And Ma seen what I meant and said no more which it certainly is remarkable how good we get on for Mother and daughter.
So she only urged me to have another cream-cake, which I took and then I made for the phone and started calling up some ladies to form the committee out of. After thinking the matter over very careful I finally decided on six of the most prominent in my line which was, of course, the Dahlia sisters which had been often on the same bill with me and, of course, they ain't really related—no such team work as theirs was ever pulled by members of the same family, unless maybe when knocking some absent member—do you get me? Well, anyways, beside them I got Madame Clementina Broun, the well known Lady Baritone, she being a rather substantial party which would give weight to us in cabaret circles. Of course Pattie The Dancer had to be asked, she being so prominent especially as to her tights and strong pull with Goldringer but I only done it out of diplomacy, which any one knows committees has to have a lot of. And she is less diplomatic than me as well, for instead of just accepting for her own self she accepts also for some friends which I had not invited, and she did not name. Pattie is alias Mrs. Fred Hutchins—him who gets up those reviews—you know—which is the only reason she is starred in them for Gawd only knows a child which had been started anywheres near right could of done her steps at the age of seven, they being mere hard-sole clog with no arm movements but having a great many imitators among college boys and such, that scare-crow stuff being as showy as it is easy.
Well, anyways, when I had got this far I had one vacancy on my hands and as our Allies was not sufficiently represented so far, decided on Mlle. DuChamps which of course she was really born in Paris, Indiana, but as a toe-dancer is unequalled in any language and has a lovely broken accent. So there we had France. Madame Clementia was married to a Italian and he being dead or something I never asked what I felt she was a safe Ally because she couldn't of revolted, not if a schrapnel was to have went off under her. Pattie was of course Irish and the Dahlias' Jewish, and Gawd knows what the other girl was and I didn't care.
II
When they had all promised to get theirselves waked up on time and be over to the Palatial, I kind of weakened on Ma's suggestion about clothes. Of course I wasn't going to fall for that uniform stuff, but when me and Musette looked over my clothes I simply didn't have a thing to wear. Every one of my dresses was too morning or evening or something and above all things I do believe in dressing a part, and certainly I had nothing which looked like a chairmaness. So after getting into a simple little sports costume of violet satin and my summer furs, and taking a peep into the mail box to see had anything got by the censor yet which of course it hadn't, I started out to buy me something which would be quiet but tasty and snappy because nothing inspires respect in a ladies committee like a dress none of them has seen before.
Have you ever noticed how you can pass up something which has been right under your nose day after day and then all of a sudden you hitch on to something which belongs to it and then all you see is that thing—do you get me? Say yellow kid boots. You never even noticed a pair, but one day you buy them and next time you're out every second woman has them on. Or you go into mourning for somebody and all of a sudden you commence noticing how many other people is the same only of course there ain't over the average—it's only that you notice it because you are in it. Well, believe you me—that first afternoon I went out after receiving the President's letter, I was that way with this W.S.S. stuff. Of course I had bought my thousand dollars worth the first week they was out, as had also Ma and she and I together the same for Musette. But we had done it on the Liberty Loans the same, also Red Cross and thought we was through and all the signs and posters and what not had come to be invisible to me like a chewing-gum or a soap ad—do you get me?
But now I was in it and not only did I see every sign and see them good, but felt like I had one on my back and everybody must know about the letter and everything. I walked kind of springy, too, in spite of the furs, and then when I turned into the Avenue, me being on foot, a five mile walk per day having to be got away with by me or Ma would know the reason why, the trouble commenced. Believe you me, I must of refused to buy thrift stamps one hundred times in twenty blocks, and every time I said I had all I could, the look I got handed me would have withered a publicity man. There must be a hot lot of fancy liars among us, with no imagination, for why would W.S.S. still be on sale if everybody had bought that much? And when I wasn't refusing to buy stamps I was forking out quarters for everything from blind Belgian hares to Welch Rabbits for German prisoners. And it's a good thing I had a charge account to Maison Rosabelle's or I would never of got my dress. And the more I was pestered to buy them stamps the madder I got. I commenced to feel it was a regular hold up, and that the police ought to interfere. A person which is pestered to death will even sour on the Red Cross. I don't mean that they ain't humane, neither—only that they are human, and the most dangerous thing to do to a human is to bore it—any one in the theatrical professions learns that young and thoroughly. And when I realized that I was getting bored with this constant hold-up I got a fearful jolt and a cold chill.
Here I was undertaking to chair a committee to sell the things and Gawd knows my heart ought to of been in it with Jim over there and all, and it was, only getting bored with the war is kind of natural, it being so far off and nothing likely to do us personal bodily injury on the Avenue unless maybe the restaurants or a auto and that our own fault. And so soon as I realized what I was up against with the great Boredom Peril, I realized also what I had personally in writing promised Mr. Wilson, and took a brace. It was just like the early days on the Small-Time when the booking depends on the hand and the hand was the one which fed us—and not any too much at that with the carrying expenses—and the hand was getting weaker. Me and Ma sat up all one night doping out my double handspring with the heel-click. And it was a desperate effort and we thought it was a flivver but not at all. When I landed on my feet after the first try-out, I knew I was there to stay, and any intelligent public will realize that I remembered it now. And by this time I had reached the store I was headed for.
I will confess that from the moment I had decided to buy a new dress I had my mind all set on what it was to be—something sheer and light—printed chiffon, and a hat to go with it. But by the time I had reached Maison Rosabelle my hunch on my new job was beginning to go strong and one of the things that worried me was that dress. Also my lunch. Sometimes it happens that too much of a good thing is the only thing which will turn you against it—do you get me? And Ma's cream cakes had this effect. Maybe had I eat less of them I would not have had no indigestion and so not counted their cost as Lincoln, or somebody, says. And if I hadn't had the indigestion maybe I wouldn't of worried over the dress. Well, anyways, the first person I see inside the store was Maison herself, very elegant and slim, only with a little too much henna in her hair as usual.