Dramatists -- Fiction; Love stories; Mystery fiction
"I do."
"Well, look at yerself; young fella, and then look at me."
Laurie obeyed the latter part of the injunction. The father of seven was
at least five inches shorter than he, and his legs and shoulders were
small in proportion. No coat or trousers he wore could possibly go on
the young Hercules before him.
"Oh, well," urged the latter, impatiently, "get some, somewhere. Here.
Take a run into town. Use my car if you like. Or go to some one you know
who's about my size. Only, mum's the word."
Five-dollar bills were in the air, fluttering before the eyes of the
garage-owner like leaves in Vallambrosa. He clutched them avidly.
"And hurry up," added his impatient patron. "Let's see you back here in
five minutes."
"Who'll look after the garage? Not that any one's likely to stop," the
proprietor gloomily admitted.
"I'll look after it. Come, get a move on!"
"Oh, all right! But I can't be back in no five minutes, nor in thirty
minutes, neither. I gotta go over to Nick Swanson's. He's about your
size."
"All right, all right! Go to it."
The impatient youth was fairly shooing him out of his own garage, but
with the sweet memory of those five-dollar bills to sustain him, Burke
was patient, even good-humored. One thing he could say about them
college lads: they was usually ready to pay well for their nonsense.
With a forgiving grin he hurried off.
Left alone, Laurie removed his coat and cap, searched the garage
successfully for grease, oil, waste, and shoe-blacking, and then,
establishing himself in front of a broken mirror in Burke's alleged
office, removed his collar and effected a startling transformation in
the appearance of his head, face, hands, and shirt.
Beginning in his college days, and continuing throughout his more recent
theatrical experiences, the art of make-up had increasingly interested
him. The people in his plays owed something to his developing skill, and
even one of the leading ladies had humbly taken suggestions from him.
But never in any stage dressing-room had young Mr. Devon secured a more
extraordinary change than the one he produced now, with the simple aids
at hand.
When Burke returned he found his garage in charge of an unwashed,
unkempt, unprepossessing young ruffian whom he stared at for a full
minute before he accepted him as the man he had left there. The ragged
trousers, the spotted "reefer" buttoned high around the neck, the dirty
cap pulled over the eyes, and the wholly disreputable broken shoes Burke
had brought with him completed the transformation of an immaculate young
gentleman into a blear-eyed follower of the open road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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