THE IDLE BORN
A COMEDY OF MANNERS
By H. C. Chatfield-Taylor, in collaboration with
Reginald de Koven
PART I
ONE EVENING
I
They are so linked in friendship.
DOUBLE drawing-rooms, with stiff-backed chairs and damask curtains, were not to Dickie Willing's taste. They might be the natural concomitants of Washington Square and a Dutch ancestry, but in his opinion they were decidedly out of date.
"If there's a dinner on, we'll wait," he said, glancing about the room with a bored air.
"There's only Mr. Schuyler's nephew, sir, and Mr. Wendell," answered the imperturbable servant who had shown him in.
"Then say that Herr von Bulowitz and Mr. Willing are here," Dickie continued, indifferently.
"Very good, sir," and the man vanished, just as a little red-faced German, with the proportions of a peg-top, stumbled over the door-sill, almost dropping a violin case he bore tenderly in his arms. He had little pig-like eyes and his hair was gray and fluffy, like the wool of a Peruvian llama. This hair was the maestro's stock-in-trade. It was that people came to see. Incidentally, he played the violin.
Herr von Bulowitz shivered. "The climate is like the New York woman," he muttered, "beautiful, but damn cold."
"Therein it resembles your audiences," answered Dickie, laconically. Then his eve met the portrait of a fat-faced burgher of New Amsterdam hanging over the mantelpiece. He wondered whether the painting was real or merely the imagery of the special vintage he had drunk for dinner.
"Sir, I am the great Von Bulowitz," said the little German, drawing him- self up proudly. "The big public, they adore me; but society—bah!"
"See here," interrupted Willing, "I've got you a cool five hundred for to-night; so the less you kick about it the better. You may think it's your playing people want. Don't fool yourself; it's your hair."
"Gott im Himmel, so! I vill not play," exclaimed Von Bulowitz, the color of his face changing from carnelian to carmine.
"Oh, yes, you will," answered Dickie, dryly; "you wouldn't let that five hundred get away."
For a moment the little Teuton paced the floor excitedly, muttering German oaths; then he subsided into an arm-chair and hugged his violin. Meanwhile, Dickie Willing gazed at his own reflection in the pier-glass. There was, however, little reason for his self-appreciation beyond the fit of his clothes and the smoothness with which his hair was brushed. Dickie lived by his wits, and lived well. Once he had had some money. That he lost it is not surprising, but that he managed to make himself indispensable to society as a purveyor of entertainments, without losing caste, proved that he had that rare tact which creates popularity for its possessor. When a hostess wished a novelty, were it cotillion favors or virtuosi, she went to Dickie, and Dickie was always ready to oblige her—at so much per idea.
