Mac leaned his massive shoulders comfortably against the building, and resumed his chat.
“I expect you’re feeling very ‘appy today, sir?”
George pondered. He was certainly feeling better since he had seen Billie Dore, but he was far from being himself.
“I ought to be, I suppose. But I’m not.”
“Ah, you’re getting blarzy, sir, that’s what it is. You’ve ‘ad too much of the fat, you ‘ave. This piece was a big ‘it in America, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It ran over a year in New York, and there are three companies of it out now.”
“That’s ‘ow it is, you see. You’ve gone and got blarzy. Too big a ‘elping of success, you’ve ‘ad.” Mac wagged a head like a harvest moon. “You aren’t a married man, are you, sir?”
Billie Dore finished skimming through her mail, and crumpled the letters up into a large ball, which she handed to Mac.
“Here’s something for you to read in your spare moments, Mac. Glance through them any time you have a suspicion you may be a chump, and you’ll have the comfort of knowing that there are others. What were you saying about being married?”
“Mr. Bevan and I was ‘aving a talk about ‘im being blarzy, miss.”
“Are you blarzy, George?”
“So Mac says.”
“And why is he blarzy, miss?” demanded Mac rhetorically.
“Don’t ask me,” said Billie. “It’s not my fault.”
“It’s because, as I was saying, ‘e’s ‘ad too big a ‘elping of success, and because ‘e ain’t a married man. You did say you wasn’t a married man, didn’t you, sir?”
“I didn’t. But I’m not.”
“That’s ‘ow it is, you see. You pretty soon gets sick of pulling off good things, if you ain’t got nobody to pat you on the back for doing of it. Why, when I was single, if I got ‘old of a sure thing for the three o’clock race and picked up a couple of quid, the thrill of it didn’t seem to linger somehow. But now, if some of the gentlemen that come ‘ere put me on to something safe and I make a bit, ‘arf the fascination of it is taking the stuff ‘ome and rolling it on to the kitchen table and ‘aving ‘er pat me on the back.”
“How about when you lose?”
“I don’t tell ‘er,” said Mac simply.
“You seem to understand the art of being happy, Mac.”
“It ain’t an art, sir. It’s just gettin’ ‘old of the right little woman, and ‘aving a nice little ‘ome of your own to go back to at night.”
“Mac,” said Billie admiringly, “you talk like a Tin Pan Alley song hit, except that you’ve left out the scent of honeysuckle and Old Mister Moon climbing up over the trees. Well, you’re quite right. I’m all for the simple and domestic myself. If I could find the right man, and he didn’t see me coming and duck, I’d become one of the Mendelssohn’s March Daughters right away. Are you going, George? There’s a rehearsal at two-thirty for cuts.”
“I want to get the evening papers and send off a cable or two. See you later.”
“We shall meet at Philippi.”
Mac eyed George’s retreating back till he had turned the corner.
“A nice pleasant gentleman, Mr. Bevan,” he said. “Too bad ‘e’s got the pip the way ‘e ‘as, just after ‘avin’ a big success like this ‘ere. Comes of bein’ a artist, I suppose.”
Miss Dore dived into her vanity case and produced a puff with which she proceeded to powder her nose.
“All composers are nuts, Mac. I was in a show once where the manager was panning the composer because there wasn’t a number in the score that had a tune to it. The poor geek admitted they weren’t very tuney, but said the thing about his music was that it had such a wonderful aroma. They all get that way. The jazz seems to go to their heads. George is all right, though, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“Have you know him long, miss?”
“About five years. I was a stenographer in the house that published his songs when I first met him. And there’s another thing you’ve got to hand it to George for. He hasn’t let success give him a swelled head. The money that boy makes is sinful, Mac. He wears thousand dollar bills next to his skin winter and summer. But he’s just the same as he was when I first knew him, when he was just hanging around Broadway, looking out for a chance to be allowed to slip a couple of interpolated numbers into any old show that came along. Yes. Put it in your diary, Mac, and write it on your cuff, George Bevan’s all right. He’s an ace.”