One evening, a few weeks after the rise and fall of Thomas Brown I was gaily handing out wrong numbers, "don't answer" and "busy" signals, when a swell looking, snappy dressed young fellow of about twenty-five autumns bounds up to the board and asks for Whitehall 1483. When I get them, he says he would like to speak to Miss Fish.
"Be yourself, Harold!" I says, giving him a glance which would freeze two Eskimos, "Whitehall 1483 is the Aquarium. You want to speak to Miss Fish, eh? How do you get that way?"
Honestly, his kid face grew as red as a throwing tomato and his Alice-blue eyes took on the hurt look of a baby's when you refuse it a lollypop.
"Why—why—I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I didn't mean to be silly. I guess I've been kidded, myself! You see, I met a young lady last night and she gave me that as her name and phone number."
I could see from his face that he's telling the truth and I don't know why I feel sorry for him or sore that he should of met any young lady at all!
"Well, she gave you a pushing around," I says pleasantly. "Hereafter when you go out without your guardian don't pick up with every stranger that offers you candy—hundreds of children get kidnapped that way in New York every day."
He grins and pulls a blush on a complexion that I could do no more than tie myself.
"I don't blame you for laughing at me," he says. "But I would like to speak to that young lady because"
"Well, give me a good description of her," I butt in, "and I'll try and guess her phone number for you."
This time he laughs outright. Some giggle he's got, too—makes you warm right up to him whether you want to or not, if you know what I mean.
"Listen," he says, bending over real confidential, "I don't suppose you ever go out to dinner, do you?"
"Listen yourself!" I says. "You may be a fast worker, but mere speed will get you nothing here! I am no Miss Fish from the Aquarium! I never under no circumstances go out to dinner with male kiddies which I have just met. So run along back to school, I'm fearful busy. See you all of a sudden!"
With that I turn back to the switchboard and begin doing my stuff with Mr. Bell's clever little invention. But the handsome city chap is no quitter.
"I won't bother you now if you're busy," he says, as serious as the Johnstown Flood. "But I'm coming back again with that dinner invitation, don't think I won't. I don't know how you feel about me, but I don't mind telling you that you've just about ruined my peace of mind!"
Cute, wasn't he? But of course I can't let him see it.
"You better get somebody to write you a new act," I says. "That stuff used to make Eve yawn! And now I don't wish to be rude, but—here comes the house detective."
"May I give you a ring tomorrow?" he asks, moving toward the door.
"This is so sudden," I smile. "And I don't even know you!"
"I mean a ring on the phone," he says, featuring that killing blush again.
"Go ahead, call up," I says. "I like a laugh as well as anyone."
I thought that was the end of him and I can't say that thought particularly tickled me. There was something about this boy that—that—well, you know what I mean! Most of these boobs are as standard types as nail files, Close your eyes and it could be any one of a thousand of 'em trying to kid you—their approach doesn't vary two words. But this one gave me a mild thrill and even a mild thrill is interesting on a job as dreary as a hotel switchboard.
Well, to make a short story long, he phoned me every morning for the next week and made personal appearances every afternoon till Jerry Murphy had him pegged for a pickpocket and would have collared him on his third appearance if I hadn't interfered. I won't get near as many flowers when I'm dead and gone as I did the following week from the mysterious stranger and candy flowed like water. He also gave me a book of near poetry called "The Ruby Yacht of Omar Kyam" which I thought is a lot of apple sauce, but I tell him it's elegant as from the binding it must of cost plenty pennies.
Invitations to shows, auto rides, lunches, dinners, cabarets, ball games and requests to go to about everything else but murder trials were fairly showered on me by this dizzy youth and from the program he offered I could of gone out with him every day for the next ten years and never visited the same place twice! Still, I continue to plead a headache, as I am commencing to like this young daredevil and stalling is one way to keep their interest at fever heat. Then he made all his other moves look reasonable in comparison by moving right into the Hotel St. Moe.
With a room in the inn at which I am one of the features he was hard to laugh off, and finally one day I give up the one-sided battle and go to dinner with him. That's the start of the big romance and likewise the beginning of the young man's rise to fame and fortune. Funny, isn't it, how women can make fools out of men and men out of fools?
After a week of bounding around with him I begin to feel lost without him. He was different and no mistake! His name in even figures was Julius De Haven and I learned about Cupid from him!
Well, naturally in talking over this and that the subject of what Julius does far his coffee and cakes is bound to come up sooner or later. It came up sooner and Julius breaks down and confesses to being an actor. Now up to then I'd been actor-proof, but somehow the thought of Julius being ome kind of interests me strangely. With that handsome face of his, those thrilling eyes, that soothing voice, wavy hair and moving picture manner, why, I think the least he can be is a leading man. Probably another Jack Barrymore. So when he asks me to come and see his show, "The Girl from Betelgeuse," it's almost more than I can do to wait.
But it's a couple of more weeks before I can arrange my hours at the Hotel St. Moe switchboard to get off and catch Julius De Haven's frolic, which by the way is one of the biggest musical comedy wows on Main Street, having entertained Broadway for better than a year. However, the big night finally arrives and I simply grab some Java and a club sandwich and rush home from the hotel, spending two hours in dolling up so's when my musical comedy star meets me after his labors that night he won't be ashamed of his girl friend. I haven't got a wardrobe like Peggy Joyce, but what little I have got is bonded stuff and when I'm set for the drama that night I figure I could go anywhere with Julius and not be a handicap to him, even if his friends was all from Wall Street.
The seat Julius stakes me to is so close to the stage that had it been a few inches farther towards the footlights I would have been given a horn or something like the rest of the orchestra. I'm so excited I don't know if I'm in New York or New Zealand and no wonder—I'm about to see my hero do his stuff! I flutter open that program like it was "The Sheik" and I'm reading it for the first time—I want to see Julius's name there and what he does and everything. But lo and behold as the Peruvians says, there is not the slightest mention of Julius in the "Cast of Characters!" I think there must be some serious mistake and I go over that program till I could stand up and repeat it backwards at the drop of a hat.
Finally something catches my feverish eye that nearly sends me rolling off my seat out into the aisle in a faint! It was this in the back of the program: "Gentlemen Of The Chorus: Julius De Haven, Georgie" But what difference does the names of the rest of them male chorus girls make? My Julius a chorus man! If that isn't the shark's elbow! You could of knocked me over with an aigrette and I must of made a couple of remarks to myself a little too loud, because out of the corner of my eyes I see the customers on each side of me gazing at me in alarm. But the curtain goes up just then and prevents me from being an opposition show myself.
I just sit there and cover my burning face with my hands. I don't wish to see that show or anything else and least of all do I crave to see Julius De Haven. Honestly I could have got a summons for what I am thinking about my boy friend right then! I have tossed away my heart to a thirty-dollar-a-week chorus man, can you imagine that? And since I been on this job I've turned down whole coveys of millionaires—at least they said they was!
Well, you know they say curiosity is a girl and I guess that's a fact because in a few minutes I simply got to look up and see what Julius is doing, although to me it's going to be like watching your grandfather hung or something, honestly it is! So I peep through my fingers and my Gawd there he is prancing around with a lot of other young men which will never strike Dempsey and they're singing some rough longshoreman's chantey all about "Sweet June has arrived with all her graces!" Now I ask you, isn't that a swell way for a great, big husky man to cheat the almshouse? I just keep ducking my head so Julius won't see me, because if he'd ever waved to me I know I'd have died of shame right there in that theater!
Well, first I am going to rush right out and go home, but then I think it will be better to wait for Julius so's I can tell him just what I think of him for trying to make me love him when he's got a job like that. I not only want to warn him away from my switchboard, I want to warn him away from my life! So I sit through "The Girl from Betelgeuse," but, believe me, I couldn't tell you what it was all about if it was against the law not to know. All I can see or hear or think about is Julius De Haven!
He meets me in the lobby after the show and when I see him in citizen's clothes again and gaze on his thrilling features I nearly weaken and maybe I might of weakened, only he hums a couple of notes from one of the songs he sings in the chorus and that makes me merciless.
"Well, sweetness," he says, with that ruinous smile of his, "how did you like the show?"
The idea that he's trying to brazen things out gets me red-headed!
"I should think you'd be too ashamed to even speak to me!" I says, and every word is packed in ice. "Listen—I'm going to leave you flat right here in this lobby and I never wish to see you again! If you follow me out of here I'll call a cop and if you ever come near my switchboard I'll have the house detective step on your neck. I'm through with you! If it gives you any satisfaction, I'll admit you fooled me up till tonight, but it's different now. I'm claiming exemption. Good by and good luck!"
He gets first red and then white and then versa vice. His big blue eyes look at me as hurt and surprised as if I had slapped him in the face. Honest, I must admit I get a pain in my heart as I watch him. I like this big kid, there's no use saying I don't, and it murders me to think he should turn out to be a false alarm after all the hopes I had for—for both of us. Why, I can't understand him being a chorus man! He don't look like one, or act like one, or anything, if you know what I mean.
"Good heavens, Gladys, what have I done?" he gasps finally.
"Not a thing," I says coldly. "You're just a total loss, that's all! What do you mean by trying to promote yourself with me when you're a chorus man? There's about three million girls in this town, why pick on me?"
He studies me for a minute without saying a word and then that hurt look slowly leaves his eyes—for which I am thankful, as it's commencing to hurt me too. When he speaks again, his face is hard as the side of Pike's Peak.
"I see," he says slowly. "All women are alike. No sportsmanship, no sense of fair play! I am condemned utterly without a chance to speak a word in my defence. But what interests me more is how a woman with your knowledge of life and the world can be so narrow as to think all chorus men, or let us say, a man temporarily in the chorus, can be degraded by the mere position, as you intimate."
"I don't wish to argue with you," I says. "I merely wish to leave you. Good night!"
With that I turned on my heel—and nearly turned on my ankle, as Julius grabs my arm in a very manly grasp. Afterwards it was black and blue.
"For God's sake, Gladys, don't send me away!" he says, in a voice which sends a thrill all through me. "You represent perhaps the only sincere emotion I ever had in my life and if you go whatever chance I have of getting anywhere will go with you. I will be a total loss, as you've just called me. With you, I can make good. Maybe that's a confession of weakness that a real man would scorn to make, but it's also a statement of fact! Give me a chance to explain things to you—even a murderer gets a trial. You—you once said you loved me!"
"And I once did," I says, looking away. "But those days are over, Julius.
"Good heavens!" he busts out. "Can you switch love off and on as you would an electric light?"
I look at him and I'm lost.
"Go on, do your stuff and I'll listen," I says. "But don't let that give you the idea that you're twisting me around your finger!"
"The ideas I have about you, my dear, will never make you angry," he says, squeezing my arm. "Let's go some place where we can talk."
So we go to the Café Bordeaux where we can not only talk but eat, drink and be merry, as the saying is, and once we get a ringside table for the revue, Julius speaks his piece. It seems that after Julius gets sick and tired of Harvard he has his voice educated at home and abroad, being pointed by his parents for grand opera. He's also a bit fluerit at acting. But breaking into grand opera is about as easy as breaking into the vaults of the mint, so while waiting for an opening in the Metropolitan, Julius decides he'll get a job as star in a musical comedy. He figures that once Broadway hears him sing all by himself, why, they'll just go crazy and roll off their seats and the noise will be heard by the opera directors and from then on $3,000 a night will be his minimum wage. However, eight months making the rounds along Broadway winds up Julius's bankroll and his parents' patience. The only way Julius can be starred is if he puts up the jack himself. That's asking the impossible, so he dives head first into the chorus of "The Girl from Betelgeuse," thinking his big chance will probably come sooner or later and he might as well be eating while waiting for it.
Well, they hear his voice while he's rehearsing with his frolic and they realize it's far from a jackal's wail, so they make him understudy to Charlemagne Rutledge, the leading man. This drives Julius wild with joy and why wouldn't it? Should any safes fall on the head of this big blah with the name like an apartment house and a collar, Julius will step into the leading part and knock Broadway silly. For one solid year he's been understudying Charlemagne and he's letter perfect in the part and musical numbers. Likewise, Julius is satisfied he's a better actor and a better tenor than Mister Leading Man. If he ever gets a chance to sink his teeth into this part just once—that's all he wants, just once—Julius swears he'll be the talk of New York. But Charlemagne Rutledge hasn't missed a single performance in the year the show has been on the Big Street, and as it closes in ten days, why, it looks like Julius is another one of these roses which is born to blush unseen.
That's Julius—and I can take him or leave him.
I took him!
We go back on a pre-war basis after that night and I find I just can't get that boy's plight out of my mind. I want to help him—in fact, I'm determined to help him—but the thing is, how? Then the next day out of the usual clear sky I get the big idea that put Julius over and came near putting me in jail!
Hemingway Bryce, a five-minute egg, shared a suite on the tenth floor of the St. Moe with no less than Charlemagne Rutledge, my Julius's jinx. This Bryce is starring in "Coffee for Two" at the Rainier and he's just about pestered the life out of me trying to date me up ever since he parked himself at the hotel. I like him and poison the same way, and for all he knows the only English I speak is the adjective "No!" However, he's an actor and as this is a problem touching on the show business, I think maybe if I tell him about it, without using any names, he may make the one bright remark of his life and in that way I'll get the answer to the puzzle. So this day when he comes over to stall around I tossed him a bright smile. That nearly knocked his hat off and the way he floundered over to my side was comical to see!
"Well, girlie," he gushes—the big clown!—"when are we going to have that dinner together?"
I felt like saying, "When Niagara Falls starts running the other way!" But I want to straighten out Julius, so I throw the smile into high.
"I'll let you know later," I says. "I want to ask you something first."
"Anything!" he says, with his hand on his heart. He's one of these fellows which simply can't stop acting, on and off. "Anything I possess is yours, if"
"What could be sweeter than that?" I cut him off, still smiling. "But I just want to ask you a question. What would you do if you were an understudy and knew you were greater than the star, but couldn't get a chance to play the part and dumbfound the world?"
He looks a bit surprised and then he pretends to be giving the matter the same attention the U. S. Supreme Court gives a trust tangle, standing there with his chin in his hand and a frown puckering his noble forehead.
"Why," he says finally, "why, I'd have the star kidnapped for one performance and take my chances!"
And he laughs. A little bit later he was like the laughing hyena which died. He didn't have nothing to laugh it!
Well, I manage to get rid of Hemingway Bryce a few minutes afterwards and I can hardly keep from yelling with joy, because I've got Julius all set. I know just what I'm going to do and just what he's going to do—that's if he wants to keep his little girl friend. So when we go to dinner that night I put all my cards on the table, face up.
"Julius," I says, "after some years of watching you boys perform and in that way getting a good line on the male sex, I made up my mind if I ever fell I'd fall for a great man. Being a shipping clerk's darling or a head bookkeeper's bride never has appealed to me and it don't now! The man I gamble my future with has got to mean something. He's got to either get his name in the electric lights or invent something brighter!"
Julius is looking at me like a drowning man would look at you if you turned a hose on him.
"But I thought we settled all" he begins.
"Don't interrupt teacher!" I shut him off. "As I was saying before you spoke out of turn, I always craved the affection of a really great man and swore I'd fall for no other. Unfortunately, Julius, you came along and you're far from great, but I fell for you nevertheless. There's no question about that part of it. Therefore I am going to make you famous, whether you want to be famous or not!"
"I'm afraid I don't understand," says Julius—and looks it.
"You want a chance to play the star part in 'The Girl from Betelgeuse' and show Broadway what you can do, don't you?" I says.
"Do I?" says Julius, grabbing my hands while his face lights up like a cathedral. "Why, say, sweetheart, if I ever get a crack at that part"
"Well, don't cry," I butt in. "You're going to get a crack at it tomorrow night!"
"What do you mean?" gasps Julius, trying to read my face. He can't and he sinks back in his chair. "Don't jest about that, Gladys, it's too near my heart," he says, kind of reproachful.
"If you think I'm kidding, you're crazy!" I smiles. "If Charlemagne Rutledge fails to appear tomorrow night you go on and play the lead, don't you?"
"Of course," says Julius. "But that's nonsense. He hasn't missed a performance since the infernal show opened a year ago."
"Well, he'll miss tomorrow night," I says, still smiling, "because we're going to kidnap him."
Julius laughs and pats my hand.
"You angel," he says, "I really believe you would do that for me! But"
"But nothing," I interrupted, the smile gone. "Kidnapping the leading man is the only way you'll ever get your chance. Well, we're going to do it. If you don't go through with this, I'm through with you!"
This time he must of read my face correctly.
"Good heavens, you can't be serious!" he exclaims. "Why the thing's unthinkable! I—why"
"I never was more serious in my life," I shut him off. "I've even laid out the details. Keep quiet a minute and I'll tell you how we'll work it."
"Why—why—Gladys—I—we'll be arrested! We" Julius is at the stuttering stage, as pale as a couple of ghosts.
"Suppose we do get arrested," I says. "Look what we're shooting at! If my scheme goes through you'll be a star, won't you?"
"But—but" He's all but speechless.
"Listen," I says, "cut out the buts. I'll be the goat in this little trifling matter and if you don't do your part you're canceled with me as sure as there's a Frenchman in Paris! Of course, if you're afraid you'll fall down if you do get the chance to play the lead, why"
"Fall down?" he butts in, banging the table with his fist. "Why, it will put me over!"
"Then let's go!" I says, banging the table myself. "It's all fun!"
When we part Julius weighs about ten pounds less than he did when we come in the restaurant, but he's agreed to my little kidnapping scheme. About all he touched of the dinner was the check.
The next night I get busy on my own little movie, written and produced by myself and called "The Kidnapped Leading Man." I know I'm never going to get away with this without something happening that won't do me a bit of good, but had I knew just exactly what was going to happen I almost think I would of allowed Julius to make good in his own way. Before things was over I felt like I had called for a drink of water and got hit by a tidal wave!
My first imitation was to interview Pete Kift. I simply asked Peter to lock Charlemagne Rutledge in his room that night, so that by no chance can Charlemagne get out till it's too late for him to get to the theater where "The Girl from Betelgeuse" is playing. The fire escape is two doors farther down the hall, as both Charlemagne and Hemingway Bryce, who rooms with him, had kicked against having a suite that opened out into one, claiming it poisoned the view from the windows. So if Charlemagne wants to jump, good for him—it's only ten stories to the pavement and that last story would have a most unhappy ending, now wouldn't it? I then arrange at the switchboard that no calls from that suite are to be answered. That prevents my captive from calling the desk or anybody else which might be weak-kneed enough to release him and deprive my Julius of his chance to play the lead in "The Girl from Betelgeuse." I know I am crazy to do this, as the fellow remarked before slapping the lion in the face, but then you want to remember I am also in love!
At eight o'clock Pete Kift sidles up to the switchboard as mysterious as a Cuckoo Klan meeting. He looks to the right and left and then he bends over to me.
"All set, Cutey!" he says, in a hoarse whisper.
"You're sure he's locked tight—he can't get out?" I whispered back, and gee, I'm nervous!
"Say," says my noble Pete, "'at bozo couldn't get out of 'at room if his name was Houdini!"
So that was all settled.
Well, I'll never forget the night I put in at that board if I live to the ripe old age of a million. Phew! I got nothing to do but think of what will happen to me when Charlemagne Rutledge gets out of that room and realizes he has missed his show. I think and think and think and then every time I get about froze stiff with pure fright, why, the thought comes to me that Julius is out on that stage singing and acting his way to a roaring success. That thought kind of evens matters, for it fills me with a warm glow of pride and satisfaction. Anybody which got a right number from me that night got it by dumb luck and nothing else!
As the witching hour of midnight approaches and I am thanking Heaven that I'm about to go off duty, Pete Kift again slinks up to the board and this time he's got the word "panic" wrote all over his face. He's as nervous as a frightened rabbit and a bit pale and sickly looking. What a swell villain he'd be, I think, but then it's the men who always weaken, isn't it?
"Cutey," whispers Pete, "I have got to let 'at baby out of his cell upstairs, I do for a fact. He's bellerin' and meowin' and kickin' on the door and he's went to work and busted a window on me! He's jazzed around up there so much he's got the people in the adjoinin' rooms all stirred up. All the neighbors' children and the like is outside lookin' up at the windows, and you know what 'at will lead to. I'd like to go up and cuff some brains into him, but I got to let him out, kid, or the reserves'll be here!"
Well, I'm ready to faint because the grand finale is about to break, but tell Pete to go up and unfock the door. It's twelve o'clock now and by this time Julius must be the talk of Broadway. That being the case, I'm ready to take my medicine, because naturally enough I can't let poor Pete Kift be the goat for a frame-up I planned myself. Anyways, Pete springs for the elevator and is shot up to the tenth floor like a bullet. I'm pinning on my hat when the same elevator door opens and out of it almost falls—not Charlemagne Rutledge, leading man in "The Girl from Betelgeuse," but Hemingway Bryce, his roommate and star in another play!
Heavens above, I have kidnapped the wrong leading man, ruined a perfectly good show and in no way helped my Julius to fame and fortune!
All this comes to me like a blow between the eyes with a mallet and I sink back against the switchboard just about ready for the undertaker. Hemingway Bryce comes rushing up to murder somebody for not answering his wild calls and one look at me seems to be enough for him.
"By the eternal!" he roars. "I see it all now! You asked me what I would do to give an understudy a chance to play the star's part. Oh, fool that I was! The irony of it. I told you I'd kidnap the leading man, little thinking I was that leading man myself! So you and my understudy did this damnable thing, did you? Well"
"Mr. Bryce—please!" I butt in faintly. "Please listen. You must listen! It has all been a terrible mistake. I—we—I didn't mean to kidnap you at all. It was"
"Not a word!" howls this dumbbell, prancing around, "I'll have you arrested! I'll sue this hotel for a million dollars damages and I'll collect, too! My reputation is gone forever. Boy, call an officer!"
At this critical minute the revolving doors revolve and in rushes the cause of it all—Mr. Julius De Haven. He pushes the foaming Bryce aside and bounces over to me like there's nobody in the hotel, or in New York for that matter, but me and him.
"Oh, you wonderful girl!" he hollers. "I owe everything to you! Your blessed scheme succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. I played Prince Danilo in 'The Girl from Betelgeuse' tonight as he has never been played before. Why, sweetness, I got an ovation! I was forced to take a dozen curtain calls after my first act alone and—oh, it's too much to tell you all at once! Seligman came to my dressing room and offered me a starring contract for next season and—why, darling, what's the matter?"
The matter was that I had simply passed out! Things were coming entirely too fast for little Giadys. Here I have living raving evidence before me that I have kidnapped the wrong man, yet Julius says the scheme went through! Then who in—eh—then who in the name of Kansas City kidnapped the right leading man?
I come to with Julius fanning me and trying to force me to drink water. I will not be forced to drink water, so I straighten up in time to see Charlemagne Rutledge burst into the crowd around me and throw his arms about his dear old roommate, Hemingway Bryce.
"Thank God you are safe!" bawls Charlemagne.
"Safe?" yells Hemingway. "I'm ruined! This woman had me locked in my room tonight and I missed my performance!"
"Then she has saved your life!" says Charlemagne Rutledge. "Haven't you heard! They're crying the extras now. The roof of your theater collapsed, man, and hundreds were killed! The streets were closed by the police for blocks around. I couldn't get through their infernal fire lines until eleven o'clock and I missed my own performance. I don't know how my understudy got through with the part and"
"Ha, ha!" butts in Julius joyfully. "You'll know when you see the morning papers old dear!"
Hemingway Bryce has turned triple pale when he hears of his narrow escape. He's worse shook up than I am and that's a fact!
"I—I—forgive me," he stammers to me. "I—I owe you my life. I could kiss you!"
"Try it!" says Julius, the ex-gentle chorus man, "and'll murder you!" And he slides his arm around me.
But, honestly, I had nothing to do with the roof of that theater falling in. That was somebody else's idea, no fooling!
Finis.