"Good Heavens! Be a waiter?" stammered Loveland. He had felt ready for any ignominious, if paying, work when in the abstract; but as soon as it took definite form—and such a form as this——
"Oh! I knew you'd be cross!" Isidora pouted.
Loveland was silent; and as his dark eyebrows—so like his cousin Betty's—were drawn together in a frown, the girl supposed that he was sulking.
"I only thought it'd be better than nothing," she explained hurriedly, "if Pa'd let you; but perhaps he wouldn't. He'd think he was doin' a favour—see? He wouldn't understand how you felt about it. I'd have to explain you was temp'rily embarrassed; and my, what a howling swell of a waiter you'd look. You'd get two dollars fifty a week, to begin, and your food. That's what Dutchy did. And now and then folks give a nickel to the waiter, even in a place like this, which I suppose you turn your nose up at, after the Waldorf-Astoria. But I shan't say any more, you needn't be afraid——"
"I beg your pardon," said Loveland. "If your father'll take me, I'll do it. When he comes——"
"Oh, you mustn't ask him yourself! You'd spoil the whole thing," Isidora broke in. "You must let me get at him. Two or three raw Germans and Swedes are bein' sent round this mornin' to look at; but while Pa's dressin' I'll talk you up, and you can be on hand when he gets downstairs. I'll go this minute, and Blinkey can see to anybody that comes in. You call him, Bill."
She darted off, all excitement; and Loveland sat waiting for the great man's verdict, feeling as if he had laid down his soul for sale with the pumpkin-pie and pork and beans.
Bill tried to cheer him. He would have practically no expenses, and being such a "good looker" would be sure to pick up a lot of nickels and even dimes. Why, he might save three dollars a week, and as for that trifling debt to him—Bill—they would wipe it off the slate and consider it paid; or, if Gordon wouldn't consent to do that, he might send the money from England when he'd got home—if he really did think it best to go home. At three dollars a week it wouldn't be long before a chap could lay up enough to cross in the steerage, the way those big ships were fighting each other for rates. For fifteen dollars you could do it, on some boats; and at three dollars a week——
But before Bill could finish his calculation—a rather intricate one for him—Isidora had flown in, her cheeks as red as her poppy-coloured blouse.
"Pa's in one of his funny moods," she whispered. "Won't give me any satisfaction. But I know he'd take you if you'd let me tell him who you are. I mean, if you're willing, I'll say you're the man all that stuff was in the papers about, how you was at the Waldorf as the Markis of Loveland, and how it was you knocked that swell Mr. Milton down. Nobody appreciates the value of advertising better than Pa (Bill can tell you that), and amatoor or no amatoor, you can be gettin' not only your two-fifty a week but twice that, and maybe more, out of Alexander the Great."