Well anyways, before Ma had the biscuits baked and I had run jada jada and sing me to sleep, I was wild to get away to the pure country ocean air and some healthy outdoor exercise which would help me forget my loneliness. And a lot of quiet and rest and sleep, with the ocean pounding me to the pillow and all that.
I had only a sort of twenty minute small time sketch of a idea of what Atlantic City was like on account of me having been there for openings only and getting in at four forty five with the show beginning at eight fifteen and the washup you need after the trip and Ma always insisting on me doing a twenty minute practice in my room and underwear before every opening which is perfectly correct and one of the principal things which has made my handsprings what they are, and getting dinner far enough in advance to do the hand-springs in time. I knew little nor nothing of what Jim calls the Coney Island that went to finishing school except that there is swimming and horseback riding and a boardwalk that any one without French heels to catch in the cracks can have a elegant walk on. What little sniff of air I had outside the theatre and my bedroom at the hotel give me a appatite for more, which up to now I never had the opportunity to get because of always being with a high-class show that went right back to N.Y. Sunday to open on Broadway. But now I was going like a regular American lady citizen to rest and get full of health and do as the regular resorters did. And I was glad. I was so anxious to keep myself in a pure atmosphere for Jim's sake and the studio wasn't exactly the farm—do you get me? You do! And a rest in the country was the very thing. I got quite excited thinking about it; dried my tears, stopped the phonograph and made sure that Musette put in my riding suit, bathing ditto, and walking boots. And when this was done I felt better already as the saying is, and fully able to take some of the nourishment Ma had got up.
The minute we set down to the table I see that she had also been making good resolutions and waited till she got ready to confess. It come after the seventh tea-biscuit and honey. On her part I mean, I only taking coldmeat and salad and things I dont like much, for reasons before stated.
"Mary Gilligan!" she says. "I believe I'm getting heavier," she says, just as if it occurred to her for the first time. "And I have decided that while I am away to Atlantic City I wont eat to amount to anything and reduce in other ways the whole time I'm there!"
"You dont say," I says, without batting an eye. "Do you really think you need to?"
"I do!" she says. "This is my last real meal. And you needn't try to persuade me out of it."
I didn't. And next morning right after breakfast we caught the one twenty, hats, dogs, Musette, and all, and met up with Maison Rosabelle, which was dressed in a simple little trotters costume of chiffon and ermine which looked like it had been made in Babylon. I mean B.C. not L.I. And with her was a little surprise in the way of the same Jewish gentleman, Mr. Freddy Mayer, with another gardenia on him and a fine line of plausable explinations.
"Aint it a co-co-strange, Freddy just happens to be going our way!" cooed Maisie with all the innocence of a N.Y. livery-stable pidgeon.
"Yes, I'm taking a special offering of champagne to a special friend in the hotel business there," says Mr. Freddy. "And with three such beautiful lady companions its no hardship to leave Manhattan behind nor the Bronx," says he gaily. "Altho when we come back we may find the Aldermen has decided to change both names after July first," says the humorous dog.
"Will you please kindly open this window a little?" I intrupped him. "The air in here aint so good as it was."