“Say! Do you want to hear the best thing I’ve ever done?”
“Indubitably,” said Archie, politely. “Carry on, old bird!”
“I wrote the lyric as well as the melody,” said Wilson Hymack, who had already seated himself at the piano. “It’s got the greatest title you ever heard. It’s a lallapaloosa! It’s called ‘It’s a Long Way Back to Mother’s Knee.’ How’s that? Poor, eh?”
Archie expelled a smoke-ring doubtfully.
“Isn’t it a little stale?”
“Stale? What do you mean, stale? There’s always room for another song boosting Mother.”
“Oh, is it boosting Mother?” Archie’s face cleared. “I thought it was a hit at the short skirts. Why, of course, that makes all the difference. In that case, I see no reason why it should not be ripe, fruity, and pretty well all to the mustard. Let’s have it.”
Wilson Hymack pushed as much of his hair out of his eyes as he could reach with one hand, cleared his throat, looked dreamily over the top of the piano at a photograph of Archie’s father-in-law, Mr. Daniel Brewster, played a prelude, and began to sing in a weak, high, composer’s voice. All composers sing exactly alike, and they have to be heard to be believed.
“One night a young man wandered through the glitter of Broadway: His money he had squandered. For a meal he couldn’t pay.”
“Tough luck!” murmured Archie, sympathetically.
“He thought about the village where his boyhood he had spent, And yearned for all the simple joys with which he’d been content.”
“The right spirit!” said Archie, with approval. “I’m beginning to like this chappie!”
“Don’t interrupt!”
“Oh, right-o! Carried away and all that!”
“He looked upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And, as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say: It’s a long way back to Mother’s knee, Mother’s knee, Mother’s knee: It’s a long way back to Mother’s knee, Where I used to stand and prattle With my teddy-bear and rattle: Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee, They sure look good to me! It’s a long, long way, but I’m gonna start to-day! I’m going back, Believe me, oh! I’m going back (I want to go!) I’m going back–back–on the seven-three To the dear old shack where I used to be! I’m going back to Mother’s knee!”
Wilson Hymack’s voice cracked on the final high note, which was of an altitude beyond his powers. He turned with a modest cough.
“That’ll give you an idea of it!”
“It has, old thing, it has!”
“Is it or is it not a ball of fire?”
“It has many of the earmarks of a sound egg,” admitted Archie. “Of course–”
“Of course, it wants singing.”
“Just what I was going to suggest.”
“It wants a woman to sing it. A woman who could reach out for that last high note and teach it to take a joke. The whole refrain is working up to that. You need Tetrazzini or someone who would just pick that note off the roof and hold it till the janitor came round to lock up the building for the night.”
“I must buy a copy for my wife. Where can I get it?”
“You can’t get it! It isn’t published. Writing music’s the darndest job!” Wilson Hymack snorted fiercely. It was plain that the man was pouring out the pent-up emotion of many days. “You write the biggest thing in years and you go round trying to get someone to sing it, and they say you’re a genius and then shove the song away in a drawer and forget about it.”
Archie lit another cigarette.
“I’m a jolly old child in these matters, old lad,” he said, “but why don’t you take it direct to a publisher? As a matter of fact, if it would be any use to you, I was foregathering with a music-publisher only the other day. A bird of the name of Blumenthal. He was lunching in here with a pal of mine, and we got tolerably matey. Why not let me tool you round to the office to-morrow and play it to him?”
“No, thanks. Much obliged, but I’m not going to play that melody in any publisher’s office with his hired gang of Tin-Pan Alley composers listening at the keyhole and taking notes. I’ll have to wait till I can find somebody to sing it. Well, I must be going along. Glad to have seen you again. Sooner or later I’ll take you to hear that high note sung by someone in a way that’ll make your spine tie itself in knots round the back of your neck.”