“Yes, I know. Now let’s have the clippings.”
Lewis laid them on the desk.
“I threw away about ten of them that were all the same—the announcement that you had signed Bonnie Blue for next season. There’s one there that speaks of a possible partnership between you and Sam Stein—”
“What a nerve he’s got, giving out a statement like that. Fine chance of me mixing myself up with a crook like Stein! Peebles says he’s a full stepbrother to the James boys. So is Peebles himself, for that matter. What’s this long one about?”
“It’s about that young composer, Casper Ettelson. It’s by Deems Taylor of the World. There’s just a mention of you down at the bottom.”
“Read it to me, will you? I’ve overstrained my eyes lately.”
The dead Herman Plant had first heard of that recent eye strain twenty years ago. It amounted to almost total blindness where words of over two syllables were concerned.
“So far,” Lewis read, “Ettelson has not had a book worthy of his imaginative, whimsical music. How we would revel in an Ettelson score with a Barrie libretto and a Conrad Green production.”
“Who is this Barrie?” asked Green.
“I suppose it’s James M. Barrie,” replied Lewis, “the man who wrote Peter Pan.”
“I thought that was written by a fella over in England,” said Green.
“I guess he does live in England. He was born in Scotland. I don’t know where he is now.”
“Well, find out if he’s in New York, and, if he is, get a hold of him. Maybe he’ll do a couple of scenes for our next show. Come in, Miss Jackson. Oh, the papers!”
Miss Jackson handed them to him and went out. Green turned first to the society page of the Herald Tribune. His eye trouble was not so severe as to prevent his finding that page. And he could read his name when it was there to be read.
Three paragraphs were devoted to the Bryant-Walker affair, two of them being lists of names. And Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Green were left out.
“⸻!” commented Green, and grabbed the other papers. The World and Times were searched with the same hideous result. And the others did not mention the party at all.
“⸻!” repeated Green. “I’ll get somebody for this!” Then, to Lewis: “Here! Take this telegram. Send it to the managing editors of all the morning papers; you’ll find their names pasted on Plant’s desk. Now: ‘Ask your society editor why my name was not on list of guests at Bryant-Walker dinner Wednesday night. Makes no difference to me, as am not seeking and do not need publicity, but it looks like conspiracy, and thought you ought to be informed, as have always been good friend of your paper, as well as steady advertiser.’ I guess that’s enough.”
“If you’ll pardon a suggestion,” said Lewis, “I’m afraid a telegram like this would just be laughed at.”
“You send the telegram; I’m not going to have a bunch of cheap reporters make a fool of me!”
“I don’t believe you can blame the reporters. There probably weren’t reporters there. The list of guests is generally given out by the people who give the party.”
“But listen—” Green paused and thought. “All right. Don’t send the telegram. But if the Bryant-Walkers are ashamed of me, why the hell did they invite me? I certainly didn’t want to go and they weren’t under obligations to me. I never—”
As if it had been waiting for its cue, the telephone rang at this instant, and Kate, the switchboard girl, announced that the Bryant-Walkers’ secretary was on the wire.
“I am speaking for Mrs. Bryant-Walker,” said a female voice. “She is chairman of the committee on entertainment for the Women’s Progress Bazaar. The bazaar is to open on the third of next month and wind up on the evening of the fifth with a sort of vaudeville entertainment. She wanted me to ask you—”
Green hung up with an oath.
“That’s the answer!” he said. “The damn grafters!”
Miss Jackson came in again.
“Mr. Robert Blair is waiting to see you.”
“Who is he?”
“You know. He tried to write some things for one of the shows last year.”
“Oh, yes. Say, did you send flowers to Plant’s house?”
“I did,” replied Miss Jackson. “I sent some beautiful roses.”
“How much?”
“Forty-five dollars,” said Miss Jackson.
“Forty-five dollars for roses! And the man hated flowers even when he was alive! Well, send in this Blair.”
Robert Blair was an ambitious young freelance who had long been trying to write for the stage, but with little success.
“Sit down, Blair,” said Green. “What’s on your mind?”
“Well, Mr. Green, my stuff didn’t seem to suit you last year, but this time I think I’ve got a scene that can’t miss.”
“All right. If you want to leave it here, I’ll read it over.”
“I haven’t written it out. I thought I’d tell you the idea first.”
“Well, go ahead, but cut it short; I’ve got a lot of things to do today. Got to go to old Plant’s funeral for one thing.”
“I bet you miss him, don’t you?” said Blair, sympathetically.
“Miss him! I should say I do! A lovable character and”—with a glance at Lewis—“the best secretary I’ll ever have. But let’s hear your scene.”
“Well,” said Blair, “it may not sound like much the way I tell it, but I think it’ll work out great. Well, the police get a report that a woman has been murdered in her home, and they go there and find her husband, who is acting very nervous. They give him the third degree, and he finally breaks down and admits he killed her. They ask him why, and he tells them he is very fond of beans, and on the preceding evening he came home to dinner and asked her what there was to eat, and she told him she had lamb chops, mashed potatoes, spinach, and apple pie. So he says, ‘No beans?’ and she says, ‘No beans.’
