"Say!" said Skinski to me, after we had ordered some breadstuff for the leading lady, "you're not such a late train with the sleight-of-hand gag yourself, Mr. Manager!"
"Oh! I'm only a piker at it," I replied, modestly. "I can do a few moth-eaten tricks with the cards and I've studied out a few of the illusions, enough to know how to do them without breaking an ankle, but I'm not cute enough to be on the stage."
Skinski laughed, and Dodo looked over another glass of Pommery long enough to say, "You betcher sweet!"
"Well," said Skinski, leading a bevy of French-fried potatoes up to his moustache, "you'll know enough about it after I rehearse you to go on and do the show when we hit a fried-egg burg, where there's only a Mr. and Mrs. Audience to greet our earnest endeavors. Say, boys, you'll get a lot of fricasseed experience trailing with this troupe, believe me!"
"I'm only going to be with you for a few days," I answered. "Mr.
Jefferson will be your permanent manager."
"The hell I will!" spluttered Bunch. Then he got red in the face, glared at Dodo, and grouched out a "beg pardon!"
"You betcher sweet!" she replied, patting the Pommery.
"Say, John! you know well enough I can't leave New York for more than two or three days just at this time without having a good excuse to give Alice," Bunch growled, while Skinski and the Circassian lady put the knives to the chicken livers en brochette.
"How about me!" I snapped back. "I can't go out of town at all, except in the day-time. I'll have to duck back to Ruraldene after the show every evening or lose my card in the Happy Husbands' Union. It's different with you, Bunch; you're not married yet."
"It isn't different at all," Bunch whipsawed me. "And you haven't any business to expect me to hike over the country with this outfit while you stay at home and read Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress."