Love and Learn (Witwer)/Chapter 6
According to Mr. Titus Livy, who used to say it with epigrams in dear old Padua, experience is the teacher of fools. Titus left this vale of tears some nineteen hundred years ago, but the school of experience originally founded by Eve and her apple addict confederate is still doing business at the same old stand.
Me and Hazel graduated with high honors in Paris!
Speaking of anchovies, no doubt you are wondering what a couple of such Campfire Girls as we are were doing in mischievous Paris. Well, I'll set your suspicions at rest. After Hazel pegged the Prince of Wales in a box at the prize-fight and fell heavily in love with the heir presumptive, she audibly wished he'd do some presuming in her direction, such as all the vaudeville sister acts who have been across coyly confess was their delightful experience. But by an odd coincidence, Hazel failed to become the Prince's weakness and we fled to France to escape the well-meant pestering of Fighting Paddy Leary.
Really, I don't blame the gamesters who try to swim the English Channel, as I'm satisfied that method has it all over the trip via boat! If there's anything rougher than that dizzy body of water separating England from France, then Dempsey had better not fight it! Honest to Kansas, we led the life of a tennis ball on that voyage across—just tossed all over the place. I wanted to go by plane, but Hazel objects to them because they go up in the air. Anyhow, we finally made the perilous journey and landed in the country made famous by Sarah Bernhardt, Joan of Arc, Anna Held, Napoleon, "Couvert $1.50" and sliced potatoes dipped in boiling grease. Our next imitation was to board a train for art's home town, and of course the minute we stepped out of the Gare St.—Lazaire, Hazel pulls that ancient gag first breathed admiringly by Helen of Troy, viz., "So this is Paris!"
This was our original visit to gay Paree and in spite of the fact that we'd both invested in Baedekers and copies of "French in a Twinkling," we were as strange as a pair of deck-hands in a drawing room. Honestly, we didn't know what it was all about and couldn't tell a franc from a doubloon, oo la la from n'est-ce pas, or ros' biff from vin ordinaire. However, we fitted a taxi around us and bounded over to a hotel I picked out because it was right across the rue from the place where we'd have to draw on our letters of credit from time to time. The nearness to our pieces-of-eight was all this inn had to recommend it and, really, the prices were positively brutal!
Well, for years both me and Hazel had heard what a wild and wicked village Paris was and we set forth to look it over with delicious little quivers of anticipation romping up and down a couple of backs that would give Kitty Gordon pause. We're rarin' to go where deviltry was rampant and we wished to be thoroughly shocked or get our money back, one or the other!
However, as neither of us is in the habit of commuting between Gotham and Paris, we didn't know where to look for a thrill. Several sightseeing invitations were filed with us by the usual tourist parties from Idiotic, Nebraska, and Senseless, Iowa, but these were rejected with thanks. We'd watched these scissorbills perform on the way over and neither of us had any desire to deliberately take punishment in habit-forming doses.
A sign outside the hotel manager's office boasted that they had somebody inside on exhibition who could speak English. That was a barefaced lie, as we found out when we interviewed this braggart. His name was Duprez and he rolled a nasty eye at us and shrugged a vicious shoulder, but honestly he spoke English as if he had picked it up in Afghanistan! M. Duprez gave us the only two chairs in his office and bowed incessantly, while Hazel opened her "French in a Twinkling" and hastily scanned the pages.
"Listen, Mister Monseer," she says, "parley vous English, siv vous play?"
"But yes," says this master mind, "and Mademoiselle spiks vairy well Français, no is it not?"
"I love that!" says Hazel, a bit steamed. "What are you doing—clowning?"
"Oh, not of the all, Mademoiselle, not of the all!" says Dizzy. "Of how do you must have my assistance?"
"We crave excitement!" says Hazel. "We got a yen to see Paris and see it right, get me? Eventually, why not now? Where do we go?"
"Ah?" says Duprez, with plenty hand waving. "I would offer the Champs Elysées, the Louvre, the Arc-de-Triomphe, la Place de la Concorde, le Palais de Justice, le"
"For crying out loud!" butts in Hazel impatiently. "We don't wish souvenir post-cards, we want to step out and get some laughs. We'd like to personally inspect the Latin Quarter, the Montmarte, the Dead Rat Café, the Follies—eh—Bergerear, or what have you?"
A wicked grin appeared slowly on the face of M. Duprez and he commenced to swell up like a mump. He gazed longingly first at me and then at Hazel and winked, quite suggestively. Hazel's lovely eyebrows lowered and then without any preliminary she stepped over and soundly slapped the gentleman's face.
"Keep your thoughts out of your eyes, Frenchie!" she says, three icicles on each word.
To my great surprise, our charming vis-à-vis didn't appear to be the least bit offended at being smacked in the profile. Really, he seemed to take it as a matter of course and simply distributed a pleasant smile evenly amongst us both. Then, having failed to build himself up with us, he suggested that we hire a guide for a week and we'd see all the Paris we could take. We decided that was a good thought and ordered one. Still smiling, Duprez pressed a button. It worked and pretty soon in came Mr. Guide.
Honestly, this specimen was about the size and complexion of a demi-tasse and looked like an escaped murderer, hungry for another victim. But Duprez assured us that the newcomer knew more about Paris than Victor Hugo and likewise spoke sixty-nine languages, or two more than there are. We found out later that he spoke the last two better than the others. He was a wow, no fooling!
Hazel sternly commands M. Duprez to proposition our guide in English, so we'll know whether we're getting a pushing around or not.
"But certainment Mademoiselle!" says Duprez and turns to the guide. "Pig!" he says courteously, "prepare now to escort those lady from here to there with the utmost speed and precision. Comprenez vous? Do you afford them enough of the merriment they will enrich you with two hundred francs. Show them the this and show them the that. Do you but call me one improper name, I will have those gendarmes at your heels. Allez!"
The guide let forth a moan and wagged his head from side to side. "Playmate of dogs!" he says to M. Duprez, with characteristic old world politeness, "cochon, descendant of thieves—I ask three hundred francs for those magnifique service I do for those beautiful mademoiselles. Name of a name of a name of a"
"We'll give you one hundred francs and not another nickel if you cry your eyes out!" I cut him off. "Come on, guide, do your stuff!"
"Yes," says Hazel, stamping her foot, "finish your act some other time. Let's go places!"
"Allons!" says the guide—and the panic was on!
Well, to dwarf a tall story, we frittered away almost a week and two barrels of francs seeing Paris, and really I must say that we were a bit disappointed with the results. The well known town just didn't click! Most of the time it rained day and night in a way that nobody but Noah could appreciate and we both caught beautiful colds. The population conducted itself quite decorously, as far as me and Hazel were able to see—musical comedies, Americanized French farces and joke books to the contrary. In fact, Hazel gloomily remarked that she'd had much more fun in Paterson, N. J., and she don't think the vin ordinaire of La Belle France is a fearful lot better than the drug store gin of La Belle United States. Well, really, that's what I call carrying patriotism to the extreme. I've been in Paterson and I've also tasted that pharmaceutical poison!
Our guide, who got intimate enough with us to disclose his name as Georges and his home as Morocco, took us to theaters and cafés in Montmartre alleged to be the deadfalls of the apaches and their wild women. Tomato sauce! As Hazel and me are case-hardened Broadwayites we found the jollity and attempts at the daring a bit forced. To tell you the truth, the greatest excitement we were having was trying to order a meal in a language we neither spoke, read, wrote nor understood. Honestly, the so called wicked Montmartre as displayed to us by Georges of Paris and Morocco reminded me of Philadelphia with a bun on!
We were fed up with the French capital and about ready to check out of it when along came William and we learned about Paris from him.
Hazel blew into our hostelry from a shopping expedition one afternoon with a gentleman escort, and as that was not what she told me she was going shopping for, I sat erect and took observation. Busy doing nothing, I'd been waiting for her in the reception room and that's where she introduced me to her find as William Richardson Van Cleve II, son of the billionaire near-beer king. I threw him a smile and shook hands pleasantly enough, but that didn't mean I was positive he was really as advertised. Bill was young and distinguished looking and there was something about his face that was strangely familiar to me. I was satisfied I had seen this fellow somewhere before, but I couldn't remember where. Ever have a face slip your memory like that and annoy you to death?
Strangely enough, a swiftly passing glint of recognition likewise lighted up William's eyes as he saw me—in fact, we both remarked on the thing but were unable to place each other, then! When the charming Hazel introduced me to William as "Gwendolyn Calhoun, of the Virginia Calhouns," I was a bit startled to say the least! A few minutes afterwards I got another shock when Hazel's heavy boy friend called her "Miss Deveraux." Although I was plenty amused and much mystified by this strange thomas foolery on her part, I remained loyal to the young lady and played up to the deception, though intending to ask her for the answer at my earliest convenience.
William worked fast and managed to make a dinner engagement with us for the following night—not a difficult feat. Almost immediately afterwards he bowed out, carelessly remarking that he must hasten away to cable his brokers "regarding a million dollar deal" he was negotiating in the rue Wall, New York. As William airily made this announcement, the hypnotized Hazel, who hates money the same way J. P. Morgan dislikes a ticker, looked at him swooningly. But really, as I've met two hundred thousand of these boys at the St. Moe switchboard whose patter is the same as William's, I regarded his vanishing shapely back through narrowed eyes and began to get thoughtful. Oh, lots thoughtful!
In the privacy of our boudoir that night, Hazel furnished me with a complete inventory of William Richardson Van Cleve II. From Hazel's prejudiced viewpoint, Bill was something more than the feline's haberdashery and she had stumbled across him under double romantic—almost movie—circumstances. While shopping in one of Monsieur Rue's cute little alleys, she had mislaid her sense of direction, and her inability to talk any more Paris than a rabbit had made her predicament real serious. As if that wasn't more than ample to drive our heroine to distraction, along came one of those desperate apaches we'd been dying to see, snatched Hazel's purse and was running away with it, when Hon. William Richardson Van Cleve II appeared on the scene. William ran the thief ragged, caught him, cuffed him soundly and restored the wide-eyed Hazel's purse. You can't laugh that off and Will knew it, so still working with smooth and effective speed he then introduced himself to Hazel and took her to luncheon. There you are—simple, wasn't it?
But really I've learned to become millionaire-proof and was only mildly interested in William, who so far had thrilled me about as much as it thrills a camel to look at some sand. What I was exceedingly interested in was in keeping the fun-loving Hazel from harm in gay Paree. So I cut in on her cooings about William the great.
"Listen, young lady," I says severely, "I have a few questions to ask you. What's the big idea of tagging me 'Gwendolyn Calhoun of the Virginia Calhouns' and telling that big—eh—your boy friend William that your name's Deveraux?"
Hazel smiles like a baby—an impish one.
"What's wrong with those names?" she asks me. "I think they're real cute."
"Outside of the fact that they're not ours, there's nothing the matter with them," I admit. "But if you wanted to give William a-run around why not say we were Cleopatra and Salome and be done with it?"
"Too common," pronounces Hazel. "And anyhow, neither of us are those kind of girls and you know it! But you take Miss Deveraux and Miss Calhoun and there's a couple of names that mean something. There's—well, there's stuff to them, if you know what I mean. They're aristocratic and they just ooze Fifth Avenue. I certainly wasn't going to tell William Richardson Van Cleve, second, heir to the near-beer millions, that I'm Hazel Killian, a show girl, and you're merely a phone operator!"
"Why not?" I demanded, commencing to burn a trifle. "I've been connected with some of the best families in New York!"
"By telephone!" sneers Hazel cattily. "No, the switchboard operator and the chorus girl thing is out and if you tell William different I'll be off you for life. I'm not going to kill this cotillion leader's interest at the very start, when I'm more than an even money bet right now to drag him to the altar!"
"I think you're hysterical myself!" I says. "If you wanted to offer a tasty cognomen for William's enjoyment, why didn't you introduce me by my real name—isn't there a world of class to Gladys Murgatroyd?"
Hazel looked pensive. "That name does smack of the drawing room," she says, "but then it also has a phony sound. It's always struck me as apple sauce and I wouldn't risk it with such a judge of aristocratic names as anyone entitled William Richardson Van Cleve second must be!"
Don't you love that?
Well, honestly, Hazel raved about sweet William until something like two a.m. Her lifeling ambition had been to pull a Follies, viz., a first class elopement with the handsome handicap of some wealthy family, and Mr. Van Cleve II looked like a wonderful opportunity.
"Maybe we'll continue around the world from Paris on our honeymoon," she remarks dreamily, "I'd love to see the road to Mandalay that Shakespeare wrote that song about."
"It wasn't Shakespeare, it was Longfellow," I corrected her. "Do you mean to tell me that this William asked you to marry him on a three hour acquaintance?"
"Well—yes and no," says Hazel. "He hasn't asked, but he's certainly looked matrimony and don't think he hasn't!"
I realty couldn't give Hazel an argument on that. My girl friend has baby-stared into plenty masculine corneas and she certainly should know!
Nevertheless, I wasn't satisfied that William Richardson Van Cleve II was all he appeared to be on the surface. Somehow I distrusted his too self-assured manner and I was no little suspicious of his nonchalant use of the noun "millions." The familiarity of his face puzzled me, too. I began to feel some real alarm for my enthusiastic roommate.
"Hazel," I says seriously, "you better go slow or you'll win yourself a lot of grief. Paris is full of these sleek young wolves who prey on innocent little girls like us. I'll bet the first thing you know that synthetic millionaire's son will be putting the bee on you for beaucoup francs. He"
"What an awful squawker you're getting to be!" butts in Hazel, burning up. "Always putting in a rap for somebody. I imagine you think Dempsey used a hypodermic on Firpo! Listen, tend to your own knitting. I'm nobody's fool and any member of the needless sex who could get a dime from me could also send a flock of camels galloping through the eye of a needle!"
The debate over William got so warm that I finally turned the light out and stumbled asleep, leaving the angry Hazel talking matters over with her own sweet self.
However, although me and Hazel have known each other personally for years we're still good friends, so as usual the next morning we declared an armistice, spending most of the afternoon dolling up for our dinner engagement with William. We'd each had the presence of mind to imbibe in evening gowns of a most intoxicating nature, and both of us can wear anything and start an epidemic of neck-stretching anywheres from beach to ballroom. When William arrived in immaculate evening dress, as the saying goes, he really seemed to be a bit dazed by the combined effect of me and Hazel on his vision. He bucked up manfully, however, and took us to Ciro's for nourishment.
Well, except for the irritation I felt at being unable to remember where I had seen this young lady-killer before, the evening was a success of the first water. Me and Hazel attracted as much attention as a lump of sugar would from a famished fly, the handsome William was two feet past perfection as a host, the dinner was a famine victim's dream and the wine exceedingly better than the Long Island Scotch current in New York. As I was supposed to be something from Virginia, I switched my patter from Broadwayese to "you-all" and "suh," and I was careful to call a door "doah." This had Hazel on the verge of convulsions but seemed to goal Mr. William.
Will spoke French as if he'd been born in the Louvre, so we wisely left the selection of the foodstuffs to him. That was certainly a good thought, because the near-beer king's descendant turned out to be an artist of the old school at making a menu mean something. Never in my young life have I witnessed anyone order food with the care and deliberation that Mr. William Richardson Van Cleve II used to pick each dainty from the bill of fare. Honestly, you'd think our lives depended on the result of each decision he made from soup to nuts. He captured the open respect of the haughty head waiter, while our own garçon fairly fawned on such a master at eating. The various wines, different for each course, came in to William in their original baskets to be discussed at length; the meat, fish and fowl were first brought in uncooked direct from the admiring chef, etc. Oh, this boy was good, he was for a positive fact!
Hazel couldn't get her adoring eyes to focus anywhere but on William during the entire evening and even I began to get slightly impressed. The young man's table talk was chiefly financial—really, he used dollar marks for punctuation. According to his own story, he squandered six months of each fiscal year in Europe, mostly at one of his father's flock of châteaus and villas. He wished we could see his male parent's little place at Nice, or perhaps the villa in Italy would be more interesting to a couple of aristocrats like us, or again we might find the castle in Burgundy more fascinating. Honestly, he had us dizzy!
By the time we began to toy with the coffee, William had reached the top of his game. Waxing confidential, he remarked that his billionaire father headed a syndicate that was negotiating with the German government to pay their debt to the Allies. Just one thing held matters up, he confided to the breathless Hazel. His dear old dad insisted on fifty-two percent interest and the sweet old Germans couldn't see into it. We mustn't breathe a word of this, though—might cause international complications and that sort of thing. This sensational insight into diplomatic affairs put Hazel right into a trance and if William had asked her to wed him at that minute he would have certainly got service! All I could think of was that dish you make by boiling apples.
At first William divided his attention evenly between us, but finding me the hardest to promote he aimed his heavy artillery at the already overboard Hazel. They got along like brandy and soda. After the feast he suggested that we go to places and dance. No argument there. We accepted a taxi and the future money king took us to see what he called "the real Paris." He seemed to know the successful French hamlet like Nanook knows the North. William showed us all the devilish places we'd read about but had failed dismally to find ourselves, and really he spent important money like the next morning he was going to be executed. Most of his tips must have caused the recipients to throw up their jobs and open their own places, and said tips came from a bankroll that would baffle a particularly agile greyhound when it came to leaping over it. When he said by-by to us at our hotel around four a.m. we were forced to admit we'd had a marvelous time. Hazel had a field day kidding me about my suspicions of the young man, and as I like fairness I had to confess that to date William checked up as bonded goods.
Well, William then began rushing us in deadly earnest, and honestly, trying to get rid of him was like trying to get rid of a cold in the head. He said it with everything from flowers to bonbons and was likewise a constant caller at our hotel, by phone or in person. His unusual mastery of the French language was of wonderful assistance in our enjoyment of our stay in Paris and his knowledge of where to go for the laughs didn't hurt either. I wanted to check out and leave the field clear for Hazel, but Hazel was indignant at the idea of me being a wall flower and William added protests that sounded sincere enough. So the three of us stepped high, wide and handsome all over Paris. Will was a glutton for punishment, taking us motoring, dining, dancing, to all the shows, fashion centers and even to the races, where we won a thousand francs each on his tip in the Grand Prix de Paris. Hazel, of course, was just one big smile surrounded by girl and even I had to grudgingly admit that as an all-around entertainer William Richardson Van Cleve II was mighty good company!
"I'd like your boy friend better, though, Hazel," I told my little pal as we prepared to retire the night following the races, "if only he would talk about something else once in a while besides himself, his family and his father's uncountable millions. I crave a little variety in conversation, if you know what I mean."
Hazel is pouring herself into a negligée that belonged in La Vie Parisienne and nowhere else. She sneers at me.
"Blah!" she says, "He's spent about three thousand dollars keeping us from yawning since we met him. I don't care what he talks about!"
That's the tip-off on Hazel.
A few evenings later we had a date with the faithful William to go motoring, but Hazel broke out with a terrible headache in the afternoon and by nightfall she was pretty low. So the auto ride was out as far as she was concerned, but she insisted that I go along with our mutual friend and not stay in on her account. She said she wished to write some letters and go to bed early; also, she most earnestly desired me to go with William so that I could find out what he really thought of her and report back. Really, I didn't like the job, but I do like Hazel, so with some misgivings I gave Will a treat by accepting.
O sole mia!
We rode to a cute little inn on the outskirts of Paris and tore off another one of William's marvelous dinners, with some wine that was positively heavenly. I indulged very sparingly in the beverage. But William tied into that wine as if he's just staggered in from a week on the desert, and after either the third or the fifteenth bottle he got what I have often heard described as "mellow." He moved over beside me and captured my hand. I told him to be himself and drew it away, when to my great indignation he tried to kiss me. Boys will be boys!
When I repulsed William, he got more indignant than me. He said he couldn't understand why I should object to a mere innocent kiss, especially as Hazel hadn't! That last boast made me sit up and I regarded him with blazing eyes.
"You have kissed Hazel?"
"Dozens of times!" says William airily, and pours himself another Pol Roger.
Well, honestly, I was simply furious and I just sat there and glared at him. It wasn't jealousy of Hazel that got me red-headed, as William failed to panic me, but to me the most contemptible thing in the wide wide world is the Lothario who kisses and tells! I jumped up and ordered a rather frightened William to take me back to the hotel at once. All the way home he did aothing but beg me not to tell Hazel he had wanted to kiss me, but I gave him no satisfaction. Outwardly I was cold and non-committal, but inwardly I was fit to be tied.
After thinking everything over, I made up my mind to rid Hazel of the kissing William, who I was positive would only make her unhappy. Knowing Hazel's disposition and temperament I realized it would be double useless to attempt to get her to give William the air on my say so, so I determined to bear down on William myself and make him like it.
When I got to our room, Hazel reared up sleepily in bed. "Well," she yawns, "did William talk about me?"
I gave her a queer smile. "I'll say he talked about you!" I says—and nothing more.
The very next morning I sent a long cable to a trustworthy friend in New York asking him to cable back the following to William Richardson Van Cleve II:
Your escapades with women must come to an end. Have stopped your income and you can expect no further financial assistance unless you return home on next boat.
Father
That, I expected, would be the end of Bill as far as me and Hazel were concerned!
A couple of nights later William took us to dinner at his hotel and the cable was delivered to him at the table right before the dessert. Honestly, I was just quivering with excitement and never took my eyes off his face while he read it. For the shortest of moments William's brow contracted and then he flashed us a dazzling smile.
"By Jove!" says William, "I've just made half a million in wheat. We'll drink all the wine in Paris tonight!"
With sparkling eyes Hazel leans over and pats his back, laughing joyously, but I was absolutely dumfounded by his 42-carat nerve! Of course I knew how that cable actually read, since I composed it myself, and I had half a mind to ask him to let me see it and then show him up. On second thought I decided not to for various reasons, one of which was the thousand-to-one shot that William really had put over a fast one in the stock market.
However, the next day while Hazel was out on one of her endless shopping trips, William paid me a call. Really, he was an entirely different person from the boasting, free-spending, smiling young man of the past. His first act was to pull out the cable he got the night before and show it to me without a word. As I expected, it read exactly as I had written it. He then handed me another one, saying he had just received it. This one read: Return home at once. Your father has disinherited you.
Mother
Honestly, I was positively flabbergasted by this coincidence. Imagine his getting a legitimate cable making him a total loss just after I had faked one doing the same thing! I regarded him coldly.
"Well?" I says.
"Well," says William, "the funny part of this is that I have no father and no mother. I'm an orphan!"
Heavens above!
While all I could do was to stare at him in amazement, William told his tale. It was one for the book, it was for a fact! His name was not William Richardson Van Cleve II, it was William Simmons, and he was by no means the heir to the near-beer billions; he was a waiter!
As if that wasn't enough, this young man calmly tells me he knows I'm a phone operator and no "Calhoun of Virginia" and that Hazel is a show girl, because he saw us both frequently when he worked in the main dining room of the Hotel St. Moe. That's the reason his face was so familiar to me. It also explains his ability to plan a kingly dinner—why shouldn't a waiter know how to order food?
"William," I says, when our hero stopped momentarily for breath, "with your undiluted nerve you should be able to sell electric fans to the Eskimos! Why put on the dog with us and tell us all those fairy tales about yourself?"
"It's been my ambition for years to come to Paris," he says, coolly taking a cigarette from a box of Hazel's on the dresser, "and this trip represents my life savings. You girls happened to come along and I put over a harmless deception to satisfy a romantic yearning, that's all. Besides, didn't you also deceive me about your social position?"
"Well, really—I—we" I began to stammer, a bit confused.
"That's all right," interrupts William, with a lordly wave of his hand. "Don't apologize. I guess we're about even—except for one thing. I blew all my money on you and your girl friend and now I'm flat broke! I don't know anybody in Paris, and as the high life is all over for me I must get back to the United States and go to work again. If you'll loan me the fare, I'll look you up at the St. Moe when you come back and repay it. If you don't, I'll just about starve to death, that's all!
Honestly, as I sat there thinking this amazing young man over I was as much sorry for him as I was angry. After all, he did spend a flock of money on me and Hazel. He pleaded with me for nearly an hour, and though I felt I was insane to do it I finally loaned him three hundred dollars on his promise to go back to America at once.
Not two hours later a messenger comes up to my room with a neat little package. In it is three hundred dollars and the following note:
After leaving you I bumped into an old friend who loaned me the fare, so I'm returning your money with thanks. Will see you at the St. Moe. Meanwhile don't flirt with any more millionaires' sons. Be good!
William
I had scarcely finished reading the missive and counting the money when Hazel flounces into the room I thought I might as well get things over and be done with it.
"Hazel," I says, "I'm awfully sorry for you, but you might as well forget about William. He's gone out of our lives forever!"
To my great surprise Hazel appears highly pleased.
"Good!" she says. "I was afraid we'd have trouble giving that big clown the gate, but my scheme must have worked!"
"Your scheme?" I says dizzily.
"Sure!" says Hazel complacently. "I sent him a cable supposed to have come from his mother, saying he was cut off without a dime!"
Honestly, I'm at the gasping stage!
"I thought you were overboard over William," I says. "What happened?"
Hazel hesitates and looks confused.
"Well, Gladys," she says, "I—of course, what you do is your own business and—I—oh, well I just got disgusted with him when he tried to kiss me and said he had kissed you!"
Then we got together and compared notes on this gentleman.
I told Hazel of William's confession and when the astounded Hazel learned she had been seeing Paris with a waiter, really, she went right up in flames. She raved around the room for half an hour and then suddenly grew quite calm.
"Well, one consolation is that Mr. Waiter will be in the Bastile here tonight!" she says. "He took me for three hundred to get back to the United States, and being sore over that stuff about him kissing you I gave him the money in marked bills. He's going to be arrested for masquerading as Van Cleve's son, and when they find that marked sugar on him—good night!"
At that I sat right up straight in my chair. A wild thought had suddenly struck me.
"Hazel," I asked with deadly calm "when did you loan William that three hundred?"
"About two hours ago. Why?"
"Just a minute!" I answered and dashed into the other room.
Feverishly I opened my purse and dragged out the money William had sent back to me. As I feared, each bill was marked with Hazel's initials!
Well, it didn't take me long to figure things out, and although I was plenty enraged, I had to give William credit for a rather cute performance. He had borrowed three hundred from each of us, saw that Hazel's money was marked and promptly used it to pay me back! Not bad, what? My sense of humor rose above my anger and I handed the raging Hazel $150.
"Hazel," I says, "I don't blame you for being sore. That's the way I feel too. But I really think we might as well split William between us and charge the difference to experience!"
"And he told me we'd spend our honeymoon in Camembert!" moans Hazel, cramming away the bills and wiping her tearful eyes.
"You're crazy," I says. "Camembert's a cheese!"
"Well," says Hazel, "so was William!"