Bobby had overheard the general who commanded the aviation camp at which he was demobilized remarking about a request made by the moving picture director that he recommend some aviator for the task of piloting the dirigible which was to play such an important role in the spectacle and he had offered himself for the sacrifice just as a lark. He found the experience rare sport and until something giving greater promise of adventure appeared in the offing he was determined to go on with it. Twice a day he reached down and plucked up the beautiful Miss Delight as lightly as if she were a fragile doll while the assembled thousands, on the qui vive with excitement, burst into rapturous applause. In order to insure the peace of mind of Robert Wilkins, Sr., Jimmy Martin had consented, rather reluctantly it must be admitted, to respect the wishes of the impersonator of Lieut. Thurston Turner, U.S.N., who had expressed a desire to remain incognito. Otherwise the consequences might have been lurid.
Jimmy itched to give out a story concerning the social and business connections of the young soldier, but he had given his word, and being an ex-newspaper man, that was sacred. He temporarily forgot about Bobby and devoted his spare moments to figuring out ways and means for the sensational exploitation of Lolita Murphy to whose charms he had become a shackled slave from the moment he first glimpsed her at rehearsal. Lolita, it may be mentioned in passing, was a trifle discouraged at the comparatively slight opportunities for uplifting and otherwise ennobling the American stage offered by her participation in “Secret Service Sallie.” Her name wasn’t even mentioned on the program. She figured under an impersonal heading at the bottom, together with a couple of hundred other young women who were listed as “Berlin citizens, Japanese geisha girls, South Americans, Londoners, etc., etc.”
It needed all the soaring optimism of Jimmy to keep her from slipping into a nervous decline. The press agent had obtained an introduction through the stage director and his sympathetic interest in her temporarily side-tracked ambitions had won him her esteem and high regard from the beginning. Jimmy was a rapid worker and within three days from the time of their first meeting he had vowed his ardent and palpitating devotion, and while Lolita had not completely committed herself to a reciprocal affirmation she had succeeded, nevertheless, by devious and subtle devices not unknown to her sex, in conveying the distinct impression that the star of hope was visible in the eastern sky.
It might be parenthetically recorded that Jimmy was accustomed to arriving at his destination when once he embarked on a journey. He had been kidnapped from an assistant sporting editor’s desk on a middle western paper by a small circus, while still young, and for seven years he had been touring these United States ahead of an infinite variety of attractions ranging all the way from Curran’s Colossal Carnival company (playing state fairs) to the more or less splendiferous “revues” which have their origin and their brief span of popularity along the middle reaches of Broadway.
Being more familiar with the batting averages of the best ten players in the American League than with George Henry Lewes’, “The Art of Acting,” and being utterly incapable of writing a didactic essay on “The Psychology of Laughter”, Jimmy had never been cast for one of the so-called “kid-glove jobs” in the realm of theatrical publicity, that being the name given to the positions held by the literati who seek and occasionally obtain publicity for the highbrow drama. He was not of the chosen company of the sleek and self-satisfied elect. Elegantly written stories and gracefully worded little pieces, supposedly composed by charming feminine stars, meant nothing in his young and energetic life. “Stunts” were what he specialized in, the creation of news that was so unusual, so bizarre, so full of human interest that the newspapers not only felt obliged to print it, but usually assigned their own reporters to write it up. He wasn’t dignified; his conversation reeked with slang and his methods sometimes offended against all the established canons of good taste, but he sometimes landed with one foot and not infrequently with both.
His summer engagement at Jollyland was a “fill-in” between seasons and when he entered upon it he had no notion that it would shortly become pregnant with possibilities of a most disturbing sort. He had no idea that he would presently be directing all of his energies to assuaging the anxieties and soothing the troubled spirit of a somewhat forlorn maiden from what he was in the habit of scornfully referring to as a “hick town.”
There came a night when Lolita’s disappointment was past all bearing and when she sobbed out on Jimmy’s shoulders a bitter protest against the fate that had driven her into believing that she was destined to be a great actress. They were sitting on the beach in the moonlight after the show and off in the murky distance the great Sandy Hook light was blinking like some monster fire-fly.
“Jimmy,” she said, half-chokingly. “I just don’t belong. I wish I was back in Cedar Rapids.”
“Gosh, that’s an awful wish, girlie,” responded the press agent with a foolish attempt at a pleasantry which he instantly regretted.
Lolita drew away from him quickly.