"Listen here, old Kid, you can't fool any one, so quit trying. Don't you s'pose I've seen 'em like you before? Say, boy, I was trouping while you played with marbles. You're up against it. Now, c'mon"--with the arm at his shoulder she pulled him about to face her-"c'mon and be nice-tell mother all about it."The late Clifford Armytage was momentarily menaced by a complete emotional overthrow. Another paroxy** of shivering perhaps averted this humiliation. The girl dropped his wrist, turned, stooped, and did something. He recalled the scene in the gambling hell, only this time she fronted away from the camera. When she faced him again he was not surprised to see bills in her hand. It could only have been the chill he suffered that kept him from blushing. She forced the bills into his numb fingers and he stared at them blankly. "I can't take these," he muttered.
"There, now, there, now! Be easy. Naturally I know you're all right or I wouldn't give up this way. You're just having a run of hard luck. The Lord knows, I've been helped out often enough in my time.
Say, listen, I'll never forget when I went out as a kid with Her First False Step-they had lions in that show. It was a frost from the start. No salaries, no nothing. I got a big laugh one day when Iwas late at rehearsal. The manager says: 'You're fined two dollars, Miss Montague.' I says, 'All right, Mr. Gratz, but you'll have to wait till I can write home for the money.' Even Gratz had to laugh.
Anyway, the show went bust and I never would 'a' got any place if two or three parties hadn't of helped me out here and there, just the same as I'm doing with you this minute. So don't be foolish.""Well-you see-I don't--" He broke off from nervous weakness. In his mind was a jumble of incongruous sentences and he seemed unable to manage any of them.
The girl now sent a clean shot through his armour. "When'd you eat last?"He looked at the ground again in painful embarrassment. Even in the chill air he was beginning to feel hot. "I don't remember," he said at last quite honestly.
"That's what I thought. You go eat. Go to Mother Haggin's, that cafeteria just outside the gate. She has better breakfast things than the place on the lot." Against his will the vision of a breakfast enthralled him, yet even under this exaltation an instinct of the wariest caution survived.
"I'll go to the one on the lot, I guess. If I went out to the other one I couldn't get in again."She smiled suddenly, with puzzling lights in her eyes. "Well, of all things! You want to get in again, do you? Say, wouldn't that beat the hot place a mile? You want to get in again? All right, Old-timer, I'll go out with you and after you've fed I'll cue you on to the lot again.""Well-if it ain't taking you out of your way." He knew that the girl was somehow humouring him, as if he were a sick child. She knew, and he knew, that the lot was no longer any place for him until he could be rightly there.
"No, c'mon, I'll stay by you." They walked up the street of the Western village. The girl had started at a brisk pace and he was presently breathless.
"I guess I'll have to rest a minute," he said. They were now before the Crystal Palace Hotel and he sat on the steps.
"All in, are you? Well, take it easy."
He was not only all in, but his mind still played with incongruous sentences. He heard himself saying things that must sound foolish.
"I've slept in here a lot," he volunteered. The girl went to look through one of the windows.
"Blankets!" she exclaimed. "Well, you got the makings of a trouper in you, I'll say that. Where else did you sleep?""Well, there were two miners had a nice cabin down the street here with bunks and blankets, and they had a fight, and half a kettle of beans and some bread, and one of them shaved and I used his razor, but I haven't shaved since because I only had twenty cents day before yesterday, and anyway they might think I was growing them for a part, the way your father did, but I moved up here when I saw them put the blankets in, and I was careful and put them back every morning. I didn't do any harm, do you think? And I got the rest of the beans they'd thrown into the fireplace, and if I'd only known it I could have brought my razor and overcoat and some clean collars, but somehow you never seem to know when--"He broke off, eyeing her vaguely. He had little notion what he had been saying or what he would say next.
"This is going to be good," said the Montague girl. "I can see that from here. But now you c'mon-we'll walk slow-and you tell me the rest when you've had a little snack."She even helped him to rise, with a hand under his elbow, though he was quick to show her that he had not needed this help. "I can walk all right," he assured her.
"Of course you can. You're as strong as a horse. But we needn't go too fast." She took his arm in a friendly way as they completed the journey to the outside cafeteria.
At this early hour they were the only patrons of the place. Miss Montague, a little with the air of a solicitous nurse, seated her charge at a corner table and took the place opposite him.
"What's it going to be?" she demanded.
Visions of rich food raced madly through his awakened mind, wide platters heaped with sausage and steaks and ham and corned-beef hash.
"Steak," he ventured, "and something like ham and eggs and some hot cakes and coffee and--" He broke off. He was becoming too emotional under this golden spread of opportunity. The girl glanced up from the bill of fare and appraised the wild light in his eyes.
"One minute, Kid-let's be more restful at first. You know-kind of ease into the heavy eats. It'll prob'ly be better for you.""Anything you say," he conceded. Her words of caution had stricken him with a fear that this was a dream; that he would wake up under blankets back in the Crystal Palace. It was like that in dreams. You seemed able to order all sorts of food, but something happened; it never reached the table. He would take no further initiative in this scene, whether dream or reality. "You order something," he concluded. His eyes trustfully sought the girl's.
