“You know what I mean,” he said, with a touch of his old bulldozing manner.
“No, I really won’t,” she persisted. “Vaudeville’s too—too wearing on the nerves, my nerves, at any rate.”
Whereat he looked puzzled and doubtful, and forbore to press the point further.
But on Monday morning, when she came to his office to get her pay for the two turns, it was he who puzzled her.
“You surely must have mistaken me,” he lied glibly. “I remember saying something about paying your car fare. We always do this, you know, but we never, never pay amateurs. That would take the life and sparkle out of the whole thing. No, Charley Welsh was stringing you. He gets paid nothing for his turns. No amateur gets paid. The idea is ridiculous. However, here’s fifty cents. It will pay your sister’s car fare also. And,”—very suavely,—“speaking for the Loops, permit me to thank you for the kind and successful contribution of your services.”
That afternoon, true to her promise to Max Irwin, she placed her typewritten copy into his hands. And while he ran over it, he nodded his head from time to time, and maintained a running fire of commendatory remarks: “Good!—that’s it!—that’s the stuff!—psychology’s all right!—the very idea!—you’ve caught it!—excellent!—missed it a bit here, but it’ll go—that’s vigorous!—strong!—vivid!—pictures! pictures!—excellent!—most excellent!”
And when he had run down to the bottom of the last page, holding out his hand: “My dear Miss Wyman, I congratulate you. I must say you have exceeded my expectations, which, to say the least, were large. You are a journalist, a natural journalist. You’ve got the grip, and you’re sure to get on. The Intelligencer will take it, without doubt, and take you too. They’ll have to take you. If they don’t, some of the other papers will get you.”
“But what’s this?” he queried, the next instant, his face going serious. “You’ve said nothing about receiving the pay for your turns, and that’s one of the points of the feature. I expressly mentioned it, if you’ll remember.”
“It will never do,” he said, shaking his head ominously, when she had explained. “You simply must collect that money somehow. Let me see. Let me think a moment.”
“Never mind, Mr. Irwin,” she said. “I’ve bothered you enough. Let me use your ‘phone, please, and I’ll try Mr. Ernst Symes again.”