Part 11 (2/2)

Then he set whole-heartedly about the business of making himself presentable for the evening.

When eventually he strode into the white room, Max was already established at the famous little table in the southeast corner. Whitaker was conscious of turning heads and guarded comment as he took his place opposite the little fat man.

”Make you famous in a night,” Max a.s.sured him importantly. ”Don't happen to need any notoriety, do you?”

”No, thanks.”

”Dine with me here three nights hand-running and they'll let you into the Syndicate by the back door without even asking your name. P.T.A.'s one grand little motto, my boy.”

”P.T.A.?”

”Pays to advertise. Paste that in your hat, keep your head small enough to wear it, and don't givadam if folks do think you're an addle-pated village cut-up, and you'll have this town at heel like a good dog as long as--well,” Max wound up with a short laugh, ”as long as your luck lasts.”

”Yours seems to be pretty healthy--no signs of going into a premature decline.”

”Ah!” said Max gloomily. ”Seems!”

With a morose manner he devoted himself to his soup.

”Look me over,” he requested abruptly, leaning back. ”I guess I'm some giddy young buck, what?”

Whitaker reviewed the striking effect Max had created by encasing his brief neck and double chin in an old-fas.h.i.+oned high collar and black silk stock, beneath which his important chest was protected by an elaborately frilled s.h.i.+rt decorated with black pearl studs. His waist was strapped in by a pique waistcoat edged with black, and there was a distinctly perceptible ”invisible” stripe in the material of his evening coat and trousers.

”Dressed up like a fool,” Max summed up the ensemble before his guest could speak. ”Would you believe that despair could gnaw at the vitals of any one as wonderfully arrayed?”

”I would not,” Whitaker a.s.serted.

”n.o.body would,” said Max mournfully. ”And yet, 'tis true.”

”Meaning--?”

”Oh, I'm just down in the mouth because this is Sara's last appearance.”

Max motioned the waiter to remove the debris of a course. ”I'm as superst.i.tious as any trouper in the profession. I've got it in my k.n.o.b that she's my mascot. If she leaves me, my luck goes with her. I never had any luck until she came under my management, and I don't expect to have any after she retires. I made her, all right, but she made me, too; and it sprains my sense of good business to break up a paying combination like that.”

”Nonsense,” Whitaker contended warmly. ”If I'm not mistaken, you were telling me this afternoon that you stand next to Belasco as a producing manager. The loss of one star isn't going to rob you of that prestige, is it?”

”You never can tell,” the little man contended darkly; ”I wouldn't bet thirty cents my next production would turn out a hit.”

”What will it cost--your next production?”

”The show I have in mind--” Max considered a moment then announced positively: ”between eighteen and twenty thousand.”

”I call that big gambling.”

”Gambling? Oh, that's just part of the game. I meant a side bet. If the production flivvers, I'll need that thirty cents for coffee and sinkers at Dennett's. So I won't bet.... But,” he volunteered brightly, ”I'll sell you a half interest in the show for twelve thousand.”

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