During the sermon he had an idea. What was it Nelly had told him about “Peter Pan”? Oh yes; somebody in it had said “Do you believe in fairies?” Say, why wouldn’t it be great to have the millionaire’s daughter say to her father, “Do you believe in love?”
“Gee, I believe in love!” he yearned to himself, as he felt Nelly’s arm unconsciously touch his.
Tom Poppins had Horatio Hood Teddem in that afternoon for a hot toddy. Horatio looked very boyish, very confiding, and borrowed five dollars from Mr. Wrenn almost painlessly, so absorbed was Mr. Wrenn in learning from Horatio how to sell a play. To know the address of the firm of Wendelbaum & Schirtz, play-brokers, located in a Broadway theater building, seemed next door to knowing a Broadway manager.
When Horatio had gone Tom presented an idea which he had ponderously conceived during his Sunday noon-hour at the cigar-store.
“Why not have three of us—say me and you and Mrs. Arty—talk the play, just like we was acting it?”
He enthusiastically forced the plan on Mr. Wrenn. He pounded down-stairs and brought up Mrs. Arty. He dashed about the room, shouting directions. He dragged out his bureau for the railroad-president’s desk, and a table for the secretary, and, after some consideration and much rubbing of his chin, with two slams and a bang he converted his hard green Morris-chair into an office safe.
The play was on. Mr. T. Poppins, in the role of the president, entered, with a stern high expression on his face, threw a “Good morning, Thorne,” at Wrenn, his secretary, and peeled off his gloves. (Mr. Wrenn noted the gloves; they were a Touch.)
Mr. Wrenn approached diffidently, his face expressionless, lest Mrs. Arty laugh at him. “Here—
“Say, what do you think would be a good way for the secretary to tell the crowd that the other guy is the president? Say, how about this: ‘The vice-president of the railway would like to have you sign these, sir, as president’?”
“That’s fine!” exclaimed Mrs. Arty, whose satin dress was carefully spread over her swelling knees, as she sat in the oak rocker, like a cheerful bronze monument to Sunday propriety. “But don’t you think he’d say, ‘when it’s convenient to you, sir’?”