Believe You Me!

by Nina Wilcox Putnam

But no bus for me on account of professional reasons. So we took one taxi for him and us and another for Musette and the dogs and the bags, and then commenced a round of seeking for shelter as the poet says, which had the "Two Orphans" skun a mile. We went to six hotels and not a room among them. Believe you me, there is just one person can make you feel cheaper than a Atlantic City hotel clerk when he says "No reservations?" and lifts his arched brows, and that is the head waiter when he says "nothing to drink?" and you say "yes, nothing!" Well, thank Gawd thats one thing prohibition will prohibit.

Well anyways, we tried six hotels until at last we come to a little place where the young feller at the desk give his reluctant consent to our admission. It was a simple little place done quitely in red plush and gold and marble columns, very restful with not over a hundred people sitting about in the lobby, listning not to the sad sea waves but to a jazz orchestra and inhaling the nice fresh tobacco smoke of which the air was full.

Well, Mr. Freddy give a gasp of relief and bid us good-by, after dating up Maisie for dinner, and a flock of bell-hops hopped upon our stuff and we commenced a walking tower to our rooms. As we started off down the Alleyway, Maison give me a nudge.

"Look it, that sweet young officer! Aint he handsome?" she whispers only just loud enough for him to hear. And before I thought I turned my head and he certainly was easy to look at. He looked, in fact like a cross between a clothing ad. and a leading juvinille with a touch of bear-cat in him to make a regular he-man out of him. He was a captain, although so young, and had a cute little moustache and had that blue-blooded air—you know—like a Boston accent even without hearing him speak. And he was sitting all alone under a big poster advertising a entertainment for the benefit of blind soldiers or something. Of course I didn't notice him at all, because I being a perfect lady I dont do them things. But I couldnt help seeing that he didn't blush at what Maisie said, although I knew he heard it, but a sort of crinkly expression come up round his nice blue eyes as if he thought us comic or something. It made me just boil because my clothes is nothing if not refined and I never wear anything but a little powder on my nose when off the stage, and if its one thing gets my goat it is to be taken for a show-girl which undoubtedly he thought the two of us was and they not in his class, for even with the passing glance I had taken I could see he was used to the Vanderbilts and all that set and had never had to be taught to take his daily tub. Do you get me?

So I walked like I hadnt looked, and of course I really hadnt, and proceeded to the before the war section of the hotel and the handsome suite all fitted in real varnished pine and carpets just like a Rochester boarding house when I was on the small time before I made my big success, and it made me feel quite at home or would of only for what I knew the difference in price was going to be. I guessed it just as soon as I heard Ma gasping over the hotel rules which she was reading. I went over and looked at them too, and at first I couldn't see nothing unusual about them. There was the usual bunk about the management not being responsible for the guest in any way, and Gawd knows how could they be and I dont blame them. And then, a little ways down I see what had got Ma stirred up. It seems dogs was ten dollars a week per each, and of course we had two of them and Ma never has cared for my two, anyways.

"Well, I hope the sea air will be good for the poor little lambs," she says very sarcastic. "Mebbe it'll make 'em grow—into police-dogs or something useful!"

Well I see by this that the salt air had not yet got to Ma, although the troublesome journey had. And so I put on a simple little suit of English tweed and low heeled shoes and a walking hat, which seemed to me the right thing for the country, and went out to pry off a little health before dinner.

The outdoors was something grand. The air was as good a cocktail as a person would want, and the lights along the boardwalk was coming out like dandelion blossoms. There was hardly anybody around—just a few here and there and the surf of that wide and cruel ocean which Jim was the other side of, was breaking close to the rail in big white ostrich plumes. Overhead the sky was as clear and high as a circular drop with the violet lights on it, and a few clean stars was coming out. It was just cold enough to make a person want to walk fast until the blood got singing through you and you wanted to shout and run, only of course no lady would. But just the same, I commenced to feel glad I hadnt died when I had the measles, and I loved everybody and had a great career before me and—and—oh that grand yearning happy feeling which comes out of being young and full of strength and a good bank-account. Do you get me? You do!

Well anyways, here I was walking like I had money on it and huming a tune to myself, when along comes a man the other way, walking two to my one, and huming the same tune, "How I hate to get up in the morning," it was. When he heard me and I heard him we both sort of half stopped out of surprise, and I got a good look at him. It was the young Captain from the hotel.

He also give a start of surprise when he seen me, showing he recognized me just as good as I did him. Only it was a real, genuine start, as if he realized something more than the fact he had seen me at the hotel. Then he smiled—a smile which would of done any dental ad. proud, and passed along, looking back over his shoulder—once. While I went along minding my own business and only know he looked back on account of my happening to look back to see how far I had gone. I went a mile further and somehow that smile of his stuck in my mind and made me sort of happy for no reason, and at the same time awful extra lonesome for Jim. I made up my mind I would get Jim a new car for a surprise when he come home and I would send him a extra box of eats this week and some of them cigarettes he likes so well, and a whole lot of stuff like that, the way a woman does at such a time. Do you get me? Probably.