-las, fever _and_ chills, _gas_-tritis”--
”And so on down to X Y Z, etc.,” commented Wallingford as they walked away.
His wife looked up at him curiously.
”Jim, did you honestly take four bottles of that medicine?” she wanted to know.
”Take it?” he repeated in amazement. ”Certainly not! It isn't meant for wise people to take. It wouldn't do them any good.”
”It wouldn't do anybody any good,” she decided with a trace of contempt.
”Guess again,” he advised her. ”That dope has cured a million people that had nothing the matter with 'em.”
At the Hotel Deriche in the adjoining block they turned into the huge, garishly decorated dining-room for their after-theater supper. They had been in the town only two days, but the head waiter already knew to come eagerly to meet them, to show them to the best table in the room, and to a.s.sign them the best waiter; also the head waiter himself remained to take the order, to suggest a delicate, new dish and to name over, at Wallingford's solicitation, the choice wines in the cellar that were not upon the wine-list.
This little formality over, Wallingford looked about him complacently.
A pale gentleman with a jet-black beard bowed to him from across the room.
”Doctor Lazzier,” observed Wallingford to his wife. ”Most agreeable chap and has plenty of money.”
He bent aside a little to see past his wife's hat, and exchanged a suave salutation with a bald-headed young man who was with two ladies and who wore a dove-gray silk bow with his evening clothes.
”Young Corbin,” explained Wallingford, ”of the Corbin and Paley department store. He had about two dollars a week spending money till his father died, and now he and young Paley are turning social flip-flaps at the rate of twenty a minute. He belongs to the Mark family and he's great pals with me. Looks good for him, don't it?”
”Jim,” she said in earnest reproval, ”you mustn't talk that way.”
”Of course I'm only joking,” he returned. ”You know I promised you I'd stick to the straight and narrow. I'll keep my word. Nothing but straight business for me hereafter.”
He, too, was quite serious about it, and yet he smiled as he thought of young Corbin. Another man, of a party just being shown to a table, nodded to him, and Mrs. Wallingford looked up at her husband with admiration.
”Honestly, how do you do it?” she inquired. ”We have only been here a little over forty-eight hours, and yet you have already picked up a host of nice friends.”
”I patronize only the best saloons,” he replied with a grin; then, more seriously: ”This is a mighty rich little city, Fannie. I could organize a stock company here, within a week, for anything from a burglar's trust to a church consolidation.”
”It's a pretty place,” she admitted. ”I like it very much from what I have seen of it.”
He chuckled.
”Looks like a spending town,” he returned; ”and where they spend a wad they're crazy to make one. Give me one of these inland society towns for the loose, long green. New York's no place to start an honest business,” and again he chuckled. ”By the way, Fannie,” he added after a pause, ”what do you think of my going into the patent medicine line?”
”How do you mean?” she inquired, frowning.
”Oh, on a big scale,” he replied. ”Advertise it big, manufacture it big.”
She studied it over in musing silence.