She knocked on the door and went in. A pig-tailed flapper lifted her eyes slowly from Volume 224 of the Duchess Library.
In her best Broadway manner Mame asked if the editor was in. Miss Pigtail did not appear to be impressed by the Broadway manner. She made a bluff at concealing an out-size in yawns, laid aside her novelette with an air of condescension for which Mame longed to smack her face, and said, “I’ll take in your name.”
Mame felt discouraged, but she was determined not to let the minx know it. With an air she took a card from her bag; and Miss Pigtail after one supercilious glance at it went forth to an inner room whose door was marked Private.
In about thirty seconds Miss Pigtail reappeared. “This way, please,” she said haughtily. Mame still had a desire to put one over on the young madam; but evidently she was coming to business all right.
Seated before a roll-top desk, in a stuffy room twelve feet by twelve, whose only other furniture were an almanac and a vacant chair, was the editor of High Life. At least Mame surmised that the gentleman who received her occupied that proud position, even if he did not quite fulfil her idea of the part. It was difficult to say just where he fell short, but somehow he did fall short. He was one of those large flabby men who are only seen without a pipe in their mouths when they are putting liquids into it. His eyes were tired, his front teeth didn’t seem to fit, and he had that air of having been born three highballs below par which some men inherit and others acquire.
The editor of High Life was not a prepossessing man, although the most striking thing about him, his large moustache, was so wonderfully pointed and waxed, that Mame felt quite hypnotised by it. However, she took a pull on herself, made her best bow and elegantly presented Paula Wyse Ling’s introduction letter.
The visitor was invited to a chair. Then after brief examination of the envelope the editor made clear that he was not the person to whom it was addressed. “My name is Judson,” he said, “Digby Judson. I took over from Walter Waterson about nine months ago.”
“So long as you’re the main guy,” Mame assured him, “it’ll be all right. I want to connect up with this paper.”
With a slight frown of perplexity Mr. Digby Judson opened Miss Paula Ling’s letter. “It says nothing about experience,” he remarked mildly. “And to be quite candid I don’t know Paul M. Wing from Adam.”
“It’s a her,” said Mame matter-of-factly. “Paula Ling’s the name.”