Well, Guy Tower hadn't been back in the St. Moe a week when he began
showering attentions on me from the point where he left off before he
sailed away. Honestly, he dinnered and theatered me silly! Hazel Killian
watched me carelessly toy with this good-looking young gold mine with
unconcealed feelings of covetousness. She simply couldn't understand why
I didn't grab this boon from Heaven and marry him while he was stupefied
with my charms. Hazel, who is an artists' model and no eyesore herself,
is suffering from a lifelong ambition to become a bird in a gilded cage.
She craves a millionaire, and in desperation she offered to match coins
with me for Guy, but I indignantly refused. I _know_ Hazel--she's a
dear, but she'd have Rockefeller penniless in a month and every shop on
Fifth Avenue sporting a "Closed to Restock" sign. She's just a pretty
baby who loves to go buy and she makes 'em give till it hurts, don't
think she doesn't!
Another person who got upset over Guy's inability to keep away from me
was Jerry Murphy, house sleuth at the St. Moe. Jerry's so big that if he
had numbers on him he'd look like a box car, and he's just another male
I can get all dizzied up with a properly manipulated eye and smile.
Really, he's not a bad fellow, but as a detective he's a blank
cartridge. He couldn't catch pneumonia if it was against the law not to
have it. Jerry don't know what it's all about and never will, because
he's too thick between the ears to ask and nobody will tell him. He
hangs around my switchboard like a hungry collie around a kitchen and
he's just as eager; but I'm not collecting losers, so Jerry's
meaningless to _me._ My bounding around with Guy fills Jerry with pain
and alarm and he keeps me supplied with laughs by constantly warning me
of the pitfalls and temptations that surround a little telephone girl
who steps out with a millionaire. "If 'at big mock orange makes one
out-of-the-way crack to you, cutey, just tip me off and I'll _ruin_
him!" says Jerry with a menacing growl. "I can't cuddle up to the idea
of you goin' out with him all the time. Don't let him go to work and
lure you somewheres away from easy callin' distance of help!"
"Cut yourself a piece of cake!" I says. "Mister Tower is a perfect
gentleman, Jerry, and it would be impossible for him to act like
anything else if he and I were alone on an island in the middle of the
Pacific."
"Say, listen, cutey,'" says Jerry, wincing, "don't mention 'at
alone-on-a-island stuff in my presence! 'At's what I been dreamin' about
me and you for a year. If we ever get on a ship together, I'll wreck it
as sure as you're born!"
Now, isn't he a scream?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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