“Everything but the nose jewels,” said Carpenter, “and they may be in fashion next week.”
“How about the glasses?” put in Rosythe, entering into the fun.
“Oh, shucks!” said I, protecting my friend. “Turn out the contents of your vanity-bag, Mary.”
“And the crisping-pins?” laughed the critic.
“Hasn't Madame Planchet just shown us those?”
All this while Mary had not taken her eyes off Carpenter. “So you are really one of those religious fellows!” she exclaimed. “You'll know exactly what to do without any directing! How perfectly incredible!” And at that appropriate moment T-S pushed open the door and waddled in!
XII
You know the screen stars, of course; but maybe you do not know those larger celestial bodies, the dark and silent and invisible stars from which the shining ones derive their energies. So, permit me to introduce you to T-S, the trade abbreviation for a name which nobody can remember, which even his secretaries have to keep typed on a slip of paper just above their machine—Tszchniczklefritszch. He came a few years ago from Ruthenia, or Rumelia, or Roumania—one of those countries where the consonants are so greatly in excess of the vowels. If you are as rich as he, you call him Abey, which is easy; otherwise, you call him Mr. T-S, which he accepts as a part of his Americanization.
He is shorter than you or I, and has found that he can't grow upward, but can grow without limit in all lateral directions. There is always a little more of him than his clothing can hold, and it spreads out in rolls about his collar. He has a yellowish face, which turns red easily. He has small, shiny eyes, he speaks atrocious English, he is as devoid of culture as a hairy Ainu, and he smells money and goes after it like a hog into a swill-trough.
“Hello, everybody! Madame, vere's de old voman?