Chapter VII: Part 7

“Oh, bunk,” retorted her brother testily. “You give me a pain. The heights, eh? If you take a trip up there you’d better be sure before you start that you’ve got a return ticket. You’re likely to get all tangled up in the cosmos and the eternal and lose your way as well as your mind. And take a tip from me, old lady. Choose some other companion besides that coffee colored harem keeper if you want to keep your friends.”

“My dear brother,” returned Miss Fannie, in a perfectly even tone of voice. “I feel extremely sorry for you. You are of the earth earthy. You have no soul. When the infinite calls you cannot hear it. I, fortunately, am so attuned and delicately adjusted that it reaches me, and I can pulsate in harmony with its vibrations. I know because the dear prince told me so. It’s just wonderful.”

“Oh——piffle,” retorted J. P. impotently as he threw up his hands in a gesture of hopeless despair and tore angrily out of the room with the bitter realization that he had once more suffered defeat.

Miss Fannie Easton smiled indulgently and fondled a jade ring on her left hand, a ring which Prince Rajput Singh had slipped from his own royal finger and given her with the whispered expression of a hope that she would wear it as a token of their friendship. Assuring herself that no one was looking she kissed it long and ardently as something akin to a rapturous look crept into her foolish, lusterless eyes.

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Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jimmy Martin, couchant on a chaise longue in the royal suite of the Congress Hotel, had difficulty in persuading himself that he was wide awake and in full possession of all his senses. Opposite him sat the pseudo prince Rajput Singh in his shirt-sleeves, looking decidedly unromantic. The East Indian was talking rapidly and the inner import of the tale he was unfolding was of such a nature that Jimmy was aquiver with eager curiosity and aglow with anticipatory delight. He did not notice that the other’s eyes glinted unpleasantly as he spoke and that there was something positively repulsive about the smugly complacent manner in which he detailed the progress of his love affair with the wealthy sister of Junius P. Easton. All Jimmy could think of at the moment were the tremendous publicity possibilities inherent in the culmination of this incongruous romance.

“As you see, she is very much head over heels with me,” said the prince, smiling mockingly, “is that foolish lady with the yellow hair. I have made a most successful attack on her young affections, eh, Mr. Martin? Is it not so? I have but to bend my small finger and she will do what I ask. I have not made myself waste any time. Do you think I have, Mr. Martin?”

“Say,” said Jimmy enthusiastically, as he rose to a sitting posture, “you’re the quickest worker I ever saw in action. A glance of the eye and a twist of the wrist and they’re ready to break the old home ties and kiss the pet canary good-bye. You’ve certainly got winnin’ ways. There’s no use in denyin’ that. When’d you see her last?”

“This afternoon I swear my undying love for this lovely lady in quiet corner of her drawing room. We have made exchange of rings. How much you think this one is worth, eh, Mr. Martin?”

The fictitious heir to the throne of Hydrabad reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and took therefrom a diamond ring which flashed brilliantly as he handed it to the press agent. Jimmy examined it critically.

“Oh,” said he carelessly, “this is just a gaudy little trinket that isn’t worth more than about fifteen hundred dollars or so. I’ve got to give you credit. You’re immense. Where do we go from here?”

Prince Rajput Singh looked puzzled.

“I do not mean to go,” he said. “I mean to stay for a little while.”

“Of course, of course,” said Jimmy. “You don’t understand. What I mean is—what’s the next move? You said somethin’ a little while ago about the double harness stuff—about marryin’ this old gal, I mean. When are we goin’ to pull the finale?”

“Whenever we wish, Mr. Martin. I have, as I say, but to bend my small finger. It will make a nice publication for you in the journals, will it not?”

“You said somethin’ that time, old Frank J. Bombay,” returned Jimmy who was now in the grip of one of his moods of exultant exuberance. “This one’ll land in places where press agents fear to tread. They’d stop the presses for it, if necessary, and miss the mails. They’d leave out ads for it. And when it’s all over you’ve got to do me a favor. You’ve got to keep on with your tour and take Mrs. Princess Rajput Singh along with you as a bally-hoo. Why, say, we’ll land so much stuff in every town that the agent of every other outfit’ll just naturally pack up and move on to the next stand without even leavin’ a forwardin’ address.”

Jimmy’s swarthy friend nodded in response to this enthusiastic outburst. Then he narrowed his eyes and the mean, sordid soul of him peered through them as he spoke.

“This Mrs. Princess, as you call her, that is to be,” he inquired cautiously, “has really much money in her own name? I have asked many questions from others and I find general opinion that she has. Do you know?”

“Just a few millions, that’s all,” responded Jimmy nonchalantly. “Just about five or six or somethin’ like that. Father left it to her. You’re in softer than you realize, you old Hindu son-of-a-gun, you, and you’ve got to go along on this honeymoon trip I’m plannin’. You owe a whole lot to yours truly, Mister Man. If it wasn’t for me you’d be makin’ six changes of costume a night for twenty-five bones a week. Don’t forget to remember that.”

“Of course I am very much thankful to you, my fine, good friend, most thankful and most very much in favor of your honeymoon plan.”

Jimmy arrogated to himself the task of arranging the details of the projected marriage. He fixed upon an elopement to a nearby suburb as being the best method of giving the affair a news slant that would add to the story what are technically known in newspaper circles as “feature values.” It would also, he figured, prevent the possibility of any last minute interference by some trouble-making relative.

It was agreed that he was to meet the prospective bride on the morrow in the guise of a close friend of Prince Rajput Singh and was to go over with both parties a detailed plan of campaign which he was to map out in the interim. The prince was to bend his small finger and announce that impetuous and headlong haste was absolutely essential to his peace of soul and was to insist upon the ceremony being performed within twenty-four hours.

When Wilkins, the assistant manager, met Jimmy in the lobby a few minutes after the latter had left the royal suite, he couldn’t help noticing the wild exultant light that shone in the press agent’s eyes.

“Well, well,” he remarked cordially, “you look as if you’d just made a clean-up or something. Can’t you let me in on the good news?”

“Not for about forty-eight hours,” returned Jimmy, “and then I’m goin’ to let the whole U.S.A. in on it at the same time. I’ve got somethin’ on the fire that’s just about ready to serve that’ll make folks everywhere forget to eat their ‘ham and’ one of these mornin’s.”

* * * * *

Jimmy permitted Prince Rajput Singh to proceed him by half an hour to the Easton home on the following morning. He thought it would be better to have the blushing bride-to-be apprised of the rough outlines of the elopement plan without the disconcerting presence of an intruder. Mr. J. Herbert Denby, a little disturbed and flustered at being assigned to such a task, was even then arranging with a clergyman in the next county to preside at the marriage which was to take place in the parlor of the rectory and all the other essential details had been carefully worked out.

Jimmy had collaborated with the prince on a telegram which was to be sent by the bridegroom to Junius P. Easton immediately after the ceremony. It would, he felt, give an added touch of the picturesque to the proposed program of events: “Your sister has done me the high honor of becoming my princess,” it read, “and all Hydrabad will kneel in proud homage at her feet. I have cabled my revered father for his august blessing. May we not hope that you will shower your honorable good wishes on us.”

The prince and Miss Fannie were in the music room when Jimmy was announced. She had just been singing “Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes” to her own accompaniment on the piano and she was as radiant as a June morning. She wore a tea gown of baby blue, embroidered with pink rosebuds, and her bleached hair was done up into a billowy cluster of tiny curls which swayed with every movement of her head and which somehow accentuated the essential maturity of her foolish fat face. Jimmy gave an almost audible gasp when he crossed the threshold of the door. He was prepared for the worst, but he had not expected to find himself face to face with a being out of the comic supplement. She ran to meet him, laughing sillily.

“How do you do,” she said gayly, extending a pudgy hand. “It isn’t necessary for the dear prince to introduce you. He’s told me all about you and I know that we’re going to be kindred souls. You must vibrate on our plane, you know. I’m certain you must because you are his friend and one’s friends always vibrate on one’s plane. Don’t they, Rajjy, dear?”

“Of course, my jasmine bud,” replied the prince from the sheltered embrace of a huge arm chair. “Mr. Martin is of our inner circle. He shares the secrets of our hearts, sweet lily. He is my councilor and chosen guide. Let us bid him sup coffee with us which you will pour with your much-to-be adored hands.”

Jimmy cast a roving eye in the general direction of his dark-skinned fellow conspirator and was greeted by the latter with an expressive wink, which was not visible to Miss Fannie, who was bustling about a silver tray on which was a pot of steaming coffee. She poured and served it with a fluttering air of heavy coquetry which irritated the press agent beyond measure and which made him feel decidedly uncomfortable. She was such a simple, trusting, foolish soul that he didn’t have the heart to enlarge upon the merits of the bridegroom-to-be in the expansive and flowery fashion he had decided upon on the way from the hotel. He remained strangely silent for a time listening to an exchange of preposterous love words between this oddly assorted and incongruous pair and wishing himself a long distance away.

“And when shall we visit dear Hydrabad, Rajjy?” Miss Easton was saying. “I can see myself under a silken awning by the shores of the little lake you spoke of—the lake by your summer palace I mean, and I can see you beside me and the native servants are salaaming and serving us with a wonderful feast. We must go there at once, Rajjy dear, at once. My soul cries out for the sound of those ‘tinkly temple bells’ that Kipling wrote about. It just cries out for them.”

Prince Rajput Singh stirred uneasily in his chair and leaned forward.

“In time, sweet nightingale,” he said suavely. “I must make a continuation of my lectures and then I must visit your wonderful California. It will please me to be your honored guest at your home there. Then, when we have tired of the sunshine and the flowers we shall make long journey to my home-land. The spell of this new country is on me and until it passes I must remain here. Besides, I must await a salutation from my father. That breach must be healed, fair bul-bul.”

Miss Fannie sighed resignedly.

“Whatever you say, Rajjy dear,” she said. “You shall stay in California as long as you wish and I’ll write to that father of yours if you don’t hear from him. I think it’s terrible the way the Nazir is treating the prince, don’t you, Mr. Martin?”

The bridegroom-to-be coughed nervously and rose quickly from his chair, breaking into the conversation before Jimmy could stammer a reply.

“Fair one,” he said, gripping her by the arm, “my friend tires of these much repeated references to my own poor self. We have more important matters to discuss. Let us make busy with them.”

Thus pressed, Jimmy enlarged upon the detailed arrangements which he had completed for the exciting events of the following day, arrangements which included provisions for everything from the marriage license to the formal and ceremonious delivery to all the newspaper offices of elaborately engraved announcement cards by the Hindu attendants of Prince Rajput Singh. Miss Fannie gushed her approval of the program and was positively gurgling with delight as she escorted him to the door.

“The prince is so proud,” she said, when she was out of ear-shot of that dignitary, “that he can’t bear to have me say anything about the perfectly outrageous way in which he has been treated by his father. I think it’s perfectly scandalous, don’t you?”

“I’m not very clear about it myself,” returned the press agent guardedly. “What’d the old gink—I mean the old man do?”

“Oh, dear, I thought you knew. Why, he cut off his allowance for a perfectly trivial something or other—he’s never told me exactly—and here he was on the verge of being unable to keep up appearances and the dignity of his station. It must have been most humiliating. Poor Rajjy cried when I forced it out of him. He’d been so depressed that I knew something must be the matter, and I just made him tell me. I was so glad to help.”

Jimmy cocked his head at the last sentence and looked up at her quickly.

“So you helped him, eh?” he inquired.

“Just a little,” she replied. “What are a few thousand dollars if they will bring peace to a troubled spirit? Peace is everything, Mr. Martin, quite everything worth while. And I’m going to keep the poor, dear prince peaceful for ever and always and aye. Good-bye, dear Mr. Martin. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jimmy went down the gravel path in a thoughtful mood. Somehow he felt rather fed up with Prince Rajput Singh.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine

Mr. J. Herbert Denby, between sips of his morning coffee next day in a secluded corner of the breakfast room of his hotel, was reading for the second time, with an inner glow of satisfaction, a letter which he had just received. It was a brief communication from Chester Bartlett complimenting him upon his success as a lecturer and announcing the manager’s forthcoming arrival in Chicago that very morning.

“I can’t resist the temptation,” Bartlett wrote, “to look in on one of your seances and catch His Royal Highness and yourself in action. I must congratulate you on the success which you have achieved in putting this stunt over on the natives and I have instructed the office to give you a twenty-five per cent increase in salary.”

Mr. Denby laid the letter down and decided that, after all, theatrical managers had their proper place in the scheme of existence. Up to that moment he had always been inclined to consider them as useless encumberers of the earth.

He picked up the morning paper which lay at his elbow, adjusted his glasses and turned to the front page. He glanced cursorily at a story in the left-hand column dealing with the newest series of what are technically known in newspaper circles as “Red Raids;” let his attention wander to an account of the launching of a new presidential boom and then took a look at the right hand corner. What he saw emblazoned there caused him to almost drop the cup which he had just daintily raised to his lips and provoked an audible spluttering that sent the head-waiter hurrying in his direction from the other side of the room.

“Anything wrong, sir?” deferentially inquired the chief servitor, noting with apprehension the startled mien of the eminent lecturer.

Mr. Denby tried to compose himself.

“Nothing important,” he managed to reply. “Just some unwelcome tidings from home. I’ll be all right in a moment or two.”

When the head-waiter had bowed himself away Mr. Denby turned to a perusal of the paper. The words which struck his eyes seemed to spell to him the collapse of all things temporal.

PRINCE BAMBOOZLES
SOCIETY; RAJPUT SINGH
PROVED RANK IMPOSTER
––––
Alleged Son of Nazir of Hydrabad
and Glib Tongued Lecturer
Associate Revealed as Wily
Promoters of Publicity for
Theatrical Enterprise.
––––
FAKIRS ALMOST GOT
AWAY WITH IT

The harrowing details which followed were dressed up in such sarcastic verbiage that Mr. Denby’s soul went sick and his appetite for breakfast vanished. He paid his check and sought the seclusion of his room. He wished to hide his face from the public gaze and apply poultices to his wounded dignity.

Jimmy Martin, coming up unannounced, found him a half hour later gazing pensively out of the window—a picture of incarnate misery. Jimmy wasn’t in a particularly jaunty mood himself, but he assumed his best “cheery-oh” manner when he caught a glimpse of his associate’s face.

“What’s the matter, little song-bird?” he inquired breezily. “You look about as lonely as a bartender.”

Mr. Denby turned a pair of ineffably sad eyes on the press agent and sighed mournfully.

“I’m disgraced, Mr. Martin,” he said feebly, “irretrievably disgraced. I should never have gone into this masquerade—never. My saner judgment should have prevailed. I shall never recover from this. I’m the most miserable man in Chicago this morning—the most utterly miserable.”

“You’ve got another think coming, old popsy-wop,” replied Jimmy. “I’ve just seen his royal highness. You’re a care-free babe in arms compared to that bird. He’s passin’ on to New York on the twelve forty.”

“What I can’t understand,” said Mr. Denby, “is how the story got out. Have you any idea?”

“Yes, I have,” replied the press agent, slowly. “As a matter of fact I gave it out myself.”

“You gave it out yourself,” stammered the bewildered Mr. Denby. “I—I don’t understand. Why did you do such a thing as that?”

“Well, the low-down of it is that I had to. I was out to that Easton dame’s house yesterday afternoon with his royal jiblets and when I saw the way the poor nut was makin’ a fool out of herself over that little brown brother it just made me sick. He’d been milkin’ her for thousands and I could see he was layin’ lines to wish himself into an easy life at her expense. She’s a good-natured old gal, too, but she’d fallen for him so hard that she’d have believed him if he told her he was that Buddha party come back to earth for a little holiday.

“She told me about some fairy tale or other he’d pulled—something about a row with his father and how his allowance had been stopped and so forth and so on and when I took one last look at her at the front door and thought of that baby lollin’ around on sofas and lettin’ her wait on him and callin’ her a lot of flossy names so’s to keep his stock up I didn’t have the heart to let her go through with the marriage thing, story or no story. Somethin’ sort of caught hold of me and wouldn’t let me go on. I wonder what it was?”

“Some philosophers call it the categorical imperative,” replied Mr. Denby, thoughtfully.

“They do, eh? Well, maybe that’s a good name for it, but I’ve got a kind of a hunch that it was the little old Golden Rule that made me ashamed of myself. I thought the best of cramp Rajjy’s style would be to get word to that brother of the blushin’ bride so I got in to see him last night and coughed up everything. He’s a fine fellow. They don’t grow ’em better. He was mighty grateful, but he said it wouldn’t do any good for him to say anything to her. He figured that would make it worse. He said she wouldn’t believe him. The only thing that’d get to her, he said, would be to have some paper expose his royal job-lots and make him ridiculous in the eyes of all her friends.

“So I came down town and slipped an ear-full to Cunningham, a friend of mine on the Times, and he did the rest. I’m sorry, old boy, but I just couldn’t help it. It’d a been one of the best stories ever put over if we’d let it go through and it puts the kibosh on the lecture tour, but there just naturally wasn’t anythin’ else to do. Women and children first, as they say when the ship hits an iceberg. Am I right?”

Mr. Denby sprang up and grasped Jimmy by the hand.

“You certainly are,” he said enthusiastically. “I feel better already. I’m sure Mr. Bartlett will understand. Did you know he was coming to town today?”

“I did not,” returned Jimmy. “That’s a good exit cue, though. I haven’t the nerve to face him until this thing kind of blows over. I’ll duck under cover for twenty-four hours and let you break the news to mother. Slip him the real inside stuff. Maybe he’ll fall for it.”

* * * * *

Chester Bartlett was the maddest man in the entire state of Illinois when he read the story of the expose on the incoming train to Chicago that morning and the quips which were hurled at him by dozens of his friends in his club at luncheon gave substance and solidity to his rage. His interview with Mr. Denby was a stormy affair and his reaction to what Jimmy termed the “real inside stuff” was violent in the extreme. While still in the throes of his anger he wrote a brief message to the press agent which the erstwhile lecturer on far eastern affairs was requested to deliver in person to his friend.

Mr. Denby found Jimmy at his hotel immersed in the preparation of advertising copy. He looked up hopefully; Mr. Denby handed him the note in silence and he tore it open with a foreboding of disaster.

“No man can make me ridiculous and remain in my employ,” it ran. “You’re through the moment you receive this. You should never have encouraged such an affair as the romance Denby tells me about. As a matter of fact it was a foolhardy thing to try and palm that fellow off as a prince. You might have known you’d come a cropper sooner or later. You’ve got too many ideas for your own good and I’ll be satisfied to go along hereafter with someone who’s perhaps a little shy on brilliancy, but who’s long on balance.”

“Can you beat ’em,” inquired Jimmy, helplessly. “They’re all alike. No matter what you do you’re always in wrong.”

The telephone bell rang just then and he barked a rude “hello” into the transmitter. The voice at the other end was hearty and good-natured.

“Is that Mr. Martin—Mr. James T. Martin?—this is Easton talking—Easton—Junius P. Easton—thought I’d let you know that my sister is cured—can’t begin to thank you for what you did—tried to reciprocate this morning—told my brokers to carry a thousand shares of Consolidated Gutta Percha in your name—closed out at a quarter to three—ten point rise—you’ll get the check in the morning—had a little inside information, you know—did pretty well myself, too—say, you impress me as being a pretty clever sort of a lad—ever think of going into business on your own?—it’s the only game—why work for anyone?—think it over.”

Jimmy was still mumbling his thanks when the other excused himself and hung up. Mr. Denby, who hadn’t grasped the import of the telephonic conversation, betrayed an intense interest in the proceedings.

“What’s up?” he questioned.

“Consolidated Gutta Percha,” replied Jimmy. “Want a job?”

“You know I do. Who with?”

“Why with me, of course, you old highbrow. And look here. Don’t you go palmin’ off any fake dukes or rajahs or anythin’ like that. If you do you’ll get the bum’s rush and I won’t take the trouble to write you a letter about it, either.”

Mr. Denby raised a deprecatory hand.

“I’ll promise to be good,” he said, “but may I be permitted to ask another question?”

“Shoot—while the shootin’s good.”

“Well, then, in the parlance of the theatrical profession—with which, I take it, we are still to be identified—‘where do we go from here?’”

Jimmy pulled a pink letter out of an inside pocket and proffered it to his friend with a flourish.

“Cedar Rapids is our next stand, you old adjective hound,” he said heartily. “Take a look at this little message.”

It was, Mr. Denby found, a note from Lolita Murphy and it contained a contrite plea for forgiveness for her abrupt departure from Boston many weeks before and a hope that the diplomatic relations then severed might be renewed.

“Old Mr. Higgins,” she wrote, “wants someone to take the lease of the Opera House off his hands. He’s had a cataract on his left eye for two years, and now he’s got rheumatism in his right hip and he wants to go out to California. He’s been doing great business this season and on the nights when he hasn’t had regular shows he’s been putting on big extra special feature films and packing people in. I thought maybe you’d like to try your hand at settling down and running a theatre. Of course, Main Street isn’t Broadway, but I like it lots better and maybe you could learn to, too. It means home folks to me. Maybe it might come to mean the same thing to you—some time.”

Mr. Denby gasped when he read this. When he tried to talk the words did not come trippingly....

“You mean you’re going to—to—run the opera house in Cedar Rapids?”

Jimmy grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him in an outburst of fierce joviality.

“I mean that _we’re_ going to run it,” he said. “All _three_ of us. What do you think about smearing a catch-line all over town—‘A Homey Theatre for Home Folks’? I’ve got an idea that’d make a hit with a Certain Party.”

THE END

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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).