Elmer P. Dobree had also written very nicely. The stuff was full of promise; but there was performance in it too. The editor of the Monitor was tickled to death by it and was asking for more. Of course “the blue pencil” was still in use but Elmer P. was full of sage advice. Even in the Cowbarn days, he had been, but he had the art of giving it in a tactful way. Good old Elmer, what a white man he was! Mame gave a little sigh of gratitude as she fingered the cheque and then re-read the letter of the Monitor’s new assistant editor.
When Lady Violet came out of her bath, over which she liked to spend at least half an hour between ten a. m. and eleven, the letter was handed to her.
“I’ve got an idea,” Mame announced when the letter had been duly returned with her friend’s congratulations. “And I want you to come in on it. Now listen, hon.”
“Fire away,” said Lady Violet, elegantly fixing her kimono-clad slimness in a bergère chair.
“Suppose we shoot that weekly syndicate letter upon New York? And why shouldn’t they broadcast it all over the U. S.? Or why not a specialty with all the latest news and town gossip done in the Chickest style? You see what I mean? Or we might send two letters. ‘Celimene’ for New York and Boston and Chicago and Philadelphia and the highbrow cities; and ‘Mame’ for the small towns. Let us mail a couple of specimens right now to Elmer P. and put it up to him to work it his end. What do you say?”
Enkindled by Mame’s enthusiasm, which began to rise to bubbling point, Celimene could only yield.
“Easy money, I’ll tell the world.” Mame’s optimism was a tax upon the gravity of her friend.
“If we can put over the he-stuff we might persuade Elmer to have it cabled; and then I guess there’d be five hundred bucks a week for us cool.”
“Five hundred bucks a week, honey, you don’t say!” Celimene had a sense of humour. But she knew Mame well enough by now to appreciate that her flow of ideas must be taken seriously.
Over a pleasant luncheon at the Ladies Imperium, of which Mame had been already made an honourary, temporary member, they discussed the details of the plan.