"Must be a swell apartment," says Goldringer. "All right we'll send a cable to him and see if the picture rights is gone or not. If the boy is so well known he may stick out for a big price. This is Thursday. We may hear from him by Monday or Tuesday, and we'll get a scenario ready anyways so's we can begin to shoot not later than a week from to-day. Until then," he says, "run along and amuse yourself and dont do anything I wouldnt."
Well, me and Ma was shown out then and down on Broadway Ma see some salt-water taffy in a drug-store and wanted to go in and by it which I had to prevent because outside of Ma being in no need of nourishment, she weighing considerable over the heavy-weight requirements already and Gawd knows if she was to have went back into the circus it would no longer be on the trapeese and a certain party in the side-show would have a strong competitor for her job and it wouldn't be the human skeleton either. But leaving off the consideration how would it look for us to go up the Ave. in my new wine-colored limousine which I earned myself and no one can say different with truth—and eating stuff like that out of a folded paper box? Ma certainly has my health well in hand and heart and its seldom we quarrel over any little thing, but she certainly has no class instinct, or instinct for class—do you get me? And when I try to make her see that them little refinements is what makes me the big success I am, she sometimes kicks and if its hunger, its got to be met immediately if not one way, why then another. So in lieu, as the poet says, of the taffy I had to take her to the Ritz and watch her put away 6 vanillia eclairs at two bits each and a quart of cocoa, not that I begrudge the money, only believe you me the way all hotels charge nowadays is rapidly making Bolshivik out of even we capatalists. Do you get me? You do! But of course in my line you got to keep before the public in the right way.
Well anyways Ma complained over the loss of that taffy the whole way through the six eclairs, which it was certainly a little hard on me to have to sit there and watch her while for professional reasons eating only one of these tomato surprises which never surprise but the once, on my figures account, and certainly its a fact that the two of us was doing the next best thing to what we wanted instead of the thing itself which is one of the prices of success. So, as is also often the case at such times, I was a little mean to Ma on account of having been mean already—do you get me?
"Mamma," I says. "You certainly are getting heavier. It's a crime for you to wear these narrow skirts!"
Ma give me a searching look the same as used to lead up to caster oil when I was a kid, and then took the half of a eclair at one bit before replying.
"Now Mary Gilligan you needn't take out your artistic temperament or any other ailment on me!" she says as firmly as the eclair would permit. "Just because Jim is in France yet, and your moleskin dolman was a failure and you aint been occupied daily for a week or more, and slipped up on doing your setting up exercises this morning which I wouldnt of mentioned only you started it," she says. "Its no excuse for picking on me," she says. "What if I am a little plump? My Gawd aint I earned the right to be? What with three kids and your Pa to bring up and the center trapeese in the circus right through it all except when absolutely necessary? You dont know what a woman can go through!"
"Dont I, just!" I snapped for my Gawd aint it the truth every woman has the very worst troubles that any woman ever had? And she sure gets sore when another woman sets up to go them one better!
"No you don't!" retorts Ma with that maddening air of being older than me which she uses to squelch me every time she cant get me any other way. "No you dont!" she says. "You never brought up three kids without a nurse girl while on the trapeese—you never brought up a thing but two fool dogs and you even leave them to the carelessness of a personal maid," she says. "Poor dears, Gawd knows what will become of their little canine minds and morals!"
"Now Ma!" I begged, because she aughter know that is a sore point with me and not intention, and she had me on the raw.
"Well then!" she says. "You got a swell job and no troubles only mabe a sluggish liver and you aint the only woman in America which Gen. Pershing cant yet spare the husband of," she says. "And mabe I do need to reduce a little," which was her way of apologizing. And just as this lull occurred who should come into sight but Maison Rosabelle, her which runs the shop where myself and all the most chic professionals gets their clothes. She was all dressed up like a plush horse with real sables, part of which must of come off them simple refined little gowns I had made for the Bridge to Berlin that was ruined by the armistice. Her hair had just been rehennered and her face was as fresh as a tea-rose straight from the fragrent facial massage. She smiled and sailed down on the two of us which we welcomed with the usual relief of a family quarreling when neither sees the way to win out and have got to go on living together. In other words she automatically buried the hatchet for us, as the school books say.