I wished I had a little music to cheer up the joint. All I could hear was passing cargo on Madison Avenue, the elevator ruminating in its shaft, and some dame in the bathroom above me talking to a little kid with the motherly tones of a cement mixer. The sweet child was answering in words I could not distinguish, but it knew how to mix concrete, too.
Ricky and I haven't owned a radio for years—except one that sneaked into the house in a record-player and we didn't even notice we had that, for eight months. A man in this world encounters more than he can bear of the sort of thing that radio purveys; it is Heaven's own mercy if he can avoid a part of it. The printed ads and the billboards get you willy-nilly; and second-class mail is always fooling you. You are eternally exposed to entertainment by chumps in the flesh.
But when I want a cerebral clyster I want something that won't wash my brain out. And while I can eat with my mouth I propose to get along without the nutrient enema. Every orifice to its rightful function, I say.
But now I wanted music.
So I called Bill-the-bellman again. To think (as you are beginning to see) is to act, with me. Sometimes. And the Astolat doesn't have what is correctly called piped radio in its rooms. Bill brought up a machine with knobs like the eyes of dead fish and an illuminated grin for a dial—such a grin as may be seen on any alligator lamp.
I spun through about eighteen of my fellow citizens who were uniformly engaged in lying to the public and finally hit a girl with too much rosin on her voice, which was what I wanted.
"When a Broadway baby goes to bed
It's early in the morning—"
I did a feather and a few more Peabody steps and a couple of advance left turns.
The dame put a mute on the bridge of her nose.