“I’m Miss Duluth’s husband,” said the smallish man, shrinking. The tall, flashily good-looking man at his elbow straightened up and looked at him with a doubtful expression in his eyes. He was Mr. Butler, Harvey’s 51 next-door neighbour in Tarrytown. “You must be new here.”
“Been here two years,” said the ticket-seller, glaring at him. “See the manager.”
“Where is he?”
“At his hotel, I suppose. Please move up. You’re holding the line back.”
At that moment the company’s press representative sauntered by. Nellie’s husband, very red in the face and humiliated, hailed him, and in three minutes was being conducted to a seat in the nineteenth row, three removed from the aisle, followed by his Tarrytown neighbour, on whose face there was a frozen look of disgust.
“We’ll go back after the second act,” said Harvey, struggling with his hat, which wouldn’t go in the rack sideways. “I’ll arrange everything then.”
“Rotten seats,” said Mr. Butler, who had expected the front row or a box.
“The scenery is always better from the back of the house,” explained his host, uncomfortably.
“Damn the scenery!” said Mr. Butler. “I never look at it.” 52
“Wait till you see the setting in the second––” began Harvey, with forced enthusiasm, when the lights went down and the curtain was whisked upward, revealing a score of pretty girls representing merry peasants, in costumes that cost a hundred dollars apiece, and glittering with diamond rings.