“I don’t understand,” said the butler, whose previous job had been on Fifth avenue. “What does Skiddoo mean?”
“It doesn’t make any difference whether you understand or not, just you say it to him and he will know, and that’s enough.”
And all that night this cheese sandwich with the side whiskers kept repeating the word to himself so he wouldn’t forget it, and he wrote it down on his cuff. He also traced it out on a card that he stuck in behind the hat rack in the hall. In his heart and soul he thought it was some foreign word which meant that the lady wasn’t at home or didn’t care to be disturbed.
That’s the worst of being a butler instead of Chuck Connors.
The traveling man with the immaculate gall had reached the worrying stage because the girl was doing so well and he had been pushed off the track. If she had stuck to her little furnished flat and the cheap togs he would have gone on his way whistling a merry tune, just as all men do. But she was on the high wave and sipping the cream off the top, and he thought there ought to be an armchair waiting for him by the fireplace of her new ranch, which was very natural, for all men are cast in the same identical mould. They don’t care for what they have, and are always hunting for something that’s hard to get.
If you look like the goods you’ll have them all going, but as soon as you tell your hard luck story you’ll get the sandbag where it will do the most good.
One night, after the show, Jane and a bunch of the merry-merry with money to spend, or burn, or throw away, was in the front room playing dollar limit poker, when the drummer, with a choice collection of high balls stowed away under his vest, and in a fit condition to either fight or cry, came up in the elevator. He had overdrawn his salary and was prepared to buy wine, if necessary, and he was dressed like a man whose credit is good at the best clothing store in town.
He held his thumb against the electric button for a moment, and because the butler was busy with a sauterne cup, very choice, being of the Barton and Guestier vintage of ’84, the kind Smithy always orders when he wants to be real flossy, the maid turned the knob and came face to face with him.
He made his little spiel, shoved in and stood in the hall on one foot waiting for the glad hand and the happy cry that he felt sure was coming.
“What’s his name? Who is he? Why don’t you get his card?” he heard Jane say. Then the maid came back.