He started the seventy-dollar one off with a woman singing, and then played a band piece, and another with a fellow telling jokes, and some more and some more. Right in the middle of a piece Old Mose yelled:
“Shut ’er off! Lemme see you shut ’er off.”
Mark snapped it off short, and Old Mose looked almost pleased—and I guess he came as close to it as he could.
“Always shet up like that?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” says Mark.
“How much do them wax plates come at?”
“Different p-prices,” says Mark. “Here’s the list.”
“Don’t want to see it. Don’t want to see it.” He pulled a wallet out of his pocket and laid down a hundred-dollar bill. “Here,” says he, “gimme that machine and enough of them wax things to make up a hundred dollars’ worth. Hear me? Want to keep me waitin’ all day?”
“All ready for you in a s-second, sir,” says Mark, and quicker than I can tell you about it he had picked out the records and was packing them careful so they wouldn’t break.
“This’ll give you a th-thousand votes,” he says to Old Mose.