“What do you study?” ast Kate.
“The parts I want to play,” he says; “Hamlet and Macbeth and Richard.”
“But you’re a comedian,” says Kate.
“It’s just a stepping stone,” said Ralston.
He’d finished his breakfast and got up.
“I must go to my study and work,” he says. “We’ll meet again.”
“Yes, indeed,” says Ella. “Do you always come right back here nights after the show?”
“When I can get away from the pests,” he says.
“Well,” says Ella, “suppose you come up to our rooms tonight and we’ll have a bite to eat. And I think the husband can give you a little liquid refreshments if you ever indulge.”
“Very little,” he says. “What is your room number?”
So the Mrs. told him and he said he’d see us after the show that night, and walked out.
“Well,” said Ella, “how do you like him?”
“I think he’s wonderful!” says Katie. “I didn’t have no idear he was so deep, wanting to play Hamlet.”
“Pretty near all comedians has got that bug,” I says.
“Maybe he’s different when you know him better,” said Ella.
“I don’t want him to be different,” says Kate.
“But he was so serious,” said the Mrs. “He didn’t say nothing funny.”
“Sure he did,” I says. “Didn’t he say artists hate to talk about themselfs?”
Pretty soon the waiter come in with our lunch. He ast us if the other gentleman was coming back.
“No,” said Ella. “He’s through.”
“He forgot his check,” says the dish smasher.
“Oh, never mind!” says Ella. “We’ll take care of that.”
“Well,” I says, “I guess the bird was telling the truth when he said he didn’t need no money.”
I and the gals spent the evening at a picture show and stopped at a delicatessen on the way home to stock up for the banquet. I had a quart and a pint of yearling rye, and a couple of bottles of McAllister that they’d fined me fifteen smackers apiece for and I wanted to save them, so I told Kate that I hoped her friend would get comical enough on the rye.
“He said he drunk very little,” she reminded me.
“Remember, don’t make him talk about himself,” said the Mrs. “What we want is to have him feel at home, like he was with old friends, and then maybe he’ll warm up. I hope we don’t wake the whole hotel, laughing.”
Well, Ralston showed about midnight. He’d remembered his date and apologized for not getting there before.
“I like to walk home from the theater,” he says. “I get some of my funniest idears wile I walk.”
I come to the conclusion later that he spent practically his whole life riding.
Ella’s and my room wasn’t no gymnasium for size and after the third drink, Ralston tried to get to the dresser to look at himself in the glass, and knocked a $30 vase for a corpse. This didn’t go very big with the Mrs., but she forced a smile and would of accepted his apology if he’d made any. All he done was mumble something about cramped quarters. They was even more cramped when we set the table for the big feed, and it was my tough luck to have our guest park himself in the chair nearest the clothes closet, where my two bottles of Scotch had been put to bed. The fourth snifter finished the pint of rye and I said I’d get the other quart, but before I could stop her, Ella says:
“Let Mr. Ralston get it. It’s right there by him.”
So the next thing you know, James has found the good stuff and he comes out with both bottles of it.
“McAllister!” he says. “That’s my favorite. If I’d knew you had that, I wouldn’t of drank up all your rye.”
“You haven’t drank it all up,” I says. “They’s another bottle of it in there.”
“It can stay there as long as we got this,” he says, and helped himself to the corkscrew.
Well, amongst the knickknacks the gals had picked up at the delicatessen was a roast chicken and a bottle of olives, and at the time I thought Ralston was swallowing bones, stones and all. It wasn’t till the next day that we found all these keepsakes on the floor, along with a couple dozen assorted cigarette butts.
Katie’s chorus gal friend had told her how funny the guy was when he’d had just the right number of shots, but I’d counted eight and begin to get discouraged before he started talking.
“My mother could certainly cook a chicken,” he says.
“Is your mother living?” Kate ast him.
“No,” he says. “She was killed in a railroad wreck. I’ll never forget when I had to go and identify her. You wouldn’t believe a person could get that mangled! No,” he says, “my family’s all gone. I never seen my father. He was in the pesthouse with smallpox when I was born and he died there. And my only sister died of jaundice. I can still—”
But Kate was scared we’d wake up the hotel, laughing, so she says: “Do you ever give imitations?”
“You mustn’t make Mr. Ralston talk about himself,” says Ella.
“Imitations of who?” said Ralston.
“Oh, other actors,” said Katie.
“No,” he says. “I leave it to the other actors to give imitations of me.”
“I never seen none of them do it,” says Kate.
“They all do it, but they don’t advertise it,” he says. “Every comic in New York is using my stuff.”
“Oh!” said Ella. “You mean they steal your idears.”
“Can’t you go after them for it?” ast Katie.
“You could charge them with petit larceny,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be mean,” said Ralston. “But they ain’t a comic on the stage today that I
