“Yes, m’am,” replied Jimmy. “I’m her manager and I just happened to see the announcement of your contest and I remembered that she’s a great cook and I thought perhaps you’d like to have her enter in the pie stakes—that is, I mean I thought you’d like to have her bake a pie and send it in. Apple pies are her specialty. Mr. Wilson here and myself ate one cooked by her own hand last summer down at her country home on Long Island. Remember that pie, Mr. Wilson?”
Jimmy’s confrere was equal to the emergency.
“I should say I did,” he quickly replied in his most dignified manner. “How could I ever forget? It was a poem, a real lyric bit of pastry.”
“This is wonderful,” gurgled Miss Slosson, “perfectly wonderful! It will give just the filip to this thing that I’ve been after. We can challenge the women of the home to equal the culinary efforts of the women of the stage. You understand, of course, that we must insist upon your entry being bona-fide. We must have assurance that the pie has actually been baked by Madame Stephano. How will she be able to bake it and how will you get it here? Our contest closes the day after tomorrow, you know.”
“That’ll be all right, Miss Slosson,” returned Jimmy. “I’ll get her on the long distance phone just as soon as I can get back to my hotel. She’s playing in Chicago and she’s stopping with friends in a private home. She’ll bake it right away and I’ll get her to ship it right through by express. She’ll be tickled to death. The home is everything to her. Most domestic little woman I ever met.”
“Isn’t that too delightful,” responded the pie editor. “Some of them are that way I suppose. I wonder if you have any pictures of her that I could use?”
Jimmy turned a glance toward his companion in which there was a gleam of triumph as he began to unbuckle the leather case he always carried with him.
“I think that it’s just possible I may have one or two right here with me,” he said. “Yes, isn’t that lucky? Do you care for any of these?”
He handed a half dozen assorted pictures of the great Russian actress across the table. Miss Slosson picked out three of them.
“I’ll use one tomorrow morning with a long story about her entrance,” she said, “and I’ll use one the day after, too. Tomorrow I’ll run a picture of Mrs. Jefferson Andrews, one of our society leaders who has entered, right opposite Mme. Stephano’s. It’s a perfectly darling idea. Thank you so much and be sure and get her on the phone right away and don’t forget that the contest closes at six o’clock Thursday evening.”