CHAPTER VII
On a certain bleak day in the month of March, J. Addison Hammond, Jr., tenaciously at work upon certain plans and drawings that were destined at a not far distant date to bring him a measure of fame and fortune, started impatiently from his seat and cursed that "gosh-ding-danged telephone."
Jerry at this stage of his picturesque career occupied what is known in New York City, and possibly other equally enlightened cities, as a duplex studio. Called "duplex" for no very clear reason. It consists of one very large room (called "atelier" by artistic tenants and those who have lived or wanted to live in France). This room is notable not merely for its size, but its height, the ceiling not unsimilar to the vaulted one of a church, or a glorified attic. Adjustable skylights lend the desired light. About this main room, and midway of the wall, is a gallery which runs on all four sides, and on this gallery are doors opening into sundry rooms designated as bedrooms. The arrangement is an excellent one, since it gives one practically two floors. That, no doubt, is why we call it "duplex." We have a weakness for one floor bungalows when we build houses these days, but for apartments and studios the epicure demands the duplex.
In this especial duplex studio there also abode one t, or as he was familiarly known to the friends of Jerry Hammond, "Hatty." Hatty, then, was the valet and man of all work in the employ of Jerry. He was a marvellous cook, an extraordinary house cleaner, an incomparable valet, and to complete the perfections of this jewel, possessed solely by the apparently fortunate Jerry, his manners, his face and his form were of that ideal sort seen only in fiction and never in life. Nevertheless the incomparable Hatton, or Hatty, was a visible fact in the life and studio of Jerry Hammond.
Having detailed the talents of Hatty, it is painful here to admit a flaw in the character of the otherwise perfect valet. This flaw he had very honestly divulged to Jerry at the time of entering his employ, and the understanding was that upon such occasions when said flaw was due to have its day, the master was to forbear from undue criticism or from discharging said Hatton from his employ. Hatton, at this time, earnestly assured the man in whose employ he desired to enter, that he could always depend upon his returning to service in a perfectly normal state, and life would resume its happy way under his competent direction.
It so happened upon this especial night, when that "pestiferous" telephone kept up its everlasting ringing—a night when Jerry hugged his head in his hands, calling profanely and imploringly upon Christian and heathen saints and gods to leave him undisturbed—that Hatton lay on his bed above, in a state of oblivion from which it would seem a charge of dynamite could not have awakened him.
For the fiftieth or possibly hundredth time Jerry bitterly swore that he would fire that "damned Englishman" (Hatton was English) on the following day. He had had enough of him. Whenever he especially needed quiet and service, that was the time the "damned Englishman" chose to break loose and go on one of his infernal sprees. For the fourth time within half an hour Jerry seized that telephone and shouted into the receiver:
"What in hades do you want?"