After luncheon we adjourned to the living-room and Ben went straight to the piano.
“Here! Here! None of that!” said Mrs. Thayer. “I haven’t forgotten my promise.”
“What promise?” asked Ben.
“Didn’t your wife tell you? I promised her faithfully that if you visited us, you wouldn’t be allowed to touch the piano.”
“But I want to,” said Ben. “There’s a melody in my head that I’d like to try.”
“Oh, yes, I know all about that,” said Mrs. Thayer. “You just think you’ve got to entertain us! Nothing doing! We invited you here for yourself, not to enjoy your talent. I’d be a fine one to ask you to my home for a rest and then make you perform.”
“You’re not making me,” said Ben. “Honestly I want to play for just five or ten minutes. I’ve got a tune that I might do something with and I’m anxious to run it over.”
“I don’t believe you, you naughty man!” said our hostess. “Your wife has told you how wild we are about your music and you’re determined to be nice to us. But I’m just as stubborn as you are. Not one note do you play as long as you’re our guest!”
Ben favored me with a stricken look, mumbled something about unpacking his suitcase—it was already unpacked—and went up to our room, where he stayed nearly an hour, jotting down his new tune, smoking Jaguar after Jaguar and wishing that black coffee flowed from bathtub faucets.
About a quarter of four Mr. Thayer insisted on taking him around the place and showing him the shrubbery, something that held in Ben’s mind a place of equal importance to the grade of wire used in hairpins.
“I’ll have to go to business tomorrow,” said Mr. Thayer, “and you will be left to amuse yourself. I thought you might enjoy this planting more if you knew a little about it. Of course it’s much prettier in the spring of the year.”
“I can imagine so.”
“You must come over next spring and see it.”
“I’m usually busy in the spring,” said Ben.
“Before we go in,” said Mr. Thayer, “I’d like to ask you one question: Do tunes come into your mind and then you write them down, or do you just sit at the piano and improvise until you strike something good?”
“Sometimes one way and sometimes the other,” said Ben.
“That’s very interesting,” said Mr. Thayer. “I’ve often wondered how it was done. And another question: Do you write the tunes first and then give them to the men who write the words, or do the men write the words first and then give them to you to make up the music to them?”
“Sometimes one way and sometimes the other,” said Ben.
“That’s very interesting,” said Mr. Thayer. “It’s something I’m glad to know. And now we’d better join the ladies or my wife will say I’m monopolizing you.”
They joined us, much to my relief. I had just reached a point where I would either have had to tell “Hilda” exactly how much Ben earned per annum or that it was none of her business.
“Well!” said Mrs. Thayer to Ben. “I was afraid Ralph had kidnapped you.”
“He was showing me the shrubbery,” said Ben.
“What did you think of it?”
“It’s great shrubbery,” said Ben, striving to put some warmth into his voice.
“You must come and see it in the spring.”
“I’m usually busy in the spring.”
“Ralph and I are mighty proud of our shrubbery.”
“You have a right to be.”
Ben was taking a book out of the bookcase.
“What book is that?” asked Mrs. Thayer.
“The Great Gatsby,” said Ben. “I’ve always wanted to read it but never got around to it.”
“Heavens!” said Mrs. Thayer as she took it away from him. “That’s old! You’ll find the newest ones there on the table. We keep pretty well up to date. Ralph and I are both great readers. Just try any one of those books in that pile. They’re all good.”
Ben glanced them over and selected Chevrons. He sat down and opened it.
“Man! Man!” exclaimed Mrs. Thayer. “You’ve picked the most uncomfortable chair in the house!”
“He likes straight chairs,” I said.
“That’s on the square,” said Ben.
“But you mustn’t sit there,” said Mrs. Thayer. “It makes me uncomfortable just to look at you. Take this chair here. It’s the softest, nicest chair you’ve ever sat in.”
“I like hard straight chairs,” said Ben, but he sank into the soft, nice one and again opened his book.
“Oh, you never can see there!” said Mrs. Thayer. “You’ll ruin your eyes! Get up just a minute and let Ralph move your chair by that lamp.”
“I can see perfectly well.”
“I know better! Ralph, move his chair so he can see.”
“I don’t believe I want to read just now anyway,” said Ben, and went to the phonograph. “Bess,” he said, putting on a record, “here’s that ‘Oh! Miss Hannah!’ by the Revelers.”
Mrs. Thayer fairly leaped to his side, and herded Miss Hannah back into her stall.
“We’ve got lots later ones than that,” she said. “Let me play you the new Gershwins.”
It was at this juncture that I began to suspect our hostess of a lack of finesse. After all, Gershwin is a rival of my husband’s and, in some folks’ opinion, a worthy one. However, Ben had a word of praise for each record as it ended and did not even hint that any of the tunes were based on melodies of his own.
“Mr. Drake,” said our host at length, “would you like a gin cocktail or a Bacardi?”
“I don’t like Bacardi at all,” said Ben.
“I’ll bet you will like the kind I’ve got,” said Mr. Thayer. “It was brought to me by a friend of mine who just got back from Cuba. It’s the real stuff!”
“I don’t like Bacardi,” said Ben.
“Wait till you taste this,” said Mr. Thayer.
Well, we had Bacardi cocktails. I
