第17章

"'Child,' says she, 'you're the most beautiful creature I ever saw in my life.I want you to quit your work and come and live with me.I've no kith or kin,' says she, 'except a husband and a son or two, and I hold no communication with any of 'em.They're extravagant burdens on a hard-working woman.I want you to be a daughter to me.They say I'm stingy and mean, and the papers print lies about my doing my own cooking and washing.It's a lie,' she goes on.'I put my washing out, except the handkerchiefs and stockings and petticoats and collars, and light stuff like that.I've got forty million dollars in cash and stocks and bonds that are as negotiable as Standard Oil, preferred, at a church fair.I'm a lonely old woman and I need companionship.You're the most beautiful human being I ever saw,' says she.'Will you come and live with me? I'll show 'em whether I can spend money or not,' she says.

"Well, Man, what would you have done? Of course, I fell to it.And, to tell you the truth, I began to like old Maggie.It wasn't all on account of the forty millions and what she could do for me.I was kind of lonesome in the world too.Everybody's got to have somebody they can explain to about the pain in their left shoulder and how fast patent-leather shoes wear out when they begin to crack.And you can't talk about such things to men you meet in hotels--they're looking for just such openings.

"So I gave up my job in the hotel and went with Mrs.Brown.I certainly seemed to have a mash on her.She'd look at me for half an hour at a time when I was sitting, reading, or looking at the magazines.

"One time I says to her: 'Do I remind you of some deceased relative or friend of your childhood, Mrs.Brown? I've noticed you give me a pretty good optical inspection from time to time.'

"'You have a face,' she says, 'exactly like a dear friend of mine--the best friend I ever had.But I like you for yourself, child, too,' she says.

"And say, Man, what do you suppose she did? Loosened up like a Marcel wave in the surf at Coney.She took me to a swell dressmaker and gave her /a la carte/ to fit me out--money no object.They were rush orders, and madame locked the front door and put the whole force to work.

"Then we moved to--where do you think?--no; guess again--that's right --the Hotel Bonton.We had a six-room apartment; and it cost $100 a day.I saw the bill.I began to love that old lady.

"And then, Man, when my dresses began to come in--oh, I won't tell you about 'em! you couldn't understand.And I began to call her Aunt Maggie.You've read about Cinderella, of course.Well, what Cinderella said when the prince fitted that 3 1/2 A on her foot was a hard-luck story compared to the things I told myself.

"Then Aunt Maggie says she is going to give me a coming-out banquet in the Bonton that'll make moving Vans of all the old Dutch families on Fifth Avenue.

"'I've been out before, Aunt Maggie,' says I.'But I'll come out again.But you know,' says I, 'that this is one of the swellest hotels in the city.And you know--pardon me--that it's hard to get a bunch of notables together unless you've trained for it.'

"'Don't fret about that, child,' says Aunt Maggie.'I don't send out invitations--I issue orders.I'll have fifty guests here that couldn't be brought together again at any reception unless it were given by King Edward or William Travers Jerome.They are men, of course, and all of 'em either owe me money or intend to.Some of their wives won't come, but a good many will.'

"Well, I wish you could have been at that banquet.The dinner service was all gold and cut glass.There were about forty men and eight ladies present besides Aunt Maggie and I.You'd never have known the third richest woman in the world.She had on a new black silk dress with so much passementerie on it that it sounded exactly like a hailstorm I heard once when I was staying all night with a girl that lived in a top-floor studio.

"And my dress!--say, Man, I can't waste the words on you.It was all hand-made lace--where there was any of it at all--and it cost $300.I saw the bill.The men were all bald-headed or white-whiskered, and they kept up a running fire of light repartee about 3-per cents.and Bryan and the cotton crop.

"On the left of me was something that talked like a banker, and on my right was a young fellow who said he was a newspaper artist.He was the only--well, I was going to tell you.

"After the dinner was over Mrs.Brown and I went up to the apartment.