“Landed this morning. I went round to your hotel, but they said you weren’t there. They had never heard of you.”
“I’ve changed my name. I call myself George Wilson.”
“Why on earth?”
“Well, you try calling yourself Augustus Mannering-Phipps over here, and see how it strikes you. You feel a perfect ass. I don’t know what it is about America, but the broad fact is that it’s not a place where you can call yourself Augustus Mannering-Phipps. And there’s another reason. I’ll tell you later. Bertie, I’ve fallen in love with the dearest girl in the world.”
The poor old nut looked at me in such a deuced catlike way, standing with his mouth open, waiting to be congratulated, that I simply hadn’t the heart to tell him that I knew all about that already, and had come over to the country for the express purpose of laying him a stymie.
So I congratulated him.
“Thanks awfully, old man,” he said. “It’s a bit premature, but I fancy it’s going to be all right. Come along in here, and I’ll tell you about it.”
“What do you want in this place? It looks a rummy spot.”
“Oh, that’s part of the story. I’ll tell you the whole thing.”
We opened the door marked “Waiting Room.” I never saw such a crowded place in my life. The room was packed till the walls bulged.
Gussie explained.
“Pros,” he said, “music hall artistes, you know, waiting to see old Abe Riesbitter. This is September the first, vaudeville’s opening day. The