I nodded.
"You—you were at Mrs. Paul Gates' just a week ago, and you gave your specialties there?"
"Yes—yes, what is it you want?"
He was a little man, but very muscular. I could note the play of his muscles even in the slight motion he made as he turned his body so as to get between me and the audience, while he leaned toward me, watching me intently with his small, quick, blue eyes.
"We don't want to make any scene here," he said very low. "We want to do it up as quietly as we can. There might be some mistake, you know, and then you'd be sorry. So should we. I hope you'll be reasonable and it'll be all the better for you because—"
"What are you talk—what—" I looked from him to the other fellow behind us.
He leaned a bit farther forward then, and pulling his coat partly open, he showed me a detective's badge. And the other man quickly did the same.
I sat back in my chair. The fat star on the stage, with her big mouth and big baby-face, was doing a cake-walk up and down close to the footlights, yelling the chorus of her song.
I'll never mimic that song, Mag, although I can see her and hear it as plain as though I'd listened and watched her all my life. But there's no fun in it for me. I hate the very bars the orchestra plays before she begins to sing. I can't bear even to think of the words. The whole of it is full of horrible things—it smells of the jail—it looks like stripes—it ...
"You're not going to faint?" asked the man, moving closer to me.