“I presume you mean the chorus girls,” suggested Mr. Denby. “Do you wish to use them in some way for publicity purposes?”
“You’re talking,” said Jimmy. “I not only wish to I’ve got to. I’ve got to smear ’em over the front pages of all the papers in Baltimore to keep my job. And, believe me, Baltimore is some tight town when it comes to handin’ out space for the showshops. The lid’s on and you’ve got to murder someone to get it off.”
Mr. J. Herbert Denby cocked his head at a thoughtful angle and gazed judicially through his spectacles.
“It mightn’t be a bad idea,” he said finally, weighing every word carefully, “to get a delegation of prominent citizens to meet them at the station with automobiles. Had you thought of that?”
Jimmy turned a look of concentrated scorn on him that would have caused an ordinary mortal to shrivel up and pass quietly and unobtrusively into a state of complete dissolution, but it had no such effect on J. Herbert. He simply smiled a superior smile and awaited an answer.
“And it would be a good stunt, too,” snapped Jimmy, “to get the Governor of the State to dance the tango with Madeline La Verne in the waiting room of the station and to arrange to have the professors at the university carry all the girls on their backs up to the hotel. For the love of Mike, talk sense, man.”
“Of course, they would have to be extremely prominent citizens,” went on J. Herbert Denby, utterly ignoring Jimmy’s biting sarcasm, “the leading men of the city. It might be possible to arrange to have them go over to Washington in their cars and bring the young ladies to Baltimore in them instead of just meeting them at the station. That would add a touch of piquancy to the proceedings that——”
He got no farther, for Jimmy choked off further utterance by springing up and grabbing both his hands in wild exultation, almost upsetting the porter who was emptying a bottle of mineral water for the man in the next seat.
“You’ve got it, you old highbrow son-of-a-gun,” he shouted. “You don’t know how good it is yourself. You know that old stuff about ‘and a child shall lead them on.’ Well, that’s you. No offense, mind you, no offense, but you are a child in this line. I’ve got a notion to kiss you right out in public.”
J. Herbert backed away and almost landed in the lap of a stout party who was reading a paper.