“I got to go, Cap. She needs me.”
“Go!” squeaked Andy. His squeak was equivalent to a bellow in a man of ordinary stature. “Go where? What d’you mean, she?” But he knew.
Out popped Parthy, scenting trouble.
Schultzy held out a letter written on cheap paper, lined, and smelling faintly of antiseptic. “She’s in the hospital at Little Rock. Says she’s had an operation. He’s left her, the skunk. She ain’t got a cent.”
“I’ll take my oath on that,” Parthy put in, pungently.
“You can’t go and leave me flat now, Schultzy.”
“I got to go, I tell you. Frank can play leads till you get somebody, or till I get back. Old Means can play utility at a pinch, and Doc can do general business.”
“Frank,” announced Parthy, with terrible distinctness, “will play no leads in this company, and so I tell you, Hawks.”
“Who says he’s going to! A fine-looking lead he’d make, with that pin-head of his, and those elephant’s hoofs. . . . Now looka here, Schultzy. You been a trouper long enough to know you can’t leave a show in the ditch like this. No real show-boat actor’d do it, and you know it.”
“Sure I know it. I wouldn’t do it for myself, no matter what. But it’s her. I wrote her a letter, time she left. I got her bookings. I said if the time comes you need me, leave me know, and I’ll come. And she needs me, and she left me know, and I’m coming.”