"What do you do with your nickels?" I ask him. "I don't doubt that Chaplin and Fairbanks get more wages than you bellboys, but I thought your tips ran into better figures than they have in the Follies."
"Say, cutey, be yourself!" says James scornfully. "Most of the eggs in this trap is as tight as the skin on a grape—they wouldn't give a thin dime to see Tut-ankh-Amen walk up Fifth Avenoo on his hands! I could be railroaded to Sing Sing for what I think of them babies. Why should I have to carry suitcases and hustle ice water for a lot of monkeys like that?"
"Don't put on dog, Jimmy," I smile. "The guests of the St. Moe are every bit as good as you are, even if you are a haughty bellhop and they are lowly millionaires. Suppose you had a million, what would you do with it?"
"Well," says Jimmy thoughtfully, "the first thing I'd do wouldst be to get me a education—not that I'm no dumb Isaac by no means, but they's a few lessons like algeometry, matriculation, mock geography and the like which I could use. I wouldn't get all tangled up with no wild women or pull none of the raw stuff which this Van Ryker jobbie done, that's a cinch! They'd be no horseplay what the so ever, as far as I was concerned. What I'd do wouldst be to crash into some business, make my pile and my name and not do no playin' around till I was about fifty and independent for life. Ain't it a crime when I got them kind of intentions to make good and no nonsense about it, that somebody don't slip me a million?"
"It's an outrage, Jimmy," I agree, allowing a giggle to break jail. "Still, all men are born equal and if it's actually possible that you haven't got a million, why, you must have thrown your chances away. When Eddie Windsor was your age, for instance, he had made himself Prince of Wales!"
"Me and him begin life in a different type of cradle!" says Jimmy. "And that stuff about everybody bein' equal when they're born is the oyster's ice skates. The only way me and them wealthy millionaires was even at birth is that we was all babies!"
This debate between me and Jimmy was about like Adam and a monkey arguing over which of 'em was our first ancestor—we could have found plenty of people to side with both of us. Then again, the customers was beginning to snap into it for the day and craved the voice with the smile. I got as busy at the switchboard as a custard pie salesman on a movie comedy lot, so I gave the money-mad James the air for the time being.
A couple of weeks later, or maybe it was a jolly old fortnight, Hon. Guy Austin Tower returns from a voyage to Europe, and then the fun began! Maybe you all haven't had the unusual pleasure of meeting my boy friend, so with your kind permission I'll introduce him.
This handsome young metropolitan sheik is a millionaire of the first water, a full-blooded playwright, one of my wildest admirers, and a guest at the Hotel St. Moe. Guy would be a face card in any deck—he's a real fellow, no fooling. Even the parboiled Jimmy Burns, who thinks everybody guilty till proved innocent, is one of Guy's fans. Guy just sprays Jimmy and the rest of the hired help with princely tips and doesn't dime them to death, as most of the other inmates do.
Like Carlton Van Ryker, Guy was left about everything but Lake Michigan when his male parent entered the obituary column, but unlike Van Ryker, Guy didn't let his millions make him a clown. He wanted to carve his own way on our popular planet, so he simply forgot about his warehouse full of doubloons and took up the trade of writing plays. As he's got two frolics running on Broadway now, you could hardly call him a bust.