steal the brooch and he puts it in his pocket.
“Of course Pizzola’s sister is also on the yachting party. All of a sudden she misses her brooch. She recalls having left it in the clothes she lent to Enriqueta. She goes to Enriqueta and asks her for it and the poor Spanish dame can’t find it. Then Pizzola’s sister calls her a thief and Pizzola himself can’t help thinking she is one.
“They demand that she be searched, but rather than submit to that indignity, she bribes a sailor to take her off the yacht in a small launch and the last we see of her she’s climbing overboard to get into the launch while the rest of the party are all abusing her. That’s your first act curtain.
“I’d open the second act with a paddock scene at the Saratoga racetrack. We’ll write a jockey number and have about eight boys and maybe twenty-four gals in jockey suits. Enriqueta’s father has gone broke in the restaurant business and he’s up here looking for a job as assistant trainer or something. He used to train horses for the bullfights in Spain.
“The gal is along with him and they run into the Frenchman that stole the brooch. The Frenchman tries to make love to the gal, but she won’t have anything to do with him. While they are talking, who should come up but Pizzola! He is willing to make up with Enriqueta even though he still thinks her a thief. She won’t meet his advances.
“He asks the Frenchman for a light. The Frenchman has a patent lighter and in pulling it out of his pocket, he pulls the brooch out, too. Then Pizzola realizes what an injustice he has done the gal and he pretty near goes down on his knees to her, but she has been badly hurt and won’t forgive him yet.
“Now we have a scene in the café in the clubhouse and Stein is one of the waiters there. He sings the Montgomery number with a chorus of waiters and lunchers and at the end of the number he and the Spanish gal are alone on the stage.
“She asks him if he is really going to Montgomery and he says yes, and she says she and her father will go with him. She is anxious to go some place where there is no danger of running into the Frenchman or Pizzola.
“The third scene in the second act ought to be a plantation in Alabama. Stein is working there and the negroes are having a celebration or revival of some kind. Louie, you can get a male quartet to sing us some spirituals.
“Enriqueta’s father has landed a job as cook at the plantation and she is helping with the housework. Pizzola and his sister follow her to Montgomery and come out to see her at the plantation.
“They are about to go up on the porch and inquire for her when they hear her singing the Spanish number. This proves to Pizzola that she still loves him and he finally gets his sister to plead with her for forgiveness. She forgives him. He tells her who he really is and how much dough he’s got. And that pretty near washes us up.”
“But how about our Japanese number?” said Moon.
“That’s right,” Morris said. “We’ll have to send them to Japan before we end it. I’ve got a cherry-blossom number that must have the right setting. But that’s easy to fix. You make these few changes I’ve suggested, Mr. Hazlett, and I feel that we’ve got a hit.
“And I want to say that your book is a whole lot better than most of the books they hand us. About the fella falling in love with the gal’s picture—that’s a novelty idear.”
Hazlett said goodbye to his producer and collaborators, went home by taxi and called up his bootlegger.
“Harry,” he said, “what kind of whiskey have you got?”
“Well, Mr. Hazlett, I can sell you some good Scotch, but I ain’t so sure of the rye. In fact, I’m kind of scared of it.”
“How soon can you bring me a case?”
“Right off quick. It’s the Scotch you want, ain’t it?”
“No,” said Hazlett. “I want the rye.”
Liberty Hall
My husband is in Atlantic City, where they are trying out Dear Dora, the musical version of David Copperfield. My husband wrote the score. He used to take me along for these out-of-town openings, but not anymore.
He, of course, has to spend almost all his time in the theater and that leaves me alone in the hotel, and pretty soon people find out whose wife I am and introduce themselves, and the next thing you know they are inviting us for a week or a weekend at Dobbs Ferry or Oyster Bay. Then it is up to me to think of some legitimate-sounding reason why we can’t come.
In lots of cases they say, “Well, if you can’t make it the twenty-second, how about the twenty-ninth?” and so on till you simply have to accept. And Ben gets mad and stays mad for days.
He absolutely abhors visiting and thinks there ought to be a law against invitations that go beyond dinner and bridge. He doesn’t mind hotels where there is a decent light for reading in bed and one for shaving, and where you can order meals, with coffee, any time you want them. But I really believe he would rather spend a week in the death house at Sing Sing than in somebody else’s home.
Three or four years ago we went around quite a lot with a couple whom I will call the Buckleys. We liked them and they liked us. We had dinner together at least twice a week and after dinner we played bridge or went to a show or just sat and talked.
Ben never turned down their invitations and often actually called them up himself and suggested parties. Finally they moved to Albany on account of Mr. Buckley’s business. We
