“Of course, if I could have Carol, I’d like it,” he went on. “Carol’s never a nuisance. It would be good for me, too. I know that. If the Volstead Act hadn’t been sneaked in on us, I know perfectly well I wouldn’t last long. I haven’t any way of making hootch and no money to buy it, so I still cumber the ground.”
“I don’t like to hear a young fellow talk like that,” said John Ogden, and he was not so unconscious of the servant class as to feel easy under the waiter’s entertainment.
“A young fellow doesn’t like to talk that way either,” retorted Hugh, “but what is there in it? What’s the use of anything? Of course, I’ve thought of the movies.”
“What?”
“Thought of going into the movies.” Hugh did not lower his voice, and the waiter was indefatigable in his attentions.
“I’m a looker,” went on the boy impersonally, as he attacked the salad. “Wallie Reid and Valentino—any of those guys wouldn’t have anything on me if I chose to go in for it.”
“Why don’t you, then?” John Ogden thought he might as well share the waiter’s entertainment.
“Oh, it’s too much bother, and the director yells at you, and they put that yellow stuff all over you when you know you’re yellow enough already.”
The boy laughed, and sending out a cloud of smoke from his Grecian nose again attacked his crab-meat.
After they had finished the ices and while they were drinking their coffee, Ogden succeeded in driving off the reluctant waiter.