“And there are over seventy of you to feed and take care of for, say, three days, and then to pay railroad fares for,” mused Bobby, a little startled as the magnitude of the demand began to dawn upon him. “Then there’s the music-hall, advertising, printing and I suppose a score of other incidentals. You need quite a pile of money. However, I’ll go down to the club at lunch time and see what I can do for you.”
“I knew you would the minute I looked at you,” said the Signorina confidently, which was a compliment or not, the way one looked at it. “But, say; I’ve got a better scheme than that, one that will let you make a little money instead of contributing. I understand the Orpheum has next week dark, through yesterday’s failure of The Married Bachelor Comedy Company. Why don’t you get the Orpheum for us and back our show for the week? We have twelve operas in our repertoire. The scenery and props are very poor, the costumes are only half-way decent and the chorus is the rattiest-looking lot you ever saw in your life; but they can sing. They went into the discard on account of their faces, poor things. Suppose you come over and have a look. They’d melt you to tears.”
“That won’t be necessary,” hastily objected Bobby; “but I’ll meet a lot of the fellows at lunch, and afterward I’ll let you know.”
“After lunch!” exclaimed the Signorina with a most expressive placing of her hands over her belt, whereat the Herr Professor and Der Grosse Tenore both turned most wistfully to Bobby to see what effect this weighty plea might have upon him. “Lunch!” she repeated. “If you would carry a fork-full of steaming spaghetti into the Hotel Larken at this minute you’d start a riot. Why, Mr. Burnit, if you’re going to do anything for us you’ve got to get into action, because we’ve been up since seven and we still want our breakfasts.”
“Breakfast!” exclaimed Bobby, looking hastily at his watch. It was now eleven-thirty. “Come on; we’ll go right over to the Larken, wherever that may be,” and he exhibited as much sudden haste as if he had seen seventy people actually starving before his very eyes.
Just as the quartette stepped out of the office, Biff Bates, just coming in, bustled up to Bobby with:
“Can I see you just a minute, Bobby? Kid Mills is coming around to my place this afternoon.”
“Haven’t time just now, Biff,” said Bobby; “but jump into the machine with us and I’ll do the ‘chauffing.’ That will make room for all of us. We can talk on the way to the Hotel Larken. Do you know where it is?”
“Me?” scorned Biff. “If there is an inch of this old town I can’t put my finger on in the dark, blindfolded, I’ll have that inch dug out and thrown away.”
At the curb, with keen enjoyment of the joke of it all, Bobby gravely introduced Mr. Biff Bates, ex-champion middle-weight, to these imported artists, but, very much to his surprise, Signorina Caravaggio and Professor Bates struck up an instant and animated conversation anent Biff’s well-known and justly-famous victory over Slammer Young, and so interested did they become in this conversation that instead of Biff’s sitting up in the front seat, as Bobby had intended, the eminent instructor of athletics manœuvered the Herr Professor into that post of honor and climbed into the tonneau with Signor Ricardo and the Signorina, with the latter of whom he talked most volubly all the way over, to the evidently vast annoyance of Der Grosse Tenore.