me, and he gave me a big red apple. You know that was Mr. Belasco’s way of—”
The din had momentarily stopped, and the leading man cried:
“Suffering cats! She’s telling him about the apple, and the poor guy only just got here. Go on, Fanny, spring the one about the time you played Portia. What Charlie Frohman said—as soon as he came to, I mean.”
“Humph,” shrugged Fanny. “If you young people in this profession had a few traditions like us, the pictures wouldn’t be such a joke. I thank my stars—”
“Hush, everybody,” put in Paula Wendell. “Introducing Miss Diane Day on Hollywood’s favorite instrument, the ukulele.”
The girl she referred to smiled and, amid a sudden silence, launched into a London music-hall song. Like most of its genre, its import was not such as to recommend it for a church social, but she did it well, with a note of haunting sweetness in her voice. After another of the same sort she switched suddenly into Way Down upon the Swannee River and there were tears in her voice now, a poignant sadness in the room. It was too solemn for Rannie.
“Mr. Eddie Boston at the piano, Mr. Randolph Renault handling the saxophone,” he shouted, “will now offer for your approval that touching ballad, So’s Your Old Mandarin. Let her go, Professor.”
“Don’t think they’re always like this,” Paula Wendell said to Eden above the racket. “It’s only when they have a hotel to themselves, as they usually have here.”
They had it indeed to themselves, save for the lads of the village, who suddenly found pressing business in the lobby,
