The Argosy, Vol. 84 No. 2 — page 120: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

302 THE - Ellen would want to go to something serious and heavy, if it could be found at this season. He needed something light and cheering! “Just get a good look at the little blondie second from the right end of the ‘ Foolish-Happy ’ chorus, if you go,” Mer- cer suggested. ‘‘ And hold your head in both hands, so you don’t lose it.” Seven-thirty found Evans at the win- dow of the Comique’s box-office, with a long line behind him. The place, he had learned when he looked it up in the papers to get its address, was a roof-garden. “What have you got?” Bruce asked, as he had once heard a man of apparent affluence inquire at another box-office where he had been waiting to buy a twenty-five-cent ticket. “ Anything you can get; how many?” said the clerk with a quick snap in his voice. cc One.”’ The clerk slapped down a ticket. Bruce had visited the Twentieth National be- fore returning to his own bank after lurich. He laid a crisp five-dollar bill on the glass. The clerk pushed out the ticket and three dollars in change. Evans suppressed a gasp. Time had been when he would have shoved back the tickets at a nickeldrome before paying ten cents apiece as a holiday price. Now he just took the ticket and change and headed for the elevators, after: the rest of those in front of him. Half an hour after the show began he wished he had his money back. He felt that he would have been cheated at a quarter for his seat. . The costumes looked immodest to him, and the dancing would have appeared sheerly suggestive of indecency to a man more experienced than himself. He was serenely oblivious to the fact that the very immodesty of the show was what he had paid his two dollars for. The music seemed largely lost in the conversations that went on all about, mostly between men, and a good deal of it disgustingly coarse. At the end of an ARGOSY. hour he was thinking seriously of relin- quishing his claims to the rest of his two- collars’ worth, and going home. He was thoroughly bored. Even the smartness of the overdressed people around him had lost its interest. Then he caught a snatch of the con- versation of two men behind him. “Heard anything more about American Chrome?” one asked. “Yes, I did,” the other replied. guess it’s the real dope all right. Lo | I was talking to Chris this afternoon, and he says he had it straight from a fellow that’s head-clerk or something at Kuhn Loeb’s. There was some talk about the Germans’ buying up the whole plant and putting it to sleep if they couldn’t use it; but the Chrome people held out for too big a price; and there’s a forty-million-dollar order all done but the signing. Must be leaking, too. Chrome went up half a point just before closing.” Bruce grew suddenly interested. He was overhearing a tip on the market. He listened, forgetful of all notions of the propriety of eavesdropping. ‘Did you buy any of it?” “T told Rumford to get me a hundred if he could under thirty. Ah—here she is!” Bruce looked up at the barefooted white savage who now gyrated from the wings, and, with a sweeping bow and a kiss blown at the audience, began a dance. He could have cursed her for breaking in on the conversation behind. From then on he heard and saw little but the con- versation of those two men. He forgot Mercer’s admonition about the second from the right in the ‘“ Foolish- Happy ” chorus, did not notice that that particular chorus was in progress until it was ended. He wasted few regrets on her. “TF think T’ll take some Chrome my- self,” he heard again. ; “Tt sounded all right to me,” cam the response. “ Anyhow, I think it’s worth a seven-hundred-dollar bet. How’d you make out in Tubular Brass?” COmiclhoOokKks (C@