"How often things occur by mere chance which we dared not even to hope for!"
According to the official records, the above bald statement was first made by a fellow called Terence who prowled around the bustling village of Carthage some two thousand years ago. This young Roman with the Dublin name was accused of being a poet, but I really believe your personal habits are nobody's business, so I'm not going into that part of it here. What I wish to say is that whether or not Terry was guilty of premeditated poetry, that crack of his about chance is at least one hundred percent correct.
Don't let anybody ever tell you there's no such thing as luck, for every man, woman or child who's managed to rear their heads above the mob has been more or less assisted to the dizzy heights by chance. I don't claim that mere luck will always put a dumbbell over, though it often does and you know it, but it's te ee nearly always luck that gives the person with the goods the opportunity to deliver. It's generally chance that snatches you from the ashcan of oblivion and stands you up there in the limelight. If you've got stuff, you get over, if you don't instantly click—well, they shut off the light!
Perhaps you know a few hundred shining examples of this yourself. So do I, but who the Berlin wants to listen to a few hundred examples of anything? I'll give you one—the case of two silken-clad limbs and a kind heart. Bee Swenson had the limbs and I had the heart.
I suppose you think me a very foolish young lady for not making the most of Mr. Daft's paternal interest in me, considering the position he's in to help me get somewhere. However, Gordon Daft is a bit too juvenile for the heavy responsibilities of guardian to a bouncing blonde infant like me. I wouldn't mind an extra male parent, but the bulk of the ambitious applicants aren't satisfied to be just "father," they want to be "sweet papa" and that's out!
At the trifling cost of going to lunch exactly once with Mr. Williams, I got Jerry and Pete their jobs back at the St. Moe. Should I have broken bread one more time with our admiring boss, I bet I'd have won Jerry and Pete portfolios as room clerks, no fooling!
Well, shortly after Hazel took up the exacting duties of a motion picture actress, Mr. Daft hauled off and bought the film rights to "My Wife's Husband," a book which had the literary world and the censors positively agog. Honestly, this horrible example of what can be done with pen and ink in the wrong hands was as risqué as the tourists hope the Folies Bergère is and was selling like cheese at a rats' convention. If you happened to read it I'm satisfied you'll heartily agree that comparing that novel to cheese is a good thought. However, Hazel was awarded a nice little part in the picture which left me deserted in New York with only seven million other people for company. That's a trifle too many to crowd into my living room, really, so I didn't even try it, but stayed lonesome.
Mr. Daft took the troupe to Synthetic, Maine, on "location," as about fifteen miles of this film called for a rural setting and Pete Kift sold the director the idea of using a farm belonging to his parents. Pete's a smart boy and will argue himself into affluence yet. For the benefit of the lay reader, not so familiar with the technical language of the magic lantern game as I am, I'll tear the veil of mystery from the term "location." Going on location means that the boys and girls leave the studio, the watchful eye of the production manager, cost department, sightseers and spies from the New York office, hide away on a chartered yacht, an unpoliced island, hick town, desert, etc., and—clown. Oh, of course they "shoot" some of the movie, too; in its proper turn. Movie actors hate location the same way they loathe close-ups, five-year contracts and publicity!
When I went to the station to bon voyage Hazel, she and Mr. Daft made me promise to take a week off and visit them at Synthetic the moment I found their absence beyond human endurance. As I knew our jovial manager would give me the lobby if I asked for it, I was sure he'd present me with a vacation if I got another girl to take my place. Eventually that's just what I did.
Then the merriment started!
A few days after Hazel left me all by myself in pitiless Gotham, an interesting young gentleman stepped into my life. His name in even figures was Royal Underwood Corona and he was a self-confessed author. He writes novels—read 'em and weep! I ran across him on Broadway, and "ran across him" is not poor English, it's true! I hit him with an automobile and made him like it; fate and a defective emergency brake brought us together—wasn't that thrilling? You see, I fulfilled a life-long ambition with some of that six thousand I got from Mr. Daft by buying a horseless carriage. This car was a great deal like myself; small but expensive and neat but not gaudy. It didn't take me any longer than it did you to learn the secret of driving, although I still have trouble at times telling the clutch from the foot-brake. Really, the darn pedals do look alike, don't they?
Well, one afternoon I'm careening up the Great White Way in my brand new sport model Puddle-Jumper when at Seventy-Second Street a perfect idiotic traffic policeman decided to blow his whistle. I stepped on the gas by mistake and leaped past him, evidently to his vast astonishment, for he waved his hands wildly at me and blew that whistle like an annoying child. I managed to stop a little past the corner and immediately Mr. Policeman deserted his post to interview me, leaving the greatly peeved traffic in a hopeless snarl.
"What's the big idea?" he bellows at me, red in the face. "I told you to stop—didn't you see me wave my hand at you?"
"Yes, sir," I says, giving him lots of smile and eye-work.
"Then why the—eh—why didn't you stop?" he roars, pulling out his summons book.
I produced a blush—you can do it by biting your lip.
"I thought you were trying to flirt with me!" I murmured—and honestly, before that big fathead got over it I was two blocks away and bounding along great!
However, this was to be an eventful day, and full of grief for Gladys. Ten minutes after I defeated John Law, Mons. Royal Underwood Corona jay-walked off the pavement and deliberately dented my front mud-guard with his body. Really, I thought at first I had ruined him and so did the pleased mob that quickly forgot their own affairs and rushed over to look at the catastrophe. An ant-hill is the only place on earth where a crowd collects quicker than on Broadway, you know that! But my prey was more burnt up than wounded and the moment he arose from the street he let out a frightful squawk.
"Why don't you learn how to drive?" he demands loudly, brushing off his clothes.
"Why don't you mind your own business?" I answered calmly. "If you don't like my driving, keep off the streets!"
The innocent bystanders hee-hawed gleefully and Royal glared at me with violence in each glittering eye.
"Shall I take you to a hospital?" I asked hurriedly. Honestly, he looked as if he had evil designs on my health.
"No!" he growls. "Fortunately, I'm not hurt—but that's no fault of yours, young lady! Don't you ever blow your horn to warn pedestrians?"
"Well, I used to," I admitted, "but it makes such a fearful noise it upsets my nerves and then I can't drive at all!"
He didn't seem able to cope with that kind of patter, so he gave up and helped out the crowd with its laugh.
"You've made me miss a train and an important engagement," he says severely. "Now I've got to go back to my apartment, change my clothes and"
But out of the corner of my eye I had pegged an officer approaching. With me to think is to act.
"Jump in and I'll drive you to your place," I interrupted quickly.
"Fair enough!" remarks an envious voice from the throng. "Pretty soft for you, brother!" says another slapping Royal on the arm. Royal appeared to be giving the matter lots of due consideration, which irritated both myself and the greatly interested audience. "Go on, you dizzy tomato!" calls the third masculine voice angrily. "Flop in there with 'at cutey. You're sittin' pretty and ain't got brains enough to know it. If you don't want to go with her, they's plenty others that will!"
Royal took a long lingering view of me and I guess what he saw didn't cause him any pain. He smiled and at once became a nice-looking boy.
"Well, I don't know," he says, still grinning. "You are so lovely, and I am so poor"
And then he hopped in beside me and we drove away just as the scowling policeman came up on the run to find out what the crowd was cheering about.
Really, we got along fine! I warned him at the go-in not to bank too heavily on the fact that I was escorting him home, as I was merely doing so to escape embarrassment and that nosey policeman. That seemed to be in the nature of a severe disappointment for Royal, though I knew I'd be safe with him anywheres—in reason! What I mean is that even if Royal Underwood Corona wasn't the greatest writer since Moses, he was a perfect gentleman and acted that way. On the way to his domicile, we talked about this and we discussed that, till if you'd been on the rear seat and wasn't adverse to eavesdropping, why, you'd have thought we'd been in fifth grade together, honestly! He generously forgave me for running over him and not to let him outdo me in courtesy, I accepted his apology for denting my mud-guard. So that was all settled.
Then Royal suddenly decided he'd let his train go until the next day and began to promote himself. He was nobody's fool. Within a few minutes he had built up a dinner and theater engagement with me for that very same night. Now don't begin raising your eyebrows and curling your lip. It's all fun and there was nothing wrong in it, besides he'd been so nice about me colliding with him that I just couldn't refuse. I left him at the curb outside a beautiful apartment house on Central Park West, promising to be all set when he called for me that evening at seven.
"You certainly knocked me over, girlie!" he says, cautiously touching a bump on his head that looked painful. "The minute I saw you I fell for you—right on the asphalt!"
Well, Royal proved to be even more entertaining at dinner than he was as a motor companion and we had a nice time, really, in spite of the fact that I pulled one terrible fox pass right after we sat down to the nourishment.
"Have you read any recent novels—'My Wife's Husband,' for instance?" he asked me over the hearts of artichoke.
That was like asking Willie Hoppe if he ever saw a billiard table.
"Yes," I says Promptly, "and I think it's terrible, don't you?"
He gave me an odd look. "Why, no—I wouldn't exactly call it terrible," he says, with a faint smile, "but then I imagine I'm a bit prejudiced in its favor. You see, I wrote it!"
Good night! A wonderful start for a pleasant evening, what? I rallied gamely and threw him a dazzling smile.
"You're easily kidded, aren't you?" I asked him. "I knew you wrote it, of course; I just wanted to get a rise out of you. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed the book immensely!"
"You did?" he says eagerly. "Well, that's fine. Thanks awfully!"
Honest to Coolidge, I didn't know Royal was the perpetrator of that literary outrage any more than I know how to make a clock. I'm no Dumb Dora, but seldom remember authors' names, though Francis Shakespeare's is familiar. But I got out of that jam nicely, didn't I?
At any rate, now that Royal's horrible secret was out, we had much to talk about. He had been on his way to board a train for Synthetic when the bumper of my car took his mind off his appointment. Royal was scheduled to assist Gordon Daft in the filming of his book, and when I heard that sensational news I devoted the bulk of the time to boosting Hazel to him. Before we called it a night and dismissed school, he had faithfully promised to fatten Hazel's part if it was in any way possible.
A week arrived and departed as weeks will and then Jerry Murphy and Pete Kift got their vacations. Both boys are set and rarin' to go to Synthetic, Maine, where Daft's actors are doing their stuff on Pete's farm. In spite of their previous sad experience, each of these first-class half-wits told me he was going to try and talk himself into a part in "My Wife's Husband."
"Why don't you check out of this drum and come with us to Synthetic, Kid?" invites Pete. "You'll get a lot of laughs on the old man's farm, no foolin'! Then them movie friends of yours is up at that slab and we can throw a party every night. Our farm's worth important sugar today and only a few years ago pop bought it for a song!"
"What was the name of the song?" I asked him.
"I forget the words," says Pete, "but I remember the notes because I had to pay most of 'em off myself."
"C'mon, Gladys," urges Jerry, "tell 'at big boloney Williams you're tired of sayin' hello and you want to say good-by to him for a while!"
"Yeh," says Pete, "think of the fresh milk and eggs, the simple life in the country, the cows and chickens and that kind of stuff, which I loved so well that I left 'em flat on their shoulder-blades at the age of ten! C'mon up and watch me do a piece of farmin'. If I do say it myself, I milk a mean cow and pitch a nasty stack of hay!"
I thanked Pete for his kind invitation and told him I'd think it over. It didn't take me long to argue myself into the idea that I'd like to give Pete's farm a look-see, so I arranged a two week's furlough from the switchboard. Then I wired Hazel to meet my train, packed up and did a fade-out from the Hotel St. Moe.
Not only the beauteous Hazel, but Pete and Jerry are on hand when I tripped off the train at the little dilapidated station, bearing a weather-beaten sign, "Synthetic." My playmates have thoughtfully brought along an ancient farm rig to drive me to the village, and Hazel, in movie make-up and a Colonial costume, attracts as much attention from the awe-struck yokels hanging around the depot as a fur overcoat would attract in Hades. She explained that she had been working all day and had to dash away to meet me just as she was. Honestly, the disturbance Hazel was creating amongst the natives would have been highly embarrassing to me, but it tickled my girl friend's vanity.
"This is a great tank—it's as dead as Napoleon," says Hazel as we drive away. "Most of the population belong in the comic supplements of the Sunday papers and nowhere else. I've got the male clowns all standing on their ears. I think I'll write Sears-Roebuck for a commission on mail order sales of Klassy-Kut Clothes that the local bloods have ordered to strut with for my entertainment. By the way, Royal Underwood Corona, the fellow who composed our movie, is up here. He's a cute kid, and I think I've goaled him!"
"See if I care," I says. "I've met the boy myself, in fact we broke bread together and caught a show in Manhattan just before I came up here."
Hazel's pretty face was a picture of bafflement and envy.
"For cryin' out loud!" she says peevishly. "It seems to me you've fussed around with everybody but Columbus!"
"But my affairs are all harmless, Hazel," I remind her.
"Blah!" retorts my charming chum—and conversation lagged a bit.
Jerry and Pete told me that they hadn't yet convinced Mr. Daft that they were Grade-A actors, but they said they had great hopes now that I was in their midst. Pete kidded Jerry about winning the heart of his mother's hired girl, Bee Swenson, who Pete declared had a face like a jig-saw puzzle with the important key-pieces missing. This joshing seemed to greatly disturb the huge Jerry and he told me confidentially that if Bee was the last woman in the world and he was the last man, he'd take arsenic before he'd marry her! Both Pete and Jerry spoke affectionately of the farm's hard cider, which they swore had drug store gin and Long Island Scotch beaten forty ways for smoothness and potency. They said this stuff was the real McCoy and that Prohibition meant nothing in the life of a farmer—except that he helped put it over. Both of my boy friends seemed to have managed to get on the most intimate terms with Mr. Cider, particularly Peter.
"I didn't come back home a minute too soon, kid," he confides to me, swaying dizzily on the wagon seat. "My lovin' parents was on the brink of gettin' a divorce, but I patched all that up!"
"Why did they want to separate, Pete?" I asked him.
"Oh, nothin' in particular," says Pete, "but they been wed over fifty years now and they're kind of beginnin' to get on each other's nerves!"
A loud and unseemly chuckle from Hazel appeared to steam Pete and he shut up like our useful friend, the clam.
Well, honestly, by this time it was getting as dark as Harry Wills and we seemed to have lost our way. Jerry, a total loss, had crashed asleep, and Pete didn't look exactly like a victim of insomnia. The alarmed Hazel said the road we were on wasn't even faintly familiar to her.
We came to a deserted crossroads in the gloom and I sent Pete ahead to read the sign-post. After using up a box of matches trying to read the sign, Pete stag: gered back.
"Well, what does it say on that sign?" I asked him impatiently.
"Hic—I think it says—hic—no smokin' allowed!" answers Pete, and collapses under the wagon wheels, burying his face to the hilt in the mud. Ain't we got fun?
However, we finally arrived at the home of Pete's parents and they put me up very comfortably in a big bright room with Hazel. One of Peter's choice collection of brothers was sprawled all over the kitchen table, ravenously reading a three-year-old-magazine.
"Here, Frequent!" called his father. "Take the lady's grips upstairs!"
"Frequent?" I says, trying not to laugh in his son's weird features. "Isn't that a queer name for a human being?"
"Wal, you see, I was the eighth child," explained Frequent—and passed up the stairs with my suitcases.
In a few days I'd fitted myself into the gay life on the farm as if I'd never lived anywhere else, really. I resumed my acquaintance with Mr. Daft and Royal Underwood Corona, who battled furiously day and night over the constant changes the director kept making in Royal's novel while filming it. In fact, Royal barked and meowed that Mr. Daft had put everything into the picture but the battle of Chickamauga and all that was left of Royal's original story was its name. In return, Mr. Daft coolly told the raging Royal that the company had bought his book, "My Wife's Husband," for its box-office title only and not for the story, which neither Mr. Daft nor anybody connected with him had read or had the slightest intention of reading. At that, Royal rushed out of the house tearing his hair and fell on a hay pile in a hysterical condition!
One of the first persons I met on the farm was Bee Swenson, the hired girl that Pete claimed was wild over Jerry and greatly resembled a baboon. Well, after looking Bee over I was forced to admit that the hired girl had a face which must have greatly dismayed her parents when they first saw it. I felt awfully sorry for her, really; a glance at her would make any man remain a gentleman in her company no matter where they were! I didn't know then that Bee needed sympathy like I need a third ear. Bee had talents that more than overcame the handicap of her unbeautiful face!
Hazel and the unhappy Royal seemed to be getting along like sliced tomatoes and lettuce, while Mr. Daft fairly sprayed me with attention, but Synthetic itself and its inmates furnished me with sufficient in the way of amusement. There was old Judge Bass, former champion quoit pitcher of the county and now a contender for the checker title, who always announced to the children on his way to court, "Come right over—there's goin' to be a big hearin' this mornin'!" He'd then soak the unfortunate prisoners the limit, assuring them that they must have been guilty of whatever crime they were credited with or they wouldn't have been arrested. "Maybe I ain't so much on law," says Judge Bass, "but I'm strong on logic and no rapscallion can fule me!" I learned later that a handsome city chap had once sold his Worship a ten percent interest in the League of Nations for five thousand dollars!
Mr. Daft called Judge Bass a find and commandeered him into "My Wife's Husband" in his judicial role, paying him twenty fish a day. That didn't stop his Honor from bearing down heavy on Pete and Jerry when they were pinched for serenading me at three o'clock in the morning. These two masterpieces of imbecility had told me they sang wonderful harmony and I said I'd like to hear 'em sometime. This set of scofflaws got saturated with that two-fisted cider and that night they gave me the promised treat. The uncalled for open-air recital awoke the entire burg, including the constable, Mephistopheles Simpson, who took the choristers to the local hoosegow.
When they were brought before him, Judge Bass glared at the two trembling imported Broadway nightingales and ordered 'em to sing the song for him. Pete and Jerry smiled nervously cleared their throats and rendered the following operatic tidbit from "Carmen" in tones that rattled the window-panes:
Use the cuspidora, that's what it's fora!
With his fingers in his dumfounded ears, Judge Bass angrily called a halt and fined the boys ten dollars each, with the stern promise that if they ever came up before him again on a charge of singing, he'd send 'em to the penitentiary, where with those voices they belonged!
Then there was Ike Mason, the village blacksmith, who rowed an oversize dory ten miles out into the ocean and back on a bet. This feat of endurance, skill and lunacy took Isaac twenty-four hours and when he reached shore on the return trip it was found that the 100-pound anchor was overboard and dragging all the way. Also Hans Schmidt, the German shoemaxer, whose loyalty was questioned during the war. Thereupon Hans sat down and personally wrote a song dedicated to the local draftees and entitled, "Ve Are Caming py der Millions!" It cost Hans $250 to get this horrible ballad published and he was nearly lynched when it was discovered that the tune was criminally close to "Deutschland über Alles!"
Likewise Abner Young, so miserly he wouldn't give his daughter a middle initial. Abner built a catboat in his cellar one winter and had to break the craft up to get it out. Then let me present "Shiftless," the town loafer, who was leading Judge Bass's horse across an open plank bridge over the lake when the fiery steed reared, slipped out of the neck halter and fell overboard. Shiftless, annoyed at the animal's capers, flung the halter in the bathing fluid after it and continued blithely on his way. Or take Ulysses Grant Jones, the undertaker. Mons. Jones complained bitterly about the movie troupe's autos being parked in front of his place of business, on the grounds that "they're liable to prevent me from gettin' my bodies in!" And last but far from least, Hank Knowles, the druggist. Hank tired of moonshine, hard cider and plain alcohol, so he took a handful of prescriptions from his file, mixed 'em all up together and drank the result to get a thrill. He got one!
These and many others, too humorous to mention, kept me in a continual state of merriment and Mr. Daft seized upon them eagerly for "types" in his movie. He drafted the bulk of 'em as "extras" and soon had practically the entire metropolis working in the film, to the consternation of Royal Underwood Corona, who vainly protested at our super-director rewriting his book to fit these casual characters. Honestly, Mr. Daft even cameraed the mayor's trained dog, most of the town's babies and Zeb Whitcomb's prize two-headed calf.
The early rising and retiring hours, the wholesome food, the wonderful air and the fact that nobody knew where I was all made a decided hit with me, and I'm enjoying my stay immensely. I aided Pete's mother in putting up preserves and Pete showed me how to milk a cow. Neither me nor the bovine liked it.
But by far the most entertaining spectacle to me was the devotion of Bee Swenson for Jerry Murphy. Bee's pursuit of the ungainly Jerry bordered on the unmaidenly. She waited on him hand and foot. She gave him the choicest delicacies at a table where delicacies were at a premium and stood around watching him in mute but quite open admiration. Jerry viewed these unusual attentions with disgust and alarm. Through Pete I learned that Bee was a rabid reader of detective stories, and ninety percent of her infatuation for Jerry was based on the fact that he was house detective at the St. Moe. Bee was a bit vague as to what "house detective" meant, but she was positive that Jerry was a combination of Nick Carter and Sherlock Holmes with a dash of Hawkshaw.
Jerry got one chance to display his prowess as a sleuth when the Kift rabbits strangely disappeared from the farm. The night that happened, Jerry went to retrieve them and at daybreak he returned with fourteen cabbage-leaf addicts. Pete's mother told Jerry he did a good job, and Bee admiringly added that Jerry's recovery of the fourteen bunnies was particularly good in view of the fact that they had only lost eight!
Enthralled by the movie atmosphere, Bee naturally desired to enter pictures, but her face was her misfortune. She told that to me and the scornful Hazel and also bragged about her affection for the unresponsive Jerry, who she asserted was just "an elegant fellah!" I tried to get Mr. Daft interested but I might as well have tried to get him interested in ping-pong. However, I did manage to show Bee how to make her raven locks mean something and instructed her in the possibilities of a lip-stick and mascara. I likewise presented her with some raiment I was going to throw away anyhow. The result was a decided improvement. Bee wanted to pay me for the clothes and when I refused to accept, she said she'd saved forty dollars for something she'd wanted all her life and never had—silk undies. She added sorrowfully that probably nobody but herself would ever see her in 'em, yet nevertheless she'd personally get enough enjoyment out of standing before her mirror garbed in a sheer silk teddy to warrant any sacrifice.
This pathetic confession moved me to the point of giving Bee one of my prettiest combinations. The delighted Bee rushed to her room to don the lingerie and I went down to visit Jerry and Pete, who were confined to their beds, Pete as the result of upsetting a wasp's nest in search for more apples for cider, and Jerry through falling in the well. Royal came in while I was calling on the invalids, and in raving about the way Mr. Daft was murdering his story we got into a discussion on novels versus real life. Royal mentioned the farm as a place where nothing unusual would happen in ten generations, but being a strong believer that truth is stranger than fiction, I declared to the contrary. Royal's air of indulgent superiority captured my goat and I offered to prove I was right. I bet him a dozen pairs of silk stockings, intending to give them to Bee if I won.
About an hour later I happened to pass Bee's room. She called me in and I got the shock of my life. Arrayed in my discarded lingerie, Bee of the unlovely face had the most beautiful form I, you or anybody else ever saw! Honestly, her figure was a living definition of the word "ravishing" and it left me breathless with admiration for a work of art. From shoulders to instep Bee's every curve—and she had plenty—was an undiluted thrill, but her legs were her piece de resistance. As I gazed on Bee's dimpled knees I was certain that I was viewing the most entrancing pair of limbs in the wide, wide world. I wondered what the unimpressed Jerry would say if he knew—but you follow me, don't you?
Bee appeared to be unconscious of her remarkable charms, but I soon convinced her that she was a world beater. I pondered long after I left her on her peculiar and unfortunate predicament—possessor of the homeliest face and the most beautiful form in Christendom! I wanted to help Bee cash in on her attractions in some legitimate way, but I could think of nothing to assist her. Mr. Daft wouldn't even consent to look at her in a bathing suit.
At this critical period, Scoop Murphy, Mr. Daft's press agent, appeared on the scene. Scoop wanted photographs of all the female legs in the company. Why? The Cant-Rip Hosiery Company had offered a prize of a thousand dollars, a gross of Cant-Rip stockings and several other inducements to the possessor of the world's most beautiful legs. Photographs were to be submitted without names—merely a mark of identification. Scoop hoped that one of Mr. Daft's employees would win the prize and the ensuing publicity, so he photographed the lower extremities of Hazel and the other girls who were working in Mr. Daft's picture.
Well, that thousand dollars looked good to me, so I entered my own limbs—unknown to Hazel—and then my thoughts immediately flashed to the beautiful legs of Bee. I explained the hired girl to Scoop and he was enthusiastic. Between us we overcame Bee's embarrassed objections to the—to her—immodesty of the thing, and photographed her fascinating legs.
Well, they finally finished filming "My Wife's Husband" at Synthetic and we all went back to New York, where, as I figured, the photo of Bee's knees was announced as winner of the Cant-Rip Hosiery Contest. Then plenty excitement! Scoop induced the hypnotized Bee to sign a five-year contract with Mr. Daft, flooded the country with stories about her, how she was "discovered" by Mr. Daft on a farm, how her limbs have been insured for a hundred thousand dollars, etc., etc., etc.
Within two days you couldn't pick up a newspaper without seeing a photo of Bee's knees. She got offers to pose for noted artists, go into vaudeville and what-not. But the scream to me was Jerry! This almost Sherlock Holmes, realizing what he had lost, tried to win Bee, but she gave him the air haughtily. She was now Scoop's girl friend!
Bee was grateful to me for my assistance, but she gloated over Hazel's failure to win the prize. The exhired girl sighed that the fresh butter, milk and air, the cackling chickens, the mooing cows, the familiar haystacks and farmhands were now a thing of the past; Bee had exchanged these priceless things for noisy, stuffy, gaudy New York.
"You're sorry?" I asked her.
"Yes," says Bee, crossing her legs with raised skirt, a now unbreakable habit, "I'm sorry I didn't leave that darned old farm and come here long ago!"
As proof of my contention that anything could happen anywhere, I presented the case of Bee to Royal and won the dozen pairs of stockings—which I kept, as Bee had more stockings now than she'd ever wear!
A few days later I got a package in the mail from Scoop. Opening it I found a photograph and a note. I won't annoy you with the picture, but here's the note:
Dear Gladys:
I am herewith returning the photo of your charming—er—limbs. It's too bad you didn't win with them. They'd win anywhere else, that's a cinch! I wish you'd autograph them and send them back to me.
I looked at the picture. Then I gave a start. The legs in the photograph were undoubtedly beautiful, no fooling, they were immense. There was another thing about them that strangely interested me—they weren't mine! They were Bee's!
On the breakfast table was the morning paper and staring right at me was a photograph of the prizewinning limbs. I recognized a well remembered and unusual design on the stockings. Then I got the answer—in some way Scoop had mixed the photos up, and the picture that won the prize was a picture of my legs, not Bee's!
Well, naturally my first impulse was to rush to Scoop and disclose to him this serious mistake, thus dethroning the happy Bee. Scoop's wire was busy, which gave me a chance to reflect. Never again will I think—brains ruined Caesar! I thought a thing such as this was Bee's only chance to rise from oblivion. I have other attractions, many more opportunities, so I decided to let matters stand as they were; and I was complacently gazing at my uncrowned but rightful heirs to the title of the world's most beautiful legs when Hazel enters.
"Can you imagine that hired girl winning?" asks Hazel indignantly. "Why, that contest was nothing but a frame-up! If my legs aren't prettier than that homely Scandinavian's, I'll eat 'em. Why, Gladys, even yours are as pretty as hers—you should have taken a chance and entered the thing!"
"I wish now I had," I says with an odd smile, "but then legs are so hard to identify, the judges might never have known mine from the others."
"Well, I would," says Hazel. "You have such a bony instep, dear!"
Don't you love that?