WALLIE.
This, remember, was in the year 1913, B.W. Wallie, obeying instructions, went to Budapest, witnessed the alleged winner, found it as advertised, wired Hahn to that effect, and was joined by that gentleman three days later.
Budapest, at that time, was still Little Paris, only wickeder. A city of magnificent buildings, and unsalted caviar, and beautiful, dangerous women, and frumpy men (civilian) and dashing officers in red pants, and Cigány music, and cafés and paprika and two-horse droshkies. Buda, low and flat, lay on one side; Pest, high and hilly, perched picturesquely on the other. Between the two rolled the Blue Danube (which is yellow).
It was here that Hahn and Wallie found Mizzi Markis. Mizzi Markis, then a girl of nineteen, was a hod carrier.
Wallie had three days in Budapest before Hahn met him there. As the manager stepped from the train, looking geometrically square in a long ulster that touched his ears and his heels, Wallie met him with a bound.
"Hello, S.H.! Great to see you! Say, listen, I've found something. I've found something big!"
Hahn had never seen the boy so excited. "Oh, shucks! No play's as good as that."
"Play! It isn't a play."
"Why, you young idiot, you said it was good! You said it was darned good! You don't mean to tell me—"
"Oh, that! That's all right. It's good—or will be when you get through with it."