But my most exclusive token
Is a little hangnail broken
Off the gal from Gussie’s School for Manicures.
And his real sweet patootie comes on made up as a scissors.
You’ve saw Ralston? He’s a good comedian; no getting away from that. The way he fixes up his face, you laugh just to look at him. I yelled when I first seen him. He was supposed to be an office boy and he got back late from lunch and the boss ast him what made him late and he said he stopped to buy the extra. So the boss ast him what extra and he says the extra about the New York society couple getting married. So the boss said, “Why, they wouldn’t print an extra about that. They’s a New York society couple married most every day.” So Ralston said, “Yes, but this couple is both doing it for the first time.”
I don’t remember what other gags he had, and they’re old anyway by now. But he was a hit, especially with Ella and Kate. They screamed so loud I thought we’d get the air. If he didn’t say a word, he’d be funny with that fool makeup and that voice.
I guess if it wasn’t for me the gals would of insisted on going back to the stage door after the show and waiting for him to come out. I’ve saw Katie bad a lot of times, but never as cuckoo as this. It wasn’t no case of love at first or second sight. You couldn’t be stuck on this guy from seeing him. But she’d always been kind of stage-struck and was crazy over the idear of getting acquainted with a celebrity, maybe going round to places with him, and having people see her with Jimmy Ralston, the comedian. And then, of course, most anybody wants to meet a person that can make you laugh.
I managed to persuade them that the best dope would be to go back to the Graham and wait for him to come home; maybe we could fix it up with the night clerk to introduce us. I told them that irregardless of what you read in books, they’s some members of the theatrical profession that occasionally visits the place where they sleep. So we went to the hotel and set in the lobby for an hour and a half, me trying to keep awake wile the gals played Ralston’s part of the show over again a couple thousand times. They’s nothing goes so big with me as listening to people repeat gags out of a show that I just seen.
The clerk had been tipped off and when Ralston finally come in and went to get his key, I strolled up to the desk like I was after mine. The clerk introduced us.
“I want you to meet my wife and sister-in-law,” I said.
“Some other time,” says Ralston. “They’s a matinée tomorrow and I got to run off to bed.”
So off he went and I got bawled out for Ziegfeld having matinées. But I squared myself two days afterwards when we went in the restaurant for lunch. He was just having breakfast and the three of us stopped by his table. I don’t think he remembered ever seeing me before, but anyway he got up and shook hands with the women. Well, you couldn’t never accuse Ella of having a faint heart, and she says:
“Can’t we set down with you, Mr. Ralston? We want to tell you how much we enjoyed the Follies.”
So he says, sure, set down, but I guess we would of anyway.
“We thought it was a dandy show,” says Katie.
“It ain’t a bad troupe,” says Ralston.
“If you’ll pardon me getting personal,” said Ella, “we thought you was the best thing in it.”
He looked like he’d strain a point and forgive her.
“We all just yelled!” says Katie. “I was afraid they’d put us out, you made us laugh so hard.”
“Well,” says Ralston, “I guess if they begin putting people out for that, I’d have to leave the troupe.”
“It wouldn’t be much of a show without you,” says Ella.
“Well, all that keeps me in it is friendship for Ziggy,” says Ralston. “I said to him last night, I says, ‘Ziggy, I’m going to quit the troupe. I’m tired and I want to rest a wile.’ So he says, ‘Jim, don’t quit or I’ll have to close the troupe. I’ll give you fifteen hundred a week to stay.’ I’m getting a thousand now. But I says to him, I said, ‘Ziggy, it ain’t a question of money. What I want is a troupe of my own, where I get a chance to do serious work. I’m sick of making a monkey of myself in front of a bunch of saps from Nyack that don’t appreciate no art but what’s wrapped up in a stocking.’ So he’s promised that if I’ll stick it out this year, he’ll star me next season in a serious piece.”
“Is he giving you the five hundred raise?” I ast him.
“I wouldn’t take it,” said Ralston. “I don’t need money.”
“At that, a person can live pretty cheap at this hotel,” I says.
“I didn’t move here because it was cheap,” he said. “I moved here to get away from the pests—women that wants my autograph or my picture. And all they could say
