"No such luck," says I. "The boss's, or I wouldn't be so free with the expense money. And listen, Madame; there's another ten in it if the spirits do their job well."
"Grateful words, my son," says she. "But these high-class servants are hard to handle these days. They are no longer content to see the cards laid out and hear their past and future read. Even a simple trance sitting doesn't satisfy. They must hear bells rung, see ghostly hands waved, and some of them demand a materialized control. But they are so few! And my faithful Al Nekkir has left me."
"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.
"One of the best side-kicks I ever worked with, Al Nekkir," says Madame Zenobia, sighin'. "He always slid out from behind the draperies at just the right time, and he had the patter down fine. But how could I keep a real artist like that with a movie firm offering him five times the money? I hear those whiskers of his screen lovely. Ah, such whiskers! Any cook, no matter how high born, would fall for a prophet's beard like that. And where can I find another?"
Well, I couldn't say. Whiskers are scarce in New York. And it seems Madame Zenobia wouldn't feel sure of tacklin' an A1 cook unless she had an assistant with luxurious face lamberquins. She might try to put it over alone, but she couldn't guarantee anything. Yes, she'd keep the snapshot of Stella, and remember what I said about the brother in Altoona. Also it might be that she could find a substitute for Al Nekkir between now and Thursday afternoon. But there wasn't much chance. I had to let it ride at that.
So Monday was crossed off, Tuesday slipped past into eternity with nothing much done, and half of Wednesday had gone the same way. Mr. Robert was gettin' anxious. He reports that Stella has set Saturday as her last day with them and that she's begun packin' her trunk. What was I doing about it?
"If you need more time off," says he, "take it."
"I always need some time off," says I, grabbin my hat.
Anyway, it was too fine an afternoon to miss a walk up Fifth Avenue. Besides, I can often think clearer when my rubber heels are busy. Did you ever try walkin' down an idea? It's a good hunch. The one I was tryin' to surround was how I could sub in for this Al Nekkir party myself without gettin' Stella suspicious. If I had to say the lines would she spot me by my voice? If she did it would be all up with the game.
Honest, I wasn't thinkin' of whiskers at all. In fact, I hadn't considered the proposition, but was workin' on an entirely different line, when all of a sudden, just as I'm passin' the stone lions in front of the public library, this freak looms up out of the crowd. Course you can see 'most anything on Fifth Avenue, if you trail up and down often enough—about anything or anybody you can see anywhere in the world, they say. And this sure was an odd specimen.