Bill Terhune had already registered at the plush-lined Hotel Envoy and was waiting at the desk, key in one hand and a suitcase in the other, when Rodrigo walked in. Terhune was bigger, especially around the waistline, and more red-faced than ever, Rodrigo saw at a glance. The waiting man greeting the Italian with a lusty roar, bred on the broad Dakota prairies, that could be heard all around the decorous, palm-decorated lobby.
"Well, well," Bill rumbled, "who would have thought the Count would have come to this, eh? But say, boy, I'm sure glad to see you. Come up and have a drink. Hey, bellboy! Grab that bag, will you, and be very careful with it too. It contains valuable glassware."
Up in the twelfth floor room which Bill had hired for the night at a fabulous stipend, the American at once dispatched the bellboy for ice, glasses, and White Rock. Then he disrobed, sputtered in the shower-bath for a few minutes, rubbed himself a healthy pink and dressed in his dinner clothes, which he had brought along in his bag.
"Always keep them at the office," he chuckled. "I can't tell when I might have an emergency call." He poured bootleg Scotch into the glasses and rocked the ice around with a spoon.
"How do you get away with it, Bill?" Rodrigo asked, smiling. "I thought American wives were regular tyrants."
"That's how much you foreigners know," scoffed Bill. "All women love my type. You can always keep their love by keeping them wondering. That's my system—I keep my wife wondering whether I'm coming home or not." He handed Rodrigo a full glass with a flourish. "To good old Oxford," he toasted with mock reverence. Rodrigo echoed the toast.
The Italian refused another drink a few minutes later, though his action did not discourage Terhune from tossing off another. In fact, the genial Bill had three more before he agreed that they had better eat dinner if they wished to make the Christy Revue by the time the curtain rose. Rodrigo did not fancy Bill's taking on an alcoholic cargo that early in the evening. Bill was a nice fellow, but he was the sort of chronic drinker who, though long habit should have made him almost impervious to the effects of liquor, nevertheless always developed a mad desire to fight the whole world after about the fifth imbibing.
They descended in the elevator, Bill chattering all the while about his pleasure at seeing his old friend again and about the extreme hazards of the architect business in New York. A small concern like his didn't have a chance, according to Bill. The business was all in the hands of large organizations who specialized in specific branches of construction, like hotels, residences, restaurants and churches, and made money by starving their help.
After dinner the two men made jerky, halting taxicab progress through the maelstrom of theatre-bound traffic and reached their seats at the Times Square Theatre over half an hour late. The house was filled with the usual first-night audience of friends of the company, critics, movie stars, society people, chronic first-nighters, men and women about town, and stenographers admitted on complimentary tickets given them by their bosses. It was a well-dressed, lively crowd, and one that was anxious to be very kind to the show. In spite of this, Rodrigo was quite sure by the middle of the first act that the revue wouldn't do. It was doomed to the storehouse, he feared. The girls were of the colorless English type, comparing not at all with the hilariously healthy specimens one found in the American musical comedies. Christy had skimped on the costumes and scenery, both of which items were decidedly second rate. The humor had too Londonish a flavor, and the ideas behind the sketches were banal in the extreme.
However, when Sophie Binner came on quite late in the act, Rodrigo sat up and admitted that the sight of her again gave him decided exhilaration. She was alluring in her costume of pale blue and gold, a costume which exposed the famous Binner legs to full advantage and without the encumbrance of stockings. The audience liked her also. She was the prettiest woman the footlights had revealed thus far, and she had a pleasing, though not robust voice. Coupled with this was an intimate, sprightly personality that caught on at once. She responded to two encores and finally disappeared amid enthusiastic applause.