Gaslight Sonatas Part 10

"But, Harry, college will--"

"I seen money in 'Pan-America' long before Unger ever dreamed of producing it. I sicked him onto 'The Official Chaperon' when every manager in town had turned it down. I went down and seen 'em doing 'The White Elephant' in a Yiddish theater and wired Unger out in Chicago to come back and grab it for Broadway. Where's it got me? Nowhere. Because I whiled away the best fifteen years of my life in an up-State burg, and then, when I came down here too late in life, got in the rut of a salaried man. Well, where it 'ain't got me it's going to get my son. I'm missing a chance, to-day that, mark my word, would make me a rich man but for want of a few--"

"Harry, you mean that?"

"My hunch never fails me."

She was leaning across the table, her hands clasping its edge, her small, plump face even pinker.

He threw out his legs beneath the table and sat back, hands deep in pockets, and a toothpick hanging limp from between lips that were sagging.

"Gad! if I had my life to live over again as a salaried man, I'd--I'd hang myself first! The way to start a boy to a million dollars in this business is to start him young in the producing-end of a strong firm."

"You--got faith in this Goldfinch & Goetz failure like you had in 'Pan-America' and 'The Chaperon,' Harry?"

"I said it five years ago and it come to pa.s.s. I say it now. For want of a few dirty dollars I'm a poor man till I die."

"How--many dollars, Harry?"

"Don't make me say it, Millie--it makes me sick to my stummick. Three thousand dollars would buy the whole spectacle to save it from the storehouse. I tried Charley Ryan--he wouldn't risk a ten-spot on a failure."

"Harry, I--oh, Harry--"

"Why, mother, what's the matter? You been overworking again, ironing my s.h.i.+rts and collars when they ought to go to the laundry? You--"

"Harry, what would you say if--if I was to tell you something?"

"What is it, mother? You better get Annie in on Mondays. We 'ain't got any more to show without her than with her."

"Harry, we--have!"

"Well, you just had an instance of the thanks you get."

"Harry, what--what would you say if I could let you have nearly all of that three thousand?"

He regarded her above the flare of a match to his cigar-end.

"Huh?"

"If I could let you have twenty-six hundred seventeen dollars and about fifty cents of it?"

He sat well up, the light reflecting in points off his polished gla.s.ses.

"Mother, you're joking!"

Her hands were out across the table now, almost reaching his, her face close and screwed under the lights.

"When--when you lost out that time five years ago on 'Pan-America' and I seen how Linger made a fortune out of it, I says to myself, 'It can never happen again.' You remember the next January when you got your raise to fifty and I wouldn't move out of this flat, and instead gave up having Annie in, that was what I had in my head, Harry. It wasn't only for sending Edwin to high school; it was for--my other boy, too, Harry, so it couldn't happen again."

"Millie, you mean--"

"You ain't got much idea, Harry, of what I been doing. You don't know it, honey, but, honest, I ain't bought a st.i.tch of new clothes for five years.

You know I ain't, somehow--made friends for myself since we moved here."

"It's the hard sh.e.l.l town of the world!"

"You ain't had time, Harry, to ask yourself what becomes of the house allowance, with me stinting so. Why, I--I won't spend car fare, Harry, since 'Pan-America,' if I can help it. This meal I served up here t-night, with all the high cost of living, didn't cost us two thirds what it might if--if I didn't have it all figured up. Where do you think your laundry-money that I've been saving goes, Harry? The marmalade-money I made the last two Christmases? The velvet m.u.f.f I made myself out of the fur-money you give me? It's all in the Farmers' Trust, Harry. With the two hundred and ten I had to start with five years ago, it's twenty-six hundred and seventeen dollars and fifty cents now. I've been saving it for this kind of a minute, Harry. When it got three thousand, I was going to tell you, anyways. Is that enough, Harry, to do the Goldfinch-Goetz spectacle on your own hook? Is it, Harry?"

He regarded her in a heavy-jawed kind of stupefaction.

"Woman alive!" he said. "Great Heavens, woman alive!"

"It's in the bank, waiting, Harry--all for you."

"Why, Millie, I--I don't know what to say."

"I want you to have it, Harry. It's yours. Out of your pocket, back into it. You got capital to start with now."

"I--Why, I can't take that money, Millie, from you!"

"From your wife? When she stinted and scrimped and saved on shoe-leather for the happiness of it?"

"Why, this is no sure thing I got on the brain."

"Nothing is."

"I got nothing but my own judgment to rely on."

"You been right three times, Harry."

"There's not as big a gamble in the world as the show business. I can't take your savings, mother."

"Harry, if--if you don't, I'll tear it up. It's what I've worked for. I'm too tired, Harry, to stand much. If you don't take it, I--I'm too tired, Harry, to stand it."

"But, mother--"

"I couldn't stand it, I tell you," she said, the tears now bursting and flowing down over her cheeks.

"Why, Millie, you mustn't cry! I 'ain't seen you cry in years. Millie! my G.o.d! I can't get my thoughts together! Me to own a show after all these years; me to--"

"Don't you think it means something to me, too, Harry?"

"I can't lose, Millie. Even if this country gets drawn into the war, there's a mint of money in that show as I see it. It'll help the people.

The people of this country need to have their patriotism tickled."

"All my life, Harry, I've wanted a gold-mesh bag with a row of sapphires and diamonds across the top--"

"I'm going to make it the kind of show that 'Dixie' was a song--"