“What journals you write for?”
“For a syndicate mostly.”
“A syndicate.” Mame blinked. Her strong financial instinct automatically got busy. “Then you pull the big stuff, I guess?”
“Bread and butter.” As the bloated pluralist spoke she took a piece from the plate in front of her and offered it delicately to Fu Ching Wei.
The haughty animal suspiciously curled a lip and then condescended to eat. “Nice, isn’t he?” His mistress tickled gently the top of his head.
“Describe coronations for Reuter’s Agency?” Mame threw out a feeler. The subject fascinated her. And though the mistress of Fu Ching Wei might be a palpable bluffer, there was still a chance that she was one of the mandarins of the profession into which Mame herself was dying to force an entrance.
Awe was in Mame’s voice as she asked the question. Awe there was none in the careless voice that answered it. “Describe any old toomarsh from a dog fight to a royal marriage. Not that one does those stunts often, although one gets about the world sometimes.”
“What’s your line, then?” Mame tried hard to mask her curiosity. But rather conspicuously she failed.
“As a rule I write up the tea shops and hat shops and the restaurants and the big stores. And I do the books and plays for the women’s illustrateds.”
“But you do the big marriages too, I guess?” Mame’s voice throbbed.