“I understand you’ve acted on the stage.”
Gaylord Ravenal elevated the right eyebrow and looked down his aristocratic nose at the capering little captain. “I am Gaylord Ravenal, of the Tennessee Ravenals. I failed to catch your name.”
“Andy Hawks, captain and owner of the Cotton Blossom Floating Palace Theatre.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the show boat.
“Ah, yes,” said Ravenal, with polite unenthusiasm. He allowed his patrician glance to rest idly a moment on the Cotton Blossom, lying squat and dumpy alongside the landing.
Captain Andy found himself suddenly regretting that he had not had her painted and overhauled. He clutched his whiskers in embarrassment, and, under stress of that same emotion, blurted the wrong thing. “I guess Parthy was mistaken.” The Ravenal eyebrow became interrogatory. Andy floundered on. “She said that no man with a crack in the shoe——” he stopped, then, appalled.
Gaylord Ravenal looked down at the footgear under discussion. He looked up at the grim and ponderous female figure on the forward deck of the show boat. Parthy was wearing one of her most uncompromising bonnets and a gown noticeably bunchy even in that day of unsymmetrical feminine fashions. Black was not becoming to Mrs. Hawks’ sallow colouring. Lumpy black was fatal. If anything could have made this figure less attractive than it actually was, Ravenal’s glance would seem to have done so. “That—ah—lady?”
“My wife,” said Andy. Then, mindful of the maxim of the sheep and the lamb, he went the whole way. “We’ve lost our juvenile lead. Fifteen a week and found. Chance to see the world. No responsibility. Schultzy said you said . . . I said . . . Parthy said . . .” Hopelessly entangled, he stopped.
“Am I to understand that I am being offered the position of—ah—juvenile lead on the—” the devastating glance upward—“Cotton Blossom Floating Palace——”
“That’s the size of it,” interrupted Andy, briskly. After all, even this young man’s tone and manner could not quite dispel that crack in the boot. Andy knew that no one wears a split shoe from choice.
“No responsibility,” he repeated. “A chance to see life.”