"Cut out that stuff, Mary!" says a male voice. "This is Roscoe. I want you to give out a statement about you and Jim splitting up."
"I won't!" says I, very sharp. "Whatter yer think I am?" I says. "That's nobody's business but our own!"
"Oh, ain't it, though?" says Roscoe, very sarcastic. "The biggest parlor-dancing outfit in America busts up and you can't be seen, even, for two whole days! The stage at the Royal ain't notified that your piece is called off; the De-Luxe Hotel don't get no notice that you ain't going to appear; and all the info' I could get when I called up your flat is that you was gone out!"
"And so I was!" says I, indignant.
"Then I call up Jim's hotel and they say he's gone!" shouted Roscoe. "Hell!" says he, forgetting that me and the telephone operator both was ladies. "Hell! What kind of way is that to treat a guy you're paying three thou. a year to for getting your picture in the paper every time you sneeze?"
I didn't have any comeback about that, for there was certainly some truth in what he says. But I wasn't to be put down so easy.
"I guess I know my business, Ros," I says, sharp, "or I wouldn't be living in a swell flat on the Drive, all fixed up like a furniture shop, with a limousine and two fool dogs, and earned every cent of it myself, and no one can say a word against me, if I didn't know my own business. So there!"
"Looka here, Mary," says Roscoe. "There's going to be a lot of talk up and down the Rialto if you don't come across with some explanation. I'm comin' right up to get it."
"No, you don't," I says, for I hadn't had my facial massage in three days, and, after all, Roscoe is a man, even if press agents ain't exactly human. "No, you don't, Ros!" I says. "If I gotter make some statement, I'll write the dope myself and you can fix it up after—see? It's a big story, but delicate, and I'm going to have no misunderstanding over it."
"All right, Mary," says Ros. "But you get the stuff ready for the morning papers. I'll be up for it."