"Grand old girl, Clara Belle," says he.
"Eh?" says I. "Shoot the rest."
"Couldn't think of it, son," says he. "You're too young. But in my day Clara Belle Kinney was some queen."
And that's all I can get out of him except more chuckles. I files away the name, though; and that afternoon, while we was waitin' for a quorum of directors to straggle into the General Offices, I springs it on Old Hickory.
"Mr. Ellins," says I, "did you ever know of a Clara Belle Kinney?"
"Wha-a-at?" he gasps, almost swallowin' his cigar. "Listen to that, Mason. Here's a young innocent asking if we ever knew Clara Belle Kinney. Did we?"
And old K. W. Mason, what does he do but throw back his shiny dome, open his mouth, and roar out:
| "Yure right fut is crazy, |
| Yure left fut is lazy, |
| But if ye'll be aisy |
| I'll teach ye to waltz!" |
After which them two old cut-ups wink at each other rakish and slap their knees. All of which ain't so illuminatin'. But they keep on, mentionin' Koster Bial's and the Cork Room, until I can patch together quite a sketch of Mrs. Tupper's early career.
Seems she'd made her first hit in this old-time concert-hall when she was a sweet young thing in her teens. One of her naughty stunts was kickin' her slipper into an upper box, and gettin' it tossed back with a mash note in it, or maybe a twenty-dollar bill. Then she'd graduated into comic opera.