The dinner hour had come before Halloran could stop wondering over the idea of Jimmie McGinnis marrying. When they were seated together at a quiet table he spoke of it.
“So you're going to be married, Jimmie?”
“Yes; sure. But say, they ain't callin' me that no more. I'm Elmer Le Duc now, you know.”
“Aren't you starting in rather young?”
“Oh, no, not for a man in the profession. You see, Jane's husband———”
“Her husband!”
“Yes. He's a skate, you see—lushes. He's a fool, too, 'cause Jane's kind-hearted, and she'd a-gone right on supportin' him if he'd a-treated her half decent. She can haul in her hundred and twenty-five every week in the year—regular gold-mine. And a man that ain't got head enough to hold on to a thing like that 'ad better drop off. We've been talkin' it over, Jane an' me, ever since I made my hit. You see, she's got a two-part skit that calls for a small man, smaller'n her, a part I can walk right into; an' I thought it over an' told her I'd marry her an' manage the business. She's told me since, she knew the minute she struck me that I was her man. It's a good thing for both of us, you see. We can clear up two hundred a week easy, and our expenses won't be near so much. I told her I'd put up the cash for her divorce. It's such a sure case that it ain't costin' a great lot. Of course, I don't need to marry her, but the savin' in doublin' up on hotel an' sleeper bills 'll more'n pay for the divorce the first year.”
Halloran looked at Jimmie, shook his head, and then smiled in spite of himself. And Jimmie had to grin a little, too.
It had been a question how to open the next subject. Halloran knew that, wherever there was a choice of ways to an end, one open and direct, the other tortuous and subterranean, Jimmie's mind would instinctively seek the latter. He thought he had better slip easily from the one subject to the other; for if the boy were to suspect him of any strong desire to inform himself concerning Le Duc he would most likely draw back, from sheer perversity, into his shell.
“You say you're known as Le Duc now? Didn't you travel with them for awhile?”