“And didn’t she leave no name?”
“No,” says Mrs. Budd, “she said she would come back again.”
And suddenly something hits me and I says, “How was she dressed?” She says that she had on a long squirrel-skin coat that must of cost a thousand dollars and gee Mom it most floored me for of course it must be Mr. Edgerton’s wife. And of course that is what that feller was following me home for and he has told her where I live and she has come after me. And gee I feel like I was Lydia Lovelight—do you remember how pathetic she was in “Passion’s Prey?” But do you really suppose that crazy woman can be after me with a gun because she thinks that I have took her husband away from her? I says to myself, “Mamie Riggs you have wished that you could get to Hollywood and now its seems that Hollywood is come to you!” Well, if anything happens you will see it in the papers.
Your scared daughter
Mame.
LETTER XI
IN WHICH I PLAY A BIG SCENE
Dear Mom:
Well I hate to be writing you blue letters and you having such a hard time what with the baby having the croup and Pop not sure of his job. Tell him I thank him for his fine ideas but the truth is just now I have not got no heart for the work I have been trying to do it seems to me like I had better just be a plain manicure girl like I used to be and not try to understand these great world affairs that is too much for my poor head.
The reason is because it don’t seem to me like people was honest like I thought they was. When I told Mr. Edgerton to have the Spokesman give out to the newspapers all them stories about Him and the Spokeslady being so economical and not buying no new clothes I thought They was really going to not do it and it was all going to be straight. But the way Mr. Edgerton talked They just didn’t bother about the truth at all and it has made me sort of ashamed. If They are going to do things that way I just aint interested in helping Them at all because They are really not doing the plain people no good.