Immediately following this incident attention was shifted to another. A good-looking young woman, apparently an Italian, who had been sitting four rows behind Peter and oft to the left, was struggling, in some evident excitement, to get out and up the aisle. Her impetuosity made her as conspicuous as Peter had been.
Sue, still watching the crowd that had closed in behind the flying Peter, noted the fresh commotion.
“Quite an evening!” she said cheerfully. “Seems to be a lady playwright in our midst, as well.”
The Worm regarded the new center of interest and grew thoughtful. He knew the girl. It was Maria Tonifetti, manicurist at the sanitary barber shop of Marius. He happened, too, to be aware that Peter knew Maria. He had seen Pete in there getting his nails done. Once, this past summer, he had observed them together on a Fifth Avenue bus. And on a Sunday evening he had met them face to face at Coney Island, and Peter had gone red and hurried by. Now he watched Maria slipping swiftly up the aisle, where Peter had disappeared only a moment before. He did not tell Sue that he knew who she was.
CHAPTER XXXVIII—PETER STEALS A PLAY
PETER rushed like a wild man down the stairs to the street. He looked up street and down for a cruising taxi; saw one at the opposite curb; dodged across, behind automobiles and in front of a street-car. A traffic policeman shouted from the corner. Peter was unaware, he dove into the taxi, shouting as he did so, the address of the rooms in Washington Square. The taxi whirled away to the south. Peter, a blaze of nerves, watched the dial, taking silver coins from his pocket as the charge mounted. At his door, he plunged out to the walk, threw the money on the driver's seat, dashed into the old bachelor apartment building. The rooms had been lonely of late without Hy and the Worm. Now, his mind on the one great purpose, he forgot that these friends had ever lived. He ran from the elevator to the apartment door, key in hand, hurried within and tore into the closet. He emerged with his evening clothes—the coat on the hanger, the trousers in the press—and his patent leather shoes. From a bureau drawer he produced white silk waistcoat (wrapped in tissue-paper) and dress shirt. A moment more and he was removing, hurriedly yet not without an eye for buttons and the crease in the trousers, his business suit. He did not forget to transfer the folded envelope to the inner pocket of his dress coat. But first he read the sonnet that was penciled on it; and reread it. It seemed to him astonishingly good. “That's the way,” he reflected, during the process, standing before the mirror, of knotting his white tie,—“when your emotions are stirred to white heat, and an idea comes, write it down. No matter where you are, write it down. Then you've got it.”
He looked thoughtfully at the long serious face that confronted him in the mirror, made longer by the ribbon that hung from his glasses. His hair was dark and thick, and it waved back from a high forehead. He straightened his shoulders, drew in his chin. That really distinguished young man, there in the mirror, was none other than Eric Mann, the playwright; author of the new Broadway success, The Truffler, a man of many gifts; a man, in short, of genius. Forgetting for the moment, his hurry, he drew the folded envelope from his pocket and read the sonnet aloud, with feeling and with gestures. In the intervals of glancing at the measured lines, he studied the poet before him. The spectacle thrilled him. Just as he meant that the poem should thrill the errant Sue when he should read it to her. He determined now that she should not see it until he could get her alone and read it aloud. Once before during this strange year of ups and downs, he had read a thing of his to Sue and had thrilled her as he was now thrilling himself. Right here in these rooms. He had swept her off her feet, had kissed her..Well... He smiled exultingly at the germs in the mirror. Then he had been a discouraged young playwright, beaten down by failure. How he was—or shortly would be—the sensation of Broadway, author of the enormously successful Nature film, and following up that triumph by picking to pieces the soul of the selfish “modern” bachelor girl—picking it to pieces so deftly, with such unerring theatrical instinct, that even the bachelor girl herself would have to join the throngs that would be crowding into the theater to see how supremely well he did it. More, was he not minting a new word, a needed word, to describe the creature. “The Truffler”—truffling—to truffle!
A grand word; it perfectly hit off the sort of thing. Within ten years it would be in the dictionaries; and he, Peter Ericson Mann, would have put it there. He must jog Neuerman up about this. To-morrow. Neuerman must see to it that the word did get into the language. No time to lose. A publicity job!... Come to think of it he didn't even know who was doing the publicity for Neuerman now. He must look into that. To-morrow. Shrewd, hard-hitting publicity work is everything. That's what lands you. Puts your name in among the household treasures. People take you for granted; assume your greatness without exactly knowing why you are great. Then you're entrenched. Then you're famous. No matter if you do bad work. They don't know the difference. You're famous, that's all there is to it. They have to take you, talk about you, buy your books, go to your plays. Mere merit hasn't a chance against you. You smash 'em every time... fame—money—power!