THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 WALLACE IBWIN 
 
"l WAS SORT OF THINKING HOW I D LIKE TO HEAR YOU MAKE A 
 
 SPEECH IF YOU WERE ANYBODY S HUSBAND BUT MINE" 
 
THE 
 
 BLOOMING 
 ANGEL 
 
 BY 
 
 WALLACE IRWIN 
 
 THOB OF "VENUS IN THE EAST," "PILGEI 
 
 INTO FOLLY," "LETTERS OF A JAPANESE 
 
 SCHOOLBOY," ETC. 
 
 NEW ^ST YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
Copyright, 1919, 
 By George II. Doran Company 
 
 Copyright, 1919, by The Curtis Publishing Company 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
TO FLOSSIE S OEIGINAL 
 
 M575167 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I LIFE ON OLYMPUS n 
 
 II AN ANNOYANCE 41 
 
 III "WHO EVER TOLD You You COULD 
 
 MAKE A SPEECH?" 50 
 
 IV Two STRAWS AND A ZEPHYR .... 63 
 V THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS .... 76 
 
 VI BOTTLED BLUSHES 95 
 
 VII CASTAWAYS 115 
 
 VIII BUFFALO WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 128 
 
 IX SUSIE THE BULL 142 
 
 X WHAT ANGEL BLOOM CREAM COULD Do 155 
 
 XI THE PINK VERDICT 170 
 
 XII How SHE INTRODUCED HIM TO IMMOR 
 TAL FAME 190 
 
 XIII A FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR . 210 
 
 XIV ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 225 
 
 XV KATZENJAMMER 242 
 
 XVI THE BROADWAY REST CURE . . . . 254 
 
 XVII A PALE GHOST AND A SOLID TRUTH . 263 
 
 vii 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BT MAY WILSON PRESTON 
 
 "I WAS SORT OF THINKING HOW I D LIKE TO HEAR 
 YOU MAKE A SPEECH IF YOU WERE ANYBODY S 
 
 HUSBAND BUT MINE" .... Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "YOU VE LOST YOUR NOTES, MR. ClCERO " . 46 
 
 MR. HORN," TACTFULLY SUGGESTED AUNT HET, 
 "DON T YOU THINK WE HAD BETTER TRY A 
 
 LITTLE BLUE IN THE RED OSCAR S WRONGS 
 
 AREN T AT ALL THE SHADE YOU RE USING" . 134 
 
 "You WON T EVER GET OVER WANTING TO BE 
 CICERO, WILL YOU?" 198 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 LIFE ON OLYMPUS 
 
 As this is but a reporter s record of that 
 hard-contested case, The Immortal Gods vs. 
 The Red Tam-o -Shanter, it might be simplest 
 to begin near the point of contact between 
 Olympus and a headpiece more disturbing than 
 fair Helen s hank of hair. 
 
 In the easy-going babyhood of the twentieth 
 century I then being an unkempt sophomore 
 there stood upon the museum of Dyak Uni 
 versity four tall, stark ancients, sixteen- footers 
 by actual measurement ; and these figures, like 
 many another unattainable ideal, repelled the 
 average imagination and cast a frost upon the 
 youthful passer-by. In the last sunset rays of 
 one lovely California evening this pompous 
 four presided abstractedly over the huddled 
 human scene and, for all I know, focused their 
 blind marble gaze upon a small building in the 
 
 ii 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 outskirts of Dyak, a poor little house loudly 
 labeled Bon Ton Laundry. 
 
 The ancient four were, as you have by now 
 guessed, statues ; but he who was at that mo 
 ment putting a finishing touch on his shave 
 somewhere behind the Bon Ton sign was quiv- 
 eringly human. The statues were supposed to 
 be of Carrara marble, though the smallest 
 freshman in the world who had risked his fool 
 ish neck to decorate their togaed chests with 
 the numerals 1900 testified unofficially that 
 they were nothing but cast iron enameled white 
 and treated with a coat of waterproof varnish. 
 As you counted them, left to right, they were 
 intended likenesses of Phidias, ^Eschylus, De 
 mosthenes and Homer. The cigarette-whif 
 fing multitude who passed below, daily flowing 
 toward History 5-B, learned long since to ad 
 dress them rather familiarly as Hideous, Ery 
 sipelas, Gazabo and Jeff. The average boy is 
 a realist; but Chester A. Framm, during his 
 three and a fraction years of college life, had 
 been too self-supporting and self-sufficient to 
 catch the spirit of the crowd. He and his 
 mother had come all the way from Napa 
 County to this second-rate but thriving institu 
 tion. Being a few years older than the average 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 13 
 
 student had helped him to finance his mother 
 from a washerwoman into a laundry. Life 
 had been real, earnest and unsocial with him, 
 as it is apt to be with the young man who gains 
 his college degree by the sweat of his brow. 
 
 Chester was rubbing that brow with a damp 
 towel as, on the eve of great possibilities, he 
 came out of the washroom and confronted his 
 mother in the neat sitting room, which despite 
 its detachment from business always reeked 
 of heated irons upon starchy muslin. He was 
 a tall young man with rather a magnificent 
 head; a size too magnificent, perhaps, for his 
 destiny. Some remote Scandinavian ancestor 
 who had given him his name had substituted 
 a sense of sublimity for a sense of humor or 
 possibly this is unfair. 
 
 "Ches," said the square, red-elbowed 
 woman, who sat near the oilclothed table and 
 raised her steel-framed spectacles, "are you 
 going to be the principal speaker in this dee- 
 bate at Adelphi Hall?" 
 
 "No, ma," he confessed, blushing a northern 
 blush. "I was only admitted to the debating 
 society last week. Carlotta says that I ought 
 to begin in a small way." 
 
 "Oh;" Mrs. Framm was plainly disap- 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 pointed. Then her rock-bound old face wrin 
 kled to a grim smile as she soliloquized: "So 
 you re calling her Carlotta now!" 
 
 "There s no crime in that," he grunted, well 
 aware that the blush was encroaching upon his 
 shoulder blades. "I ve known her over a 
 month." 
 
 "So you have, dear." Her large face soft 
 ened to a look of maternal pride. "Ches, it s 
 high time you was going with some girls 
 nice girls, I mean. None o them highty-tighty 
 fly-away red Tam-o -Shanters, smoking cig- 
 areets on the sly, what with paint and powder 
 and loud behavior with men. But I believe in 
 marrying young; your father and me was 
 married when we was picking hops on a farm 
 up in Napa. But you re educated, Ches. And 
 Carlotta Beam, being a professor s daughter 
 and serious - " 
 
 "I m not married yet," declared her son as 
 he fussed with the stringy black cravat, which 
 when tied accentuated his parliamentary ap 
 pearance. 
 
 "No, but you must look round. She s got 
 ambitions, that Beam girl. And not only that ; 
 she s the sort that ll put ambition into any 
 
 man." 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 15 
 
 "I don t know as I want to become a pro 
 fessor, exactly," he demurred. 
 
 "You don t need to, Ches. But I don t in 
 tend you shall go into the laundry business. 
 And you shan t be one of them society sports, 
 what with giggling yellow-haired chits and 
 dancing all night " 
 
 "Where s my coat?" interrupted her heart s 
 treasure. 
 
 Mrs. Framm brought the greenish thing out 
 of a closet. They called them Prince Alberts 
 in those days, and this example had belonged 
 to the late Mr. Framm. It hung loosely over 
 Chester s rangy form, but combined with his 
 halo of blond hair and his senatorial counte 
 nance the ensemble was imposing. 
 
 "Oh, Chester!" cried his mother, "if you 
 could become a great orator I d die happy. I 
 would indeed. Are you going to take Miss 
 Carlotta to the dee-bate?" 
 
 "Why ah" he had slipped on his shabby 
 brown hat and stood wincing to be off "I 
 promised to escort her to the hall. She s the 
 principal for the negative." 
 
 "What s it all about this dee-bate?" 
 
 "Resolved: That Application is more use 
 ful than Genius." 
 
16 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "It is," decreed his Spartan mother. "And 
 good night, dearie. And make a good speech. 
 And just follow Miss Carlotta s advice in ev 
 erything she s the sort of girl that " 
 
 She encircled his neck with the strong arms 
 which for as long as he could remember had 
 been bare up to the elbow. 
 
 After a dutiful kiss he was speeding into the 
 dusk when she called after him: "Ches-ter!" 
 
 He came back into the light of the doorway 
 and saw she was holding out to him two small 
 objects a brown book and a disk of tin. 
 
 "Here s your Platform Elegance," she told 
 him. "You might need it to look something 
 up in." 
 
 "Thank you, ma." 
 
 "And you d better take this can of Ajax Hay 
 Fever Balm. You know your hay fever ex 
 cuse me. I forgot you never liked to have it 
 mentioned. But this time of year when every 
 thing s gone to seed and it s sort of dry and the 
 greasewood begins blowing I thought you 
 looked sort o red round the nostrils this morn 
 ing." 
 
 "I won t need it, thank you." 
 
 And Chester A. Framm stalked away to* 
 ward higher things. 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 17 
 
 A great orange-colored moon was rising in 
 the east, gilding the dry tattered stalks of eu 
 calyptus trees along the walk toward Faculty 
 Row; occasionally the conical nuts would fall 
 among dry leaves, giving forth the crackle of 
 fairy artillery. In the moony distance Chester 
 could see the white fagade of the museum and 
 its four top-heavy brethren guarding the roof. 
 Fame, immortality, disdain of compromise! 
 Why had Charlotta Beam sought him out from 
 the mass and chosen him for the high peaks 
 of destiny? 
 
 Chester A. Framm had just turned twenty- 
 five. He was now early in his senior year at 
 Dyak, and though the college could not rank 
 with Leland Stanford or the University of Cal 
 ifornia, three years of constant application to 
 his major subject, economics, had convinced 
 him that he had sufficient ability to lead a class 
 of several hundred in a race for honors. 
 
 Always shy of young women he had care 
 fully avoided the more or less alluring glances 
 of the coeducational half, clustered in lecture 
 halls or round the Quad. 
 
 His mother had been ambitious for him in a 
 general way; but her dreams had never gone 
 beyond the state which she called educated. 
 
18 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Chester had started college life late; yet his 
 aspirations had been as fluid and nebulous as 
 any cherished by the lightest-minded Gamma 
 Gamma on the campus until crystallization 
 had come through contact with Carlotta Beam. 
 
 Professor Cyrus Beam, who conducted the 
 English Department, had asked him with the 
 rest of the senior class to a reception on Fac 
 ulty Row. That was early in the semester. 
 On that occasion Chester had been all feet and 
 hands, treading on toes, knocking over bric-a- 
 brac in the crush of distinguished educators at 
 the Beam cottage. Mrs. Beam popularly 
 known as Hissing Hattie had shaken hands 
 clammily and all but scared him to death. He 
 had been wondering, as bashful men do, if he 
 could escape without attracting too much at 
 tention, when Carlotta herself, a vision in flow 
 ing white, had come swimming toward him out 
 of the intellectual mob. 
 
 It had been tremendously confusing, uplift 
 ing, inspiring. Carlotta, who was stately and 
 rather tall, had fixed him with a tragic look of 
 interest on her serious face ; she was handsome 
 in a Slavic way, though somewhat inclined to 
 sallowness. Chester s first thought had been 
 that here was an anchor to which he could tie 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 19 
 
 his seasick craft; every piece of furniture in 
 the room contained a plaster cast and he had 
 already knocked down two. Carlotta had 
 seemed as anxious to learn about him as though 
 he had been some vaulting celebrity already 
 arrived. 
 
 "Why don t you try for the William H. Bar- 
 bour prize?" she asked him over her lemonade 
 later in the evening of enhancement. 
 
 Chester had stuttered something to the ef 
 fect that he had never made a speech in his life, 
 that he didn t even belong to the debating so 
 ciety. 
 
 "Not belong to the debating society !" The 
 fair Carlotta showed just a trace of resem 
 blance to Hissing Hattie in that shocked 
 exclamation. "You must join to-morrow. I 
 owe more to the debating society than to any 
 other one thing." 
 
 Then he had remembered that Carlotta s 
 oration had won the prize the year before. Did 
 she think he had even a slight chance? Car 
 lotta was sure of it. Chester had been faint 
 with emotion as he poured forth confessions 
 such as he had never made to any man or 
 woman; seons of space, chasms of ambitious 
 
20 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 distance he had leaped in that first revealing 
 conversation. 
 
 Walking along to-night in California s 
 winter moonlight, the Mighty Four looming 
 closer in the distance, Chester thrilled again to 
 think of that high purpose to which she had 
 roused him. 
 
 "America needs orators/ she had said, re 
 garding him with the look of a muse about to 
 burst into a tragic song. "Our statesmen to 
 day are little business men quarreling over 
 petty figures. Where are our Websters and 
 Clays and Patrick Henrys?" 
 
 Where, oh, where? 
 
 "Do you think you could make an orator out 
 of me?" 
 
 He should have been stricken dead for the 
 impiety, but she had rewarded him with a 
 smile. 
 
 "With guidance you could accomplish any 
 thing. But you must take a vow never to lower 
 your standards, never to make any cheap con 
 cessions to life." 
 
 He had vowed it thrice before the close of 
 the evening ; and ere he had hunted up the hat 
 which was to cover his whirling intellect she 
 had promised to tutor him in forensics, to 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 21 
 
 teach him the rudiments of the Demosthenean 
 art. And as they shook hands in that exalted 
 first good-by she had presented him with the 
 textbook which was to be his testament. 
 
 Its title in full was Platform Elegance; or 
 First Steps in Forensics. It was written about 
 1873 by a genius of Dyak University who had 
 spent his life classifying all the human emo 
 tions and framing them in a series of compli 
 cated charts. The emotions, it seems, were 
 seven, but each of the seven had from nine to 
 ninety subemotions. There was a right-hand 
 and left-hand gesture for each emotion, with 
 a set of attitudes and grimaces attached there 
 to. For instance, if one wished to express 
 hatred one clenched the right fist Gesture 
 Twelve and while lifting the elbow to an an 
 gle of forty-five degrees, advanced the right 
 foot, slightly bending the knee, at the same 
 time retarding the left shoulder and tighten 
 ing the facial muscles to the diabolical expres 
 sion illustrated in Cut Forty-six. Platform 
 Elegance was enriched by numerous steel en 
 gravings showing the model orator a young 
 man with side whiskers, abundant hair, and a 
 face quite pallid with all the emotions and sub- 
 emotions mentioned in the charts. 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 He had gone to Carlotta almost daily during 
 this enchanted month ; they had sat together in 
 her father s smugly classic library, where un 
 der an enlarged photograph of the ruined Par 
 thenon she had gracefully demonstrated her art 
 the all but forgotten art of public speaking. 
 He learned to handle his "a s" broadly, not to 
 speak them out as uncultured persons do; he 
 learned that "duty" should be pronounced 
 "dyeuty"; but principally he learned that the 
 very breath of greatness came, well-poised, 
 from those finely turned lips. She sometimes 
 looked at him in such a way it was as though 
 a marble goddess had leaned from her pedestal 
 and whispered : "Mortal, thou shalt be mine !" 
 
 "Wednesday night you must be at the debat 
 ing society," she had commanded a few ses 
 sions ago. He had been saying good after 
 noon in the little hallway and there had been 
 something lingeringly significant about it. 
 Chester knew next to nothing about these girl 
 things. Sometimes she made him quite nerv 
 ous. "I am to lead in the negative. After the 
 regular debate there will be fifteen minutes of 
 informal discussion for beginners." 
 
 "I I ve got to have something to talk about, 
 haven t I ?" he had asked f alteringly. 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 23 
 
 "Not necessarily. It s the drill you need 
 thinking on your feet." 
 
 "Of course/ 
 
 "Surely it will not be hard for you to formu 
 late deductions from the ideas you will hear." 
 
 "Surely it will not," had parroted the candi 
 date for rostrum honors. 
 
 His thumb had brushed her fingers as she 
 was reaching out for the doorknob. 
 
 "Could I have the honor of escorting you 
 there to the oh, you know Adelphi Hall on 
 Wednesday ?" 
 
 "I should be delighted, I am sure." 
 
 And here it was, Wednesday. 
 
 His moonlit walk toward Faculty Row had 
 now taken him as far as the broad concrete 
 walk facing the sawed-off Doric beauties of 
 the museum. Above him the four tall statues 
 loomed in the elf light. Chester A. Framm 
 paused and permitted his fame-aspiring eyes 
 to linger upon the bearded, metallic, thin-robed 
 gentleman whom history called Demosthenes 
 and whom the student body miscalled Gazabo. 
 Demosthenes ! How the white hero shimmered 
 under the glimpses of the moon, fingering a 
 sculptured scroll doubtless the notes from 
 which he spoke the while his long, spare 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 forearm forever extended itself into an imita 
 tion of Gesture Eighteen, Platform Elegance. 
 
 "Immortality!" 
 
 Chester A. Framm said this aloud, and 
 blushed at the sound of his own voice. Little 
 clouds were flying across the moon; flying 
 souls, they seemed, hymning together the 
 greatness of the spirit. Starkly stood Demos 
 thenes upon his dizzy roof edge, poised as 
 though just about to make a few choice re 
 marks in behalf of the people of Megalopolis; 
 which would have benefited little an under 
 graduate who had barely struggled through 
 that paragraph in Xenophon which confesses 
 that of Darius and Pary satis gignontai paides 
 duo. 
 
 "Speak!" whispered Chester A. Framm. 
 
 But the father of all spellbinders responded 
 not to the invitation. The divine lips were 
 stony, the divine throat was never cleared. 
 Possibly the lofty Demosthenes was waiting 
 to be introduced by Homer, who stood at his 
 right in an attitude which was distinctly presi 
 dential. Still the immortals held their peace. 
 
 Under the electric lamp which spot-lighted 
 the walk leading from Syle s Dormitory for 
 Ladies a distinctly feminine giggle insulted the 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 25 
 
 rich silence. Three figures sauntered into the 
 radiance. Two of them were swaggeringly 
 male, but the center one, which was slight, 
 short and female, was topped by a red tam-o - 
 shanter from under which many light sounds 
 like thrush notes and parrot calls rippled, 
 squawked, annoyed. 
 
 "Regular candy pig!" she trilled; and her 
 hand was seen to snatch, catlike, at a confec 
 tionery box which her right-side escort held. 
 "Old. sugar gobbler!" 
 
 "Haw, Floss !" bawled a large booby, whom 
 Chester, disgustedly huddled among the foli 
 age, recognized as an athlete of no account. 
 "Wait till I send you a real box from San 
 Francisco." 
 
 "It would nev-er, nev-er be the same," she 
 was drawling in her baby voice. 
 
 Birdlike she perked her small head from side 
 to side, and under the artificial light her eyes 
 sparkled like mischievous jewels. 
 
 "Nev-er, nev-er the same. Would it, Spig?" 
 
 He whom she addressed as Spig proved to be 
 one Ramon de Silva, a Californian of Spanish 
 ancestry, who idled and frivoled with the 
 Gamma Gammas and sometimes wrote athletic 
 notes for the papers. Undergraduate usage 
 
26 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 had tagged him The Spiggoty. The Spiggoty 
 seemed far less cheerful than the candy pig, 
 for as the group swung closer to Chester s 
 leafy ambush the Spaniard s somber eyes with 
 the lampblack fringes and single line of hairy 
 brow revealed themselves as melancholy in the 
 extreme. 
 
 "Would it ev-er be the same ?" she persisted, 
 turning her red tarn toward The Spiggoty s 
 total eclipse. 
 
 "Candy s never quite the same after you ve 
 eaten it." 
 
 "I believe he s mad at me," chirped she whom 
 they called Floss. 
 
 By now the three were passing so close that 
 Chester was obliged to step into the damp 
 weeds to permit their transit. He could not 
 disregard the pompon on her red Tam-o -Shan- 
 ter, that trifle being level with his nose. 
 
 "Oh !" Red Tam-o -Shanter had caught a 
 glimpse of his pallid face among the leaves. 
 "Did you see what I saw? Somebody s look 
 ing at the Iron Men. I hope he doesn t steal 
 anything. If he should walk away with poor 
 old Gazabo " 
 
 The rest was drowned in booby roars of ad 
 miration. Chester s last impression was of 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 27 
 
 clacking French heels that seemed to dance as 
 they went. She was a dancing creature, this 
 interloper. 
 
 "Rats !" growled fame s acolyte, and took a 
 round-about lane toward Faculty Row. Ches 
 ter A. Framm, dreaming of the gods, had 
 stumbled into a comedy of insect lift. 
 
 It was seven-thirty when he reached the 
 bleak gentility of Faculty Row and called for 
 Miss Carlotta Beam. He was a little early, it 
 turned out, and Professor Beam as he came out 
 of the dining room was chewing. For the 
 first time it was manifest that the faculty, like 
 mortals, eat food. The professor offered a 
 ceremonious hand and with the assurance that 
 Carlotta would presently appear returned to 
 his cabbage. Dishes clattered behind drawn 
 doors. Fervently Chester hoped that they 
 didn t compel a wonderful girl like Carlotta to 
 wash dishes. 
 
 True to her father s promise, Carlotta did 
 presently appear. She must have scurried up 
 stairs by a rear way, for she entered majes 
 tically from the front stairway. She seemed 
 terrifyingly formal and was wearing a fur-col 
 lared cloak which Chester was sure he had seen 
 on Mrs. Beam. 
 
28 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Half the way over to Adelphi Hall Chester s 
 attention was centered on his right elbow, 
 which he had crooked like the handle of a jug 
 in the event that Miss Beam might see fit to 
 take his arm. It was the demand of etiquette, 
 he knew, that a lady and gentleman should 
 walk forth so linked. But Miss Beam remained 
 obtuse. She chattered harmoniously on the 
 topics of the day; Chester had no ears for the 
 music. His arm was becoming numb from the 
 wrist to the shoulder blade. At last he became 
 aware that she had paused in her monologue 
 and was asking him a question. 
 
 "What was that?" he inquired, straighten 
 ing out his elbow and experiencing immediate 
 relief. 
 
 "Are your familiar with Robert s Rules of 
 Order?" 
 
 "Why, no. I didn t get that far in the 
 book." 
 
 "It s not in the book," she informed him 
 more coolly than he liked. 
 
 He found his mind straying seeing red 
 with a pompon on top, and annoying, yellowish 
 eyes dancing below. He wondered if it had 
 gone out of style for girls to take people s 
 arms. 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 29 
 
 "This is my first try/* he grunted. "Maybe 
 I d just better sit and watch." 
 
 "By no means!" There was no appeal 
 against that decision. "You ve begun none too 
 early. I merely wished to warn you of one of 
 the rules. When the informal discussion be 
 gins several people will probably rise and ask 
 for the floor. You must wait till you are rec 
 ognized." 
 
 "I know that," said Chester rather shortly. 
 "That s the way they do at the class meet 
 ings." 
 
 "Splendid !" chimed the superlative Carlotta ; 
 which so cheered his heart that he ceased car 
 ing whether she had taken his arm or not. 
 
 A number of students were crowding in 
 when they entered the hall, and Chester s first 
 vision in that temple of thundering eloquence 
 was of a life-size oil painting which hung over 
 the rostrum. It was a portrait of William H. 
 Barbour, eminent jurist, once a presidential 
 candidate, and known in Dyak as donor of the 
 Barbour Oratorial Medal. The aspirant s 
 heart sank another notch when he saw that the 
 audience was about equally divided between 
 the serious thinkers and the lighter set of the 
 college. Which of the two he had more to fear 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 he knew not at that moment. Later he found 
 out. 
 
 "Sit here," whispered his spiritual guide, 
 pointing to a vacant chair halfway down the 
 aisle. He sank weakly into the place she had 
 chosen for him and saw her settle herself 
 among the speakers of the evening in the row 
 nearest the platform. The chairman was a 
 lean, tall Scot whose clan name, McNabb, had 
 been shortened by the lighter set to the con 
 venient monosyllable Gabb. Freshmen were 
 shoving into the back seats. The lofty Gabb 
 strode to his place on the platform and rapped 
 resoundingly. The air was vibrant with doom. 
 
 The meeting will please come to order !" 
 
 Was it a coincidence? At the instant the 
 gavel dropped and the words were spoken Red 
 Tam-o -Shanter came dancing in under an in 
 creased convoy of adorers. Apparently she 
 was playing fraternity against fraternity, for 
 she had added Kappa Kappas to Gamma Gam 
 mas, and in the rear straggled The Spiggoty, 
 jealously glowering. 
 
 "Oh, I didn t think we d be so conspicuous/ 
 she giggled over the hush. 
 
 There were eight vacant seats right in front 
 of the place where Miss Beam had set her 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 31 
 
 Chester. Red Tam-o -Shanter snuggled in be 
 tween two gigantic Gammas, while Ramon de 
 Silva, who was not athletic, occupied an end 
 chair and turned pale with disappointed am 
 bition. 
 
 It was not until the exercises began that Red 
 Tarn changed from a mild annoyance to an 
 active nuisance. All was dignity with the ex 
 ception of this Floss thing. On a front row, 
 one finger supporting her expansive brow, Miss 
 Beam sat in concentrated reflection; Gabb the 
 chairman rose, and though he. had an accor 
 dion-plaited face which he alternately bunched 
 together and pulled out as he spoke of the treas 
 urer s report no normal Adelphian wouiv} have 
 considered this fair fruit for satire. 
 
 But he had no sooner opened his collapsible 
 countenance than a smothered giggle from the 
 row just ahead deflected Chester s attention* 
 It seemed that Red Tarn was giving one of her 
 apparently inimitable imitations. The subject 
 of her sketch was quite apparently Mr. 
 McNabb. She did it with her hands. She pre 
 tended to be playing an accordion accompani 
 ment to the speaker s words. Every time the 
 face of Gabb closed up she would bring her 
 hands together; when it lengthened out she 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 would pull them rapturously apart, her little 
 ringers going busily over imaginary keys. The 
 two big Gammas were rocking with joy. The 
 dark-browed Gamma, out in the cold, permit 
 ted himself a nervous smile. 
 
 "Cheese it, Floss!" gleefully warned her 
 right-hand lummox. "We ll all be chucked." 
 
 "I don t care, do you?" responded the mu 
 sician. "Wait till Hazzie reads the minutes of 
 the meeting - " 
 
 "Dod gast it!" muttered Chester. "If she 
 does that when I m speaking - " 
 
 But the behavior of this Floss during the 
 treasurer s report was of such a nature as to 
 warrant a rebuke. Chester fidgeted as long as 
 he could, then he leaned toward the scarlet 
 headdress. He was tall enough to look over 
 her shoulder, and while he was hestitating for 
 words he spied that which turned his annoy 
 ance to a sort of panic fear. She was wearing 
 flowers an exaggerated bunch of marguer 
 ites. Chester s hands grew cold as along the 
 base of his nose there passed a tickling itching 
 thrill. Marguerites! The very thought of 
 those flowers, which had always spelled hay 
 fever for him, sickened his soul, brought swift 
 tears of influenza to his eyes. His mother had 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 33 
 
 been right. That box of Ajax Hay Fever 
 Balm 
 
 He huddled himself back, as far as possible 
 away from the menace. Desperately his eyes 
 sought the rows of chairs. Not an empty seat 
 in the hall. The place was packed to the doors. 
 The agony of self-control kept his mind off the 
 rostrum; but he was quite unable to restrain 
 an occasional glance in the direction of that 
 being whom he so passionately longed to kill. 
 Strands of honey-colored hair showed under 
 the red tarn; her complexion was high and 
 clear, like that of a child who has been playing 
 in the wind; once she turned her impudent 
 glances far enough for him to see her eyes, 
 which were bright gray with little golden 
 flecks across the irises. How pretty she was; 
 and how unspeakable! 
 
 At some indefinite point of time he heard ap 
 plause and was aware that the cocksure affirm 
 ative had got down to give the negative a 
 chance. Chairman McNabb unfolded himself 
 to announce that Miss Carlotta Beam would 
 next be heard from. Chester s sympathetic 
 heart stood still. Carlotta laid aside her cloak 
 and undulated to the rostrum saffron clad, 
 serene, indifferent of fate. She brought her 
 
8* THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 right hand, half closed, to her breast in a ges 
 ture she had learned at a Delsarte school two 
 seasons before. The room lay in a hush. 
 
 Red Tarn was heard distinctly to clear her 
 throat. Chester held his gaze toward the plat 
 form, but something told him that Flossie had 
 struck that very pose, and that Gamma and 
 Kappa were equally enthralled. 
 
 Words of wisdom flowed from a deep well- 
 pitched voice where every "a" stood out broad 
 and splendid, every paragraph enjoyed the ad 
 vantage of a full stop. As winner of the Wil 
 liam H. Barbour prize of last year Miss Beam 
 held an advantage over lesser orators and 
 showed it. She began with a simile of Pe 
 gasus and worked easily into the legend of 
 Abraham Lincoln and the pine-knot fire. Ches 
 ter s thoughts flew rapidly to the subject of 
 himself. 
 
 "And before I close, Mister Chairman, ladies 
 and gentlemen, permit me to repeat that appli 
 cation is but the work of man while genius is 
 given to us by the grace of God. Application 
 is merely the wick by which the light is thrown, 
 genius is the oil which " 
 
 The chairman s gavel came down. It was 
 evident that she had overtalked her time. Ches- 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 35 
 
 ter thought he heard a voice say "Coal oil." 
 Was it that awful Red Tam-o -Shanter ? It 
 didn t so much matter then, because an idea 
 had leaped full grown from his skull; one of 
 those dangerous things by which reputations 
 are made or shattered at a stroke. Little he 
 cared then for the rest of the debate; Chester 
 sat rapt in contemplation possibly he would 
 not be able to get out the whole idea within 
 the three minutes allotted to such as him ac 
 cording to the rules. 
 
 The seconds finished and the principals 
 leaped to the rebuttal. Even the precious 
 words of Miss Carlotta Beam were wasted on 
 her admirer, who crouched as though for a 
 spring. 
 
 He had quite forgotten the Red Tam and her 
 talent for discord. 
 
 Carlotta sat down at last. Then there fell 
 an awful hush during which several officious 
 ladies and gentlemen rose and filed into an 
 anteroom. 
 
 The collapsible Gabb unfolded his face to 
 announce: "While the judges are retiring to 
 formulate their decision the rules permit of 
 an informal discussion from the floor. 
 Each speaker is limited to three minutes. If 
 
36 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 there are any members who wish to speak " 
 
 "Mister Chairman!" 
 
 Several new members had come to standing 
 postures in various parts of the room, but Ches 
 ter A. Framm seemed to have leaped halfway 
 to the chandeliers in the wildness of his at 
 tack. Other voices were clamoring, but the 
 distracted bellow of the inspirational laundry- 
 man drowned out all competitors. 
 
 "Mr. Framm has the floor," decreed the in 
 exorable Gabb. 
 
 Competition thus swept aside Chester found 
 himself standing alone in the isolation of 
 greatness. He had already decided to employ 
 Gesture Twelve, expressive of hatred, but in 
 that flash of intelligence the devil in a tomato- 
 colored cap caused him to look down on the 
 little tormentor of the seat in front. The look 
 of exaggerated interest she was turning up to 
 him merely added to his confusion. 
 
 He must have stood there an unnecessarily 
 long time, for he heard Gabb s generous offer 
 repeated through the room: "You have the 
 floor, Mr. Framm." 
 
 The aspirant still stood, mentally thumbing 
 the pages of Platform Elegance. Should he 
 employ the gesture described in Cut Eighteen 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 37 
 
 as Remorse or Pity? In a sort of panic he 
 brought his hands to the proper position, but 
 in the urgency of the moment clenched his fist 
 quaveringly in an imitation of Cut Forty-six, 
 descriptive of hatred. His arm came up to a 
 stiff right angle; an unhappy impulse caused 
 him to glance again at the girl in front. She, 
 too, had brought her arm up to a stiff right 
 angle. 
 
 Chester A. Framm saw red, but maddened 
 by the thought that something must be said 
 and that immediately,, he opened the floodgates 
 and roared: "Ladies and gentlemen, enthusi 
 asm are not " 
 
 He paused, cold with the fear that his audi 
 ence was not with him. 
 
 "If it aren t, what are it?" came a still small 
 voice right under his ear. **" !&*$ 
 
 "Enthusiasm," he resumed in a desperate 
 bellow, "is not the normal state of man." 
 
 With that he resumed his chair or would 
 have resumed it had not the chair turned 
 traitor and slid out from under him, permitting 
 Chester to take his seat heartily on the floor. 
 Adelphi howled. Above the storm the gavel 
 sounded like the blows of a hammer on a cof 
 fin lid. Blinded with his shame the boy orator 
 
38 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 got up and got out; but not too soon to hear 
 Red Tarn s appreciative comment: 
 
 "Isn t he fun-ny? Went off like a regular 
 old alarm clock. I wonder who ever told him 
 he could make a speech?" 
 
 Once in the open air Chester hugged a Doric 
 column until the meeting broke up, and he 
 could at last pick out Miss Beam chatting eas 
 ily in a setting of serious-minded students, 
 
 "What happened to you ?" was her very nat 
 ural question as soon as he got her disentan 
 gled. The fact that she took his arm added 
 a little warmth. 
 
 "I got started all right," he lamely apolo 
 gized to his instructress. "And then that Floss 
 girl " 
 
 "She s been a disturbing influence ever since 
 she came to college!" Carlotta informed him 
 with nearer a show of temper than he had ever 
 before seen in her. "Girls like Florabel Bran- 
 non take all the dignity out of coeducation. 
 Last Wednesday in English 2-B she told father 
 that she thought the Decameron was Scott s 
 best novel. She insisted that it must be by 
 Scott because Decameron was such a Scottish 
 word. Fancy ! 
 
 "Please overlook her. She won t be here 
 
LIFE ON OLYMPUS 39 
 
 long. And don t let yourself be discouraged. 
 Demosthenes, you know, started with a pebble 
 under his tongue." 
 
 "A pebble!" he groaned. "I swallowed a 
 sand wagon I" 
 
 But he was ever so grateful to her just the 
 same. 
 
 "You have something over two months to 
 prepare for the Barbour medal contest," she 
 said before bidding him good night by her lit 
 tle jig-sawed door. 
 
 "You don t mean to say I ve got any 
 chance " 
 
 The thought stunned him. 
 
 "Why, surely ! I fully intend that you shall 
 enter for the contest and win it." 
 
 "By ginger, you have got faith!" 
 
 "Yes a great deal in you," her rich con 
 tralto rolled out as she gave him her hand. 
 
 And this was the first time that it ever 
 dawned upon Chester A. Framm that women 
 are peculiar. 
 
 He repeated the reflection, however, as soon 
 as he got back to the flat over the Bon Ton 
 Laundry and found his mother, clad in her best 
 widow s frock, waiting for him under the lamp. 
 
 "Where in the world have you been?" he 
 
40 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 asked, for never before in his college days had 
 he seen her in formal costume. 
 
 "To the Adelphi meetin ," she told him. "I 
 stood up for hours a-waiting for you to begin. 
 I just told you to take that box of Ajax Salve." 
 
 Chester groaned and went to bed. Neither 
 Ajax nor Helen could salve his wound. 
 
 But he was no sooner between the sheets 
 than she came to him, intent upon the maternal 
 process known as tucking in. It always made 
 Chester feel like a freshman. 
 
 "That Carlotta Beam is a smart girl," she 
 insisted. "Sort of wonderful and full of brains. 
 I bet she ll make a President of the United 
 States out of the man she marries." 
 
 "I shouldn t wonder/ agreed Chester, his 
 thoughts already wandering toward possibili 
 ties. 
 
 "Not one of them cigareet-smoking chits 
 with circus clothes. No, sir-ree !" 
 
 "She s different," said Chester, hoping his 
 mother would leave him alone and permit him 
 to follow the glowing progress of his dreams. 
 
 "I wonder if she ain t just a mite older than 
 you?" The son made no response; therefore 
 the mother went out and closed the door softly 
 after her. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AN ANNOYANCE 
 
 How Carlotta Beam did have faith in Ches 
 ter A. Framm and did coach and groom him to 
 the point of perfection whereby he was able to 
 outface fate and win an oratorical medal one 
 of those solid-gold trophies as big as a dinner 
 plate and engraved with laurel wreaths in high 
 relief constitutes nothing more than a climac 
 teric point in a college career. And since col 
 lege days bear but a faint resemblance to real 
 life the oratorical medal is entitled to merely 
 a semicolon s worth in the history of Chester 
 A. Framm. 
 
 Something like two weeks after the Adelphi 
 fiasco he came again into actual contact with 
 that pestiferous Red Tam-o -Shanter. It was 
 a sloppy day, and Chester, coming round a 
 corner of the old Chemistry Lab, was attempt 
 ing to manage a cotton umbrella and a note 
 book with the same hand. With every strug 
 gle to open the umbrella he lost a little influ- 
 
 41 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 ence over the notebook, which had a slippery 
 cover and a passion for getting itself lost. At 
 last he succeeded in spreading the canopy over 
 his head, but upon the instant the sly little 
 book popped out from his elbow and landed 
 plump in a coffee-colored pool beside the path. 
 
 "You ve lost your notes, Mr. Cicero," came 
 a nai ve treble out of the bole of an ancient live 
 oak by the corner. 
 
 He tilted his umbrella and got the drip down 
 his collar as he leaped to one side and beheld 
 the wet little dryad of the oak. Red Tarn, af 
 ter the manner of chameleons, had turned to 
 green; or, to be more explicit, Miss Brannon 
 was wearing a greenish waterproof creation 
 with just one rubbery yellowish flower above 
 the brim. 
 
 "Thank you/ said he haughtily, groping 
 with his hat as he leaned down to salvage the 
 wreck. 
 
 But as he was shaking out its dripping cov 
 ers, what should this Flossie do but come over 
 and take it away from him. 
 
 "If you turn it that way," she said, "the mud 
 gets inside. And then who can tell what great 
 big thoughts will be all gummed together !" 
 
 As she was only a girl, and a small one at 
 
AN ANNOYANCE 43 
 
 that, Chester could neither hit her nor swear 
 aloud. So he stood in the wet and watched her 
 deft little fingers as she tore a shred of paper 
 from a damp candy box and set about drying 
 the notebook. It was one of those irritating 
 situations in which an enemy offers a spoonful 
 of good to indemnify a continent of evil. 
 
 "There," she smiled oh, so adorably! as 
 she gave it back to him. "And now you aren t 
 going to offer me half of your umbrella or 
 anything as far as Miss Thompkins ?" 
 
 "Ah. May I have the pleasure?" he asked, 
 stiffly changing the umbrella to a sheltering po 
 sition. 
 
 "If you call it a pleasure," she said; and got 
 very close to him under the cotton eaves before 
 informing him: "Umbrellas are a joke un 
 less you re in love." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 He looked shyly down at that mobile, flash 
 ing little face and wondered what she was driv 
 ing at. Was she hinting that he turn the um 
 brella over to her ? 
 
 "Of course you ve never been in love." 
 Something about her inspired him to this im 
 pertinence. 
 
 "Me?" She gave one of those awful little 
 
44 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 trills. "About a hundred and twenty times, I 
 guess." 
 
 He strode grimly along, carefully manipulat 
 ing the umbrella so as to keep her dry. 
 
 "I bet you re a noble character," said she 
 after a while. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "You re letting the cutest waterfall run onto 
 your hat all on account of poor little me." 
 
 He adjusted the handle in such a way that 
 poor little she should get her share of rain af 
 ter that. 
 
 "You re not really truly awfully mad at me, 
 are you?" she chirped as soon as they had got 
 halfway down the path. He felt uncomfort 
 ably like The Spiggoty, whom he had over 
 heard fuming at the same question. 
 
 "Why should I be?" he asked, looking down 
 from his exalted plane. 
 
 Her eyes, he found, were neither gray nor 
 yellow. Gold dust had been spilled into liquid 
 crystal. Her nose was slightly snubbed. She 
 had prankish eyebrows, tweaking up at the cor 
 ners. 
 
 " Course you shouldn t," she was quick to 
 respond. "I always go to the debating society 
 because it s more fun than amateur night And 
 
AN ANNOYANCE 45 
 
 say you were wonderful ! Your arm went up 
 like a traveling crane, and then the steam drill 
 started in. Oh, you Cicero !" 
 
 "If I afforded you amusement I feel myself 
 fully repaid," he assured her. 
 
 "I knew you would !" she chimed. "It s just 
 what I ve been thinking about you." 
 
 "About me?" 
 
 "Oh, yes ! I think about ev-erybody." She 
 gave him a stare which at that moment was as 
 blank and as innocent as a baby s. 
 
 "What have you been thinking about me?" 
 A little shutter in his heart had come loose and 
 was flapping. 
 
 "I think you re a great big noble grand 
 man," she eulogized. "You wouldn t mind 
 anything I could do any more than a splendid 
 iron statue would get mad at the katydids skip 
 ping round it having a good time." 
 
 "Are you laughing at me? * 
 
 "Cross my heart." 
 
 No crease of mirth was apparent upon those 
 wonderful cheeks, sweeter by far than Hybla s 
 honeyed roses. This seemed a fair moment in 
 which to say his say with her. 
 
 "There are things in life," he began, "much 
 more important than having a good time." 
 
46 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Oh, is there ?"she asked, her eyes widening 
 to a look of wonder. 
 
 "Yes, there is are, I mean/ 
 
 "You always get your is s and your are s 
 twisted, don t you !" This time her giggle was 
 unmistakable. 
 
 He shut up like a clam. Whereupon she 
 snuggled very close against his wet sleeve. 
 
 "What s more important than having a good 
 time?" she coaxed; and Chester was truly 
 frightened by the heady sensation it gave him. 
 
 "Well," said he, "there s ambition." 
 
 "Oh, I forgot about Napoleon," was the way 
 she took it. "What s your ambition, Mr. Ci 
 cero?" 
 
 Despite the implied insult he stuck to it. 
 
 "I m going in for a public career." 
 
 "Sure. I know one of those great big 
 howling whooping orators like Horace Greel- 
 ey " 
 
 "Horace Greeley was a journalist," he cor 
 rected her. 
 
 "I always mix up my historical heroes," she 
 told him with the little-girl humility of which 
 she was capable. "I haven t got any mind. 
 But I know what you mean. Oratory is won 
 derful. There was a gentleman lived next to 
 
Or^o^, 
 
 "YOU VE LOST YOUR NOTES, MR. CICER( 
 
AN ANNOYANCE 47 
 
 us in town. He drank. On Saturday nights 
 rain or shine he d get full on Bourbon and 
 begin orating. My Cousin Nannie and I used 
 to perch out on the veranda roof listening to 
 him. He was splendid especially when he got 
 profane. It was per-fectly delicious until one 
 night he thought he was Julius Caesar, put on a 
 nightshirt and crawled out on the roof and be 
 gan Hello. Why, here we are at Miss 
 
 Thompkins ." 
 
 Sure enough, they were. Chester found 
 himself at the gate, actually shaking hands with 
 her and lingering as he shook. He wondered 
 what Carlotta would say, if anything. 
 
 "You re in the laundry business, aren t 
 you ?" inquired the remarkable being, bringing 
 the thought out of the nowhere. Chester s 
 neck grew hot with a sudden flush. 
 
 "Yes. That is, temporarily " 
 
 "Until you can move into the Hall of Fame. 
 I don t see any reason why you should be 
 ashamed of it." 
 
 "Who s ashamed of it?" he asked with inele 
 gant directness. 
 
 "I should think the laundry business would 
 be great. The Chinese think of all the fine 
 things first. If I had a business like that I d 
 
48 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 work it up into the wholesale and be the biggest 
 laundryman in the world, bar none. Say, can 
 you blow water through your teeth onto the 
 shirts the way the Chinamen do ?" Getting no 
 encouraging response she went right on : "I d 
 rather be a crackajack laundryman than Shake- 
 spere or any other of those tin statues on top 
 of the museum." 
 
 "Shakespere isn t on top of the museum/ 
 he corrected her again. 
 
 "He ought to be/ said she ; and by the way 
 she said it it was easy to infer that she re 
 garded the museum as a storehouse for dis 
 carded reputations. 
 
 "I m pleased to meet you," he fumbled. 
 
 "I bet I know exactly what s the matter with 
 you," she insisted, holding on to his hand. 
 
 "Matter with me?" 
 
 "Yeah. You never have any fun after 
 dark." 
 
 "Don t I?" He had never thought of that, 
 
 "This college is a morgue. I ve flunked in 
 four subjects this week and if I stick another 
 month it s because God loves the Irish. If I 
 go home now Aunt Het ll tie a flatiron to my 
 leg and drop me in the bay. She wants to make 
 a school-teacher out of me. Can you beat it?" 
 
AN ANNOYANCE 49 
 
 "I can t/ he heartily agreed. 
 
 "I tell you what let s do why don t you 
 come round to-night and pretend you re help 
 ing me with my psychology ?" 
 
 "To-night?" The prospect was wild. 
 
 "Sure ! Just stick round until Miss Thomp- 
 kins turns the hose on you." 
 
 "I shall be pleased." 
 
 He got away under his soggy umbrella. Be 
 hind the bleachers he paused and considered 
 his case. He had promised Carlotta to come 
 round at eight with the first draft of his ora 
 tion, the subject of which was to be William 
 of Orange. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 "WHO EVER TOLD YOU YOU COULD MAKE A 
 SPEECH ?" 
 
 IT WAS on the evening of the twenty-seventK 
 of January that Chester A. Framm with the 
 aid of Ajax Balm got his semicolon s worth of 
 glory in the shape of the William H. Barbour 
 medal, which when it was pinned on by a loqua 
 cious dean looked bigger than a barrel head 
 and felt twice as heavy. For a full half hour 
 he had thundered on episodes mostly cribbed 
 from Motley s Dutch Republic, for a full half 
 hour he had painted the Duke of Alva as black 
 as he undoubtedly was and the Prince of Or 
 ange as white as he probably wasn t. Miss- 
 Carlotta Beam had sat in the front row in or 
 der to give him courage. Chester, from hy 
 pothesis to conclusion, had kept his eyes on a 
 pink spot in the balcony which, so he imagined 
 it, represented Flossie Brannon in an evening 
 gown. 
 
 The dean predicted very fine things for 
 50 
 
WHO SAID YOU COULD MAKE A SPEECH? 51 
 
 Chester s future as he fastened the elaborately 
 engraved decoration upon Chester s swelling 
 breast. 
 
 The rostrum smelled of cut flowers, escaping 
 gas and sachet powder. The evening was 
 pitched in the highest key of glory, but like all 
 earthly glory it stunned rather than exalted. 
 
 After the exercises the faculty gave a recep 
 tion think of it! to Chester A. Framm. It 
 was held in the college library. Who s Who 
 in Dyak assembled to shake him by the hand, 
 and Chester, who should have been a proud and 
 happy man, experienced the first pain of a 
 breaking heart. 
 
 They were standing right under the bust of 
 Robert Burns, fitting witness to such a plight, 
 and the young orator was trying to look inter 
 ested while his triumphant mother held his 
 hand, bidding him listen to Surrogate Judge 
 Foster and the Reverend Mr. Smiley quarrel 
 ing over whether the boy should go in for the 
 law or the ministry. Carlotta, impressive in 
 her white muslin, held aloof among the young 
 instructors, and Chester would have thanked 
 her then and there for what she had done for 
 him had not Mrs. Beam come hissing up to 
 gloat like a cultured vampire. Her changed 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 attitude toward Mrs. Framm already indicated 
 that the match was as good as made. 
 
 In all the tumult and the shouting Chester s 
 mind was not on his success. His eyes wan 
 dered round the room seeking that which was 
 not worth worrying over. He got a glimpse 
 from Carlotta which plainly said "Come hith 
 er/ but he remained disconsolately between 
 Mrs. Beam and Mrs. Framm, to be embar 
 rassed by the latter s clattering on: 
 
 "As I was saying to Ike Whittell : They re 
 as cozy as two peas in a pod, them two. It 
 takes a girl like Carlotta to bring out Chester s 
 fine points/ says I ; and Ike says - " 
 
 Everybody in Dyak came to shake hands 
 with Chester. Everybody, did I say? Ches 
 ter s attention continued to wander. Could it 
 be possible that after the froth of gossip she 
 had whipped up round the university, after the 
 tantalizing dance she had led poor Framm, af 
 ter the pangs of jealousy she had created in the 
 Beam household Flossie Brannon was too in 
 different to his well-being to show up ? 
 
 He caught the flash of her pink gown at last 
 as she came in at the far end of the room, 
 closely followed by The Spiggoty, who wore a 
 dinner jacket, as became a worldly Gamma. 
 
WHO SAID YOU COULD MAKE A SPEECH? 53 
 
 She never looked toward the hero of the even 
 ing; Ramon de Silva seemed all in all to her at 
 that moment. As though sharing the sweetest 
 secret in the world the two sauntered through 
 and disappeared into the auditorium beyond. 
 A moment later the notes of a piano throbbing 
 ragtime violated the dignity of Chester s re 
 ception. 
 
 "Mercy!" hissed Mrs. Beam. "It s quite 
 against the rules." 
 
 "It s that yellow-haired hussy again," in 
 timated Mrs. Framm. 
 
 "Ill see that it s stopped." 
 
 Chester volunteered this noble service and 
 strode away toward the shocking noise. He 
 had frequented Miss Thompkins sufficiently of 
 late and attempted to outsit de Silva often 
 enough to know The Spiggoty s skillful touch 
 at the keyboard. From the great square piano 
 behind the palms his notes were capering mer 
 rily, and through the exotic foliage Chester 
 could see scraps of pink chiffon performing 
 evolutions quite at variance with the rules. 
 Once behind the sheltering palms the self-ap 
 pointed censor saw what he saw : Flossie was 
 executing the cakewalk, then in vogue. 
 
54 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Listen at him, Cicero !" she crowed. "Spig s 
 new piece The Potato Bugs Parade." 
 
 "It s against the rules," said Chester se 
 verely. 
 
 "Who cares for the rules? I m fired any 
 how," quoth she caressingly. "Let er go, 
 Spig!" 
 
 "Look here, Framm, on whose authority are 
 you giving orders here?" growled the Span 
 iard, staying his harmonic fingers and wheel 
 ing on the piano stool. 
 
 "On the authority of the college," replied 
 the boy orator. 
 
 The Spiggoty had come to his feet and his 
 beetling brow was drawn down almost to the 
 base of his nose. He was consideraly smaller 
 than Chester. This, possibly, had saved him 
 on several occasions. 
 
 "I see." The Spiggoty s teeth were large 
 and he showed them to advantage. "You re 
 the dean, I suppose; and the Committee on 
 Student Affairs and " 
 
 Flossie spluttered her wild delight, for trou 
 ble was her natural element. 
 
 "Spiggy- Wiggy s got another brain storm !" 
 she giggled, dancing in between the dangerous 
 
WHO SAID YOU COULD MAKE A SPEECH? 55 
 
 pair. "Gosh, Spig, if you only knew how funny 
 you look " 
 
 "I should like to know by whose author 
 ity " he was taking up the refrain when 
 
 she cut in: Til tell you, Spig! Why don t 
 you go and look it up?" 
 
 "What look up what?" 
 
 "The authority. Possibly the dean would 
 know ; or the registrar." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 "Now run along, Spig. That s a dear kit 
 ten." 
 
 And the miracle of it was that Spig did run 
 along, spitting like an angry leopard, yet un 
 doubtedly obeying. She was a hypnotist, noth 
 ing less. Chester would have laughed, but the 
 occasion for him held no humor. 
 
 "Don t ask me to have another glass of lem 
 onade," she went right on, as soon as they were 
 alone. "It hasn t even got lemons in it. Gee I 
 Isn t it lucky you don t dance! Because it s 
 awful to know how and not be allowed. It s 
 just the way drunkards must feel when they re 
 locked up with saloons all round them. There s 
 one next to my aunt s house in San Francisco 
 a drunkard, I mean." 
 
56 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Yes, he thought he was Julius Caesar and 
 crawled out on the roof." 
 
 "So he did. I always repeat my stories." 
 
 So she rattled along, obviously temporizing. 
 She had a way of snuggling, and to-night she 
 was practicing her art on Chester as the two 
 leaned against a window sill. His heart stood 
 still, waiting for something it was breaking to 
 hear. Not a word. He might have been a 
 casual guest instead of the orator of the even 
 ing for all the importance she gave to his so 
 recent triumph or to the large gold plaque con 
 spicuously pinned to the front of his frock coat. 
 
 "What s this about your being fired?" he 
 asked after one of his looming pauses. 
 
 "Yeah," she agreed; "I flunked out two 
 weeks ago." 
 
 - You didn t say anything about it to me." 
 
 "Didn t I? I didn t think you d be inter 
 ested, maybe." 
 
 The yellowish gleam of her half-closed eyes 
 got him a fatal wound. It was then that he 
 gave up; knew why he had treated Carlotta 
 so shabbily to-night; realized that these un 
 worthy weeks he hadn t been devoting his 
 evenings to Miss Thompkins boarding house 
 merely for the intellectual upliftment of Miss 
 
WHO SAID YOU COULD MAKE A SPEECH? 57 
 
 Florabel Brannon. Intellectually she was ir 
 reclaimable. And yet 
 
 "Then I suppose you re going home," he 
 managed to say after clearing his throat. 
 
 "This morning Old Goggles" by this she 
 meant the registrar "notified me. The dar 
 ling was sore as a boil. I m an outlaw. I 
 don t know why he let me come to this party = 
 unless he s afraid to leave me unwatched." 
 
 "When do you go?" repeated the unfortu 
 nate. 
 
 "On the eight-thirty-one to-morrow. And 
 how I hate to get up !" She yawned in antici 
 pation. 
 
 Not a word for him ! Her eyes were roving 
 toward the library door, through which, too 
 apparently, she expected The Spiggoty to re 
 turn, cooled and repentant. 
 
 Vanity strangling pride, he shuffled his pose 
 and asked as carelessly as he knew how: "I 
 don t suppose you heard the er speaking?" 
 
 "Didn t I, though ! Wasn t it a scream?" 
 
 Of course. That was how she would take 
 it. 
 
 "I wasn t aware " 
 
 "That was what made it so funny," she gig 
 gled. "You weren t aware not the least little 
 
158 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 bit. What was the name of the gentleman you 
 stood up and shouted about ?" 
 
 - William of Orange." 
 
 "What a peculiar name! Now if I was go 
 ing to be a historical hero I wouldn t name my 
 self after any kind of fruit. All during your 
 sermon I was thinking how awful it would be 
 to have people call you Henry of Lemons or 
 Charlie the Apple Man. Now you re going to 
 get mad again." 
 
 He thrust his hands deep into his pockets 
 and took a shuffling step away. It was fortu 
 nate for Dyak and for him that she was go 
 ing to-morrow morning. 
 
 "Chester!" 
 
 She called it after him in the sweetest little 
 voice. It was the first time she had ever called 
 him anything but Cicero. The perfumed an 
 esthetic unsteadied him and when he turned to 
 ward her she was giving him the full benefit 
 of her gaze; her lovely cheeks were bright as 
 peonies. 
 
 "You re an absurd sort of kid," she took up 
 her theme as soon as he had got back to the 
 window sill. "With your hair trimmed and a 
 snappy business suit on I think you d really 
 do." 
 
WHO SAID YOU COULD MAKE A SPEECH? 59 
 
 "Do for what?" he growled, trying to back 
 away. But she was holding him fast by the 
 broad lapels of his frock coat. 
 
 "Oh, just do. You re a regular handsome 
 wretch, Chester A. Framm. But you do need 
 trimming." 
 
 He stood there like a mass of putty between 
 her soft white hands: a passionate mass of 
 putty which longed to clasp her and make ro 
 mantic avowals that would have been wasted 
 on her frivolous ears. One of those mischiev 
 ous hands had now strayed up to the William 
 H. Barbour gold medal and had given it two 
 swift downward jerks, after the manner of a 
 conductor starting a street car. 
 
 "Jing-jing !" she chirped. 
 
 ? Great Scott!" groaned Chester, covering 
 the trophy from her further profanation. 
 
 "Oh see the pretty badge ! The Grand High 
 Mookum of the Refreshment Committee at the 
 Sons and Daughters of Ararat Annual Barbe 
 cue. Poor old Cicero ! Have you got to wear 
 it round everywhere, even to bed?" 
 
 "Floss, you re awful," he told her with less 
 severity than he had intended. 
 
 "Did it take you all this time to find it out? 
 
60 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Well now, you d better go back and join your 
 tragedy queen." 
 
 This, then, was to be good-by. With all his 
 suspected genius Chester had no avowal wor 
 thy of the occasion. 
 
 I m I m sorry you didn t like my speech/ 
 he blurted. 
 
 "Whew !" she whistled and burst into a peal 
 of laughter. "Who in the world ever told you 
 you could make a speech?" 
 
 "Good-by," said he shortly, holding out his 
 hand. 
 
 "So long," responded Floss. "See you in 
 heaven, maybe." 
 
 He now took his departure to avoid the ap 
 proaching Spiggoty. 
 
 "Chester." Again that sweet small note 
 rang after him. He came rapidly back. 
 
 "Won t you give me that badge just as you 
 know one of those souvenir things ?" 
 
 How wonderful is man ! Without a word he 
 loosened the golden pin from his coat and with 
 trembling fingers fastened the William H. Bar- 
 bour medal to the cluster of pink chiffon over 
 the place where her heart should have been. 
 There were some five or six fraternity pins al 
 ready there. 
 
WHO SAID YOU COULD MAKE A SPEECH? 61 
 
 "Why can t I see you to the train in the 
 morning?" he pleaded quite deliriously. 
 
 "Oh, that will be splen-did !" she cried. Spig- 
 goty was now within hearing distance. "Of 
 course there ll be quite a bus load, but do 
 come !" 
 
 Next morning at a little before eight he 
 picked up the bus just as it was rounding the 
 museum toward Miss Thompkins boarding 
 house. The bus contained but one other pas 
 senger so far. It was The Spiggoty, and over 
 his hateful knees he held a long box, obviously 
 bearing flowers. They were as nothing to one 
 another, though the drive was some minutes 
 long and they were permitted to sit out in the 
 cold while Flossie kissed Miss Thompkins, for 
 got her hand bag, went back for her umbrella, 
 remembered she had packed it, and kissed Miss 
 Thompkins again before she smilingly an 
 nounced that she was ready. 
 
 On the way to the station Chester sat in un 
 comfortable expectancy that the Gammas and 
 the Kappas might at any moment storm the 
 wagon in competitive good-bys. But their ride 
 was unmarred by any such incident. Appar 
 ently Floss had sifted the college down to the 
 present pair. She took De Silva s flowers and 
 
62 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 called him a sweetheart. They were barely in 
 time for the train, and the picture of Miss 
 Brannon being tossed aboard a moving coach, 
 followed by hand bags and flower boxes, was 
 not a romantic last glimpse. Just a flash of 
 pinkish feather and eyes that were intoxicating 
 like yellow wine. Her voice and her influence 
 were submerged in distance. 
 
 Chester A. Framm and Ramon de Silva, 
 equally young, equally disillusioned, stood a 
 moment in all the pathos of their heroic atti 
 tudes. Chester had an impulse to speak to The 
 Spiggoty and suggest that their bygones 
 should be wiped out in what was too plainly a 
 bygone. Instead the unmedaled orator turned 
 toward the east gate of the campus. 
 
 Splashing through the seasonable mud he 
 could descry a lone bicycle, female in sex, wind 
 ing its way from Faculty Row to the Quad. 
 Carlotta Beam, even though engaged in the un 
 dignified work of pedaling, still looked the god 
 dess that she was. He wasn t sure that she 
 hadn t witnessed that good-by. As a matter 
 of fact he didn t care. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TWO STRAWS AND A ZEPHYR 
 
 sunshine was on the California val 
 leys and Chester A. Framm was already strug 
 gling with his valedictorian address when the 
 Floss Idea interfered to wreck his program, as 
 it always did. Having wiped her off the slate 
 he had found life s "problem less difficult, if 
 dreary at times. He had reserved Commence 
 ment Day as the occasion upon which he should 
 ask Carlotta Beam to marry him. It was a 
 logical step upward on the ladder of fame. 
 
 He had taken it for granted that she would 
 accept him and he was justified in the belief. 
 Possibly the certainty of it had delayed him so 
 long. 
 
 On the very eve of the Floss Idea his divine 
 instructress had taken him in hand gently, pa 
 tiently, as was her wont. 
 
 "We mustn t rest on our laurels," she had 
 told him over the scribbled notes for his new 
 oration. "I want your commencement address 
 
 63 
 
64 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 to be the best work of your life thus far. No 
 steps backward. The William H. Barbour 
 medal" she never asked him what had become 
 of it; that was suspicious "marked the first 
 awakening. Your commencement address 
 must be your challenge to life, your defiance to 
 petty things, mean vanities and disturbing 
 influences." 
 
 Did she mean Floss? Surely this girl, al 
 ready a woman in mind and ability, was of too 
 noble a cast to harbor spite against a mere red 
 tam-o -shanter. Carlotta Beam was the finest 
 woman he had ever met. He had never met 
 many, that was true. But she had within her 
 an ideal and a strength that seemed to warp 
 other women to the realm of insects, where they 
 belonged. 
 
 On the night before the Floss Idea he walked 
 home under the springtime stars, picturing to 
 himself numerous public occasions, affairs 
 of nation-shaking importance Chester A. 
 Framm always the central figure in the group ; 
 his wife, always an invisible influence for good, 
 somewhere in the background. 
 
 Next morning a boy on a bicycle brought a 
 telegram over from the station. Fortunately 
 for Chester his mother was at work in the back 
 
TWO STRAWS AND A ZEPHYR 65 
 
 of the laundry, so he got the messenger paid 
 off and the envelope open undetected. 
 
 "Meet me important lunch noon College 
 Inn. FLOSS/ 
 
 And wasn t it ridiculous and unheard-of and 
 just like Floss? Chester had never known of 
 anything quite so absurd. He hadn t the re 
 motest idea of meeting her "important lunch 
 noon College Inn." That was settled. In the 
 first place there was a history quiz at eleven- 
 thirty. In the second place he hadn t a red 
 cent beyond a handful of laundry money which 
 rightfully belonged to his mother. In the third 
 place he hadn t any clothes beyond the dread 
 ful sack suit he wore and his ceremonial cut 
 away ; and the College Inn was a rather horsy 
 place, specializing in red steaks and brown ale 
 at San Francisco prices a fashionable rendez 
 vous for the gilded youth of Dyak who could 
 afford fine food outside the college dry belt. 
 
 Of course he would do nothing of the kind. 
 Strengthened by this resolve he stopped at 
 Baum s Toggery Shop and bought himself a 
 dollar necktie. He needed it undoubtedly, to 
 wear to his history quiz. At eleven o clock he 
 strolled by the College Inn and paused before 
 
66 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 its smart Tudor front to take a look at the 
 place. It wasn t far out of his way to the class 
 room; just a mile or so. He put on something 
 of the swagger he had noted among the lighter 
 set and walked into the big dining room, which 
 was done in frowning oak, with pewter mugs 
 along the shelves, university shields painted on 
 the frescoes, and in a far corner little stalls 
 holding tables for two. 
 
 After all, thought Chester A. Framm, she 
 had wired him, not The Spiggoty. 
 
 Then the awful thought got him by the 
 throat: How did he know she hadn t wired 
 The Spiggoty ? 
 
 He got out before a waiter could head him 
 off and strolled sheepishly round the town, 
 rumpling in his pockets the few hard-earned 
 bills wrested from the laundry business. His 
 mother owed him that much, he felt; she was 
 making money and he was doing a great deal 
 for what he got. He looked at his dollar watch. 
 It was lacking six minutes of twelve. He 
 turned and almost ran toward the College 
 Inn. A bus from the train was just stopping 
 at the door when he swung into view. A girl 
 in a green coat it was the brightest coat he 
 had ever seen got out and caused the driver 
 
TWO STRAWS AND A ZEPHYR 67 
 
 to whoop with delight as she handed up her 
 fare. Chester was still of a mind to run away, 
 because he knew that Flossie had kept her 
 appointment. 
 
 "Hello, old Goober!" was her first address 
 to him as she took both his hot hands in her 
 little gloves. "How s fame?" 
 
 "I I don t know," he faltered, studying the 
 face which seemed to trick him out of every 
 thing he revered in life. "I haven t been watch 
 ing very closely." 
 
 "My word !" she exclaimd. "I thought that 
 Hissing Hattie s angel daughter would have 
 you in Congress by now." 
 
 She had tiptoed up the steps and was leading 
 the way into the dining room. Once inside she 
 made a bee line for one of the small stalls at 
 the end of the room. 
 
 "Order me pounds and pounds of raw meat," 
 she commanded as soon as they were seated; 
 and when a chubby waiter had made his ap 
 pearance, "Hello, Harry!" 
 
 "Good morning, Miss Brannon." He was 
 smiles all over, as Flossie s environment was 
 apt to be. "I thought you quit." 
 
 "I did. And Harry, bring in one of those 
 deep-dish things full of grass and tomatoes 
 
68 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 and if you love me don t pour any of that lin 
 seed stuff over it." 
 
 "I won t, Miss Brannon," avowed the hum 
 blest of her adorers. 
 
 "And oo have you got some of that sweet 
 heart old dove of a clam chowder you used to 
 have?" 
 
 "The very same ; quite good, Miss Brannon." 
 
 "Forward march !" commanded the disturb 
 ing influence. 
 
 "Fm so hungry," she told Chester as soon 
 as they were alone, "that I could eat sauer 
 kraut." 
 
 "So am I," he confessed. It was strange, 
 but this was the first occasion for months when 
 he had looked forward to his food. 
 
 "And you re going to ask, To what do I owe 
 the pleasure of this visit to? I know you are. 
 Dear old Cicero will you be just too dread 
 fully shocked for words if I tell you that I ve 
 missed you?" 
 
 "Not half so much as I ve missed you," he 
 heard his trancelike tones repeating. 
 
 "Not really !" And to his ineffable surprise 
 her eyes grew bright with tears. 
 
 "Has anything happened, Flossie ? Anything 
 in the world that I can do for you ?" 
 
TWO STRAWS AND A ZEPHYR 69 
 
 "Happened !" As suddenly she was laughing 
 again. "Cicero, what couldn t happen to me?" 
 
 "You ve stated the case," he agreed, and 
 smiled one of his solemn smiles. 
 
 "Well, you see Aunt Het she s awfully 
 funny when she gets mad. She has false teeth 
 and Hello, here s the sweetheart old chow 
 der!" 
 
 The connection between teeth and temper 
 was left unexplained while Flossie Brannon 
 went at her food with a vigor most unmaidenly. 
 
 "We re awfully early and jay," she volun 
 teered after her plate had been half cleared. 
 "But this is a business man s lunch. The train 
 goes back at three-twelve." 
 
 "Goes back w r here?" 
 
 "To San Francisco, Mr. Geese." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 She reverted to her chowder. Three early 
 Kappas filed in, gave a dramatic start and 
 settled down at a table in an opposite corner. 
 Flossie Brannon never looked their way. Ches 
 ter was ineffably grateful, partly because an 
 interruption would have maddened him, partly 
 because Kappas and Gammas with their world 
 ly airs made him more awkward than Nature 
 had intended him to be. 
 
70 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "So your Aunt Het," he prompted her as 
 soon as steak impended. 
 
 "She always loses her false teeth when she 
 gets mad. Think of anybody not being glad to 
 see me! She stuck me in a dungeon dire and 
 said that I was worse than my grandfather. 
 Of course that s a slander. Then she trotted 
 out Mr. Blink; he s just desperate to marry me 
 and I had a lot of fun spoiling his life for a 
 few weeks " 
 
 "Who s this Mr. Blink?" he huskily inquired. 
 
 "That isn t the name on his office door. He s 
 worth three hundred and six squillion dollars 
 and he s so near blind that he couldn t see me 
 half the time when I was making faces at him. 
 Then it got so tragic and disgusting the way 
 I behaved and all that Aunt Het delivered a 
 manifesto." 
 
 Flossie paused and adored the steak. 
 
 "Are those silly little Kappas still gheeking 
 at us?" she asked after her first bite. That 
 also was like Floss. 
 
 "They re still there," he acknowledged nerv 
 ously. 
 
 "Let em stay." 
 
 "So your Aunt Het delivered a manifesto." 
 
TWO STRAWS AND A ZEPHYR 71 
 
 "Mr. Blink and Aunt Het got together and 
 announced our engagement." 
 
 "To Mr. Blink publicly! he gasped like a 
 fish. 
 
 "No ; just to me. That was yesterday. Poor 
 old Aunt Het she s suffered so after I got 
 home. So last night she sat up till all hours 
 telling me I was a drug on the market and that 
 if I didn t marry Mr. Blink and that right 
 sudden she d tie a can to me and start me 
 toward the Cliff House. So I went to my room 
 and had a good cry " 
 
 "Poor Flossie!" said the distracted Chester 
 Framm, longing to pick her up and administer 
 comfort in the very presence of the Kappas. 
 
 "Oh, I enjoyed it ever so much. And this 
 morning, I just packed my bags and came to 
 you." 
 
 It was all so fearfully simple like an earth 
 quake or a forest fire. 
 
 "Flossie, my dear," he asked her upon that 
 wonder, "why in the world did you come to 
 me?" 
 
 "Why!" She opened her wide eyes upon 
 him. "You re in love with me, aren t you?" 
 
 It came quite naturally, as miracles are apt 
 to come. 
 
72 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "I d die for you/ he whispered, and leaned 
 over to look down into those wells of gold. 
 
 "Bully !" she cried. "Then it s all fixed !" 
 
 "What s all fixed?" 
 
 He came swooning back to the great world. 
 
 "Why, I m in love with you too/ she in 
 formed him with her terrible directness, and 
 passed him her hand in bold defiance of the 
 Kappa stare. 
 
 "When when did this happen?" He 
 clutched her fingers incredulously. 
 
 "I got to thinking about you. I m a terrible 
 deep thinker when I get started. You re all 
 over great big knobs of crudeness but I don t 
 know. Falling in love s like dropping into a 
 canal you can t tell just what drop drowned 
 you, can you? You re an awful slob and you 
 do need a haircut and what couldn t I do with 
 you in a new suit of clothes ! These other little 
 feathers" a gesture indicated the Kappas and 
 the Gammas and all the Greek alphabet 
 "they ll be either dead drunk or clerking in shoe 
 stores in a few years. You ve got what-you- 
 call- em poss-i-bil-i-ties. Gee, what a long 
 word." 
 
 His heart stood still. Then she had, after 
 all, appreciated his oratorical gifts. 
 
TWO STRAWS AND A ZEPHYR 73 
 
 "You mean my " 
 
 "You ve got a won-derful head for busines3. 
 Just see the way you built up that laundry/ 
 
 He would have dropped her hand had it not 
 been so delicious. 
 
 "Floss, I haven t had a happy minute since 
 you left It seemed to take away all my " 
 
 "That darned ambition ! I know. Now listen 
 to me, Cicero. Please propose, and do it now. 
 You don t need to kiss me yet" 
 
 "Will you marry me?" 
 
 "This afternoon, Goober." 
 
 "Goober?" 
 
 "That s what I m going to call you when 
 we re married." 
 
 "But this afternoon " he faltered on the 
 
 brink of paradise. "I ve got to graduate, you 
 know." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "I can t get a diploma unless I do." 
 
 "What in all the little green planets do you 
 need a diploma for ? To hang up in your office 
 and show to out-of-town customers? You ve 
 got all there is out of college by now. But, of 
 course, if you must wait I ll have to go back 
 to San Francisco and fish out Mr. Blink." 
 
 "No you won t!" he declared savagely. 
 
74. THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Old Mr. Brutal !" she smiled adorably. 
 
 "But I haven t got a cent of money. Ma 
 hates the sight of you and we can t live at the 
 laundry." 
 
 "I ve looked out for ev-erything," she said. 
 "I ve brought a hundred and twenty-eight dol 
 lars in my own little selfish purse." 
 
 "Check, please/ said Chester A. Framm 
 hoarsely to the waiter. 
 
 "We d better hurry," Flossie reminded him. 
 "The three-twelve is the only train out of here 
 this afternoon." 
 
 How Chester A. Framm took his hand bag 
 away from the Bon Ton Laundry is of histori 
 cal importance, since it records one of those 
 sorrows which seem to await upon a great joy. 
 
 "I ve got to run to town for a couple of 
 days," he told his mother sheepishly as he 
 encountered her at the desk making out bills. 
 
 "Now, Ches ? Right in the midst of all your 
 work?" 
 
 "It s important." 
 
 He only knew that the three-twelve wouldn t 
 wait and Floss was loving on schedule. 
 
 "Chester !" The great broad woman slid her 
 spectacles over her gray hair and gave him 
 such a look as he had never seen from her. 
 
TWO STRAWS AND A ZEPHYR 75 
 
 "Has it got anything to do with that yellow- 
 haired chit?" 
 
 "Miss Brannon, you mean?" 
 
 "If that s her silly name. I don t want you 
 to go trifling with her any more. She stole 
 your medal away from you and she ll steal your 
 character. She s not for any young man s good. 
 She paints her face and smokes cigareets 
 and " 
 
 He could hear the train tooting in the dis 
 tance. 
 
 "Good-bye, mother," he roared, and went 
 charging away toward his peculiar destiny. 
 
 As the train pulled out a lonesome figure 
 could be seen at the end of the Dyak platform. 
 Somber eyes fringed with lampblack were 
 anxiously scanning each passing window. 
 
 "Poor Spig!" sighed Chester s sudden bride- 
 to-be, waving her hand toward one who, 
 vanishing in distance, had recognized her a 
 moment too late. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 
 
 "Kiss me quick and say you love me twice, 
 rapidly," commanded Chester A. Framm s 
 bride of three days; and when that was dis 
 patched as per orders: "She is a terror, no 
 mistake ! And if I scream or she screams don t 
 waste a minute come a-running and pull me 
 out. Good-by." 
 
 Thus she left him amid the somber glories 
 of Aunt Het s parlor; he had a last fond 
 glimpse of that small bright figure rounding the 
 walnut newel post which pedestaled a brass 
 knight with a gas lamp on the end of his spear. 
 They had honeymooned three days in a remote 
 San Francisco hotel, and this morning, their 
 money nearing ebb tide, she had inducted Ches 
 ter to an example of those old-fashioned grip 
 cars which used to run funicular- fashion up 
 one of the steepest streets of the steepest city 
 in America. The fog, which had grayed all the 
 depressing high-stooped residences along their 
 
 76 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 77 
 
 ascent, had got into Chester s soul ; all the way 
 up Floss had cheered him with piratical anec 
 dotes descriptive of Aunt Het s whimsies, 
 which ended in revolting scenes, always sig 
 naled by a slight loosening of her false teeth. 
 
 An unpleasant Chinese butler had admitted 
 them to an ornamented slate-colored residence 
 near the top of the hill. Being deserted with 
 orders to come a-running upon call Chester 
 paced restlessly the full length of a vasty parlor 
 which was a room-and-a-half tall, full of mor 
 tuary ornaments and tyrannized over by a 
 lofty black mantel whose innumerable pillars, 
 shelves, pagodas and bastions were thickly pop 
 ulated with gnomelike shapes of bric-a-brac. 
 From a far-away end of the room a California 
 pioneer, done in snowy marble, stared un 
 friendly from his pink plush pedestal. 
 
 Silence, slience everywhere. It was the tall 
 est room Chester had ever seen, and aside from 
 its depressing influences the bridegroom was a 
 prey to troubled thoughts. What of his angry 
 mother, and what of the high-souled Carlotta, 
 equally deserted in this frenzy of young love? 
 He had fed on honey dew and drunk the milk 
 of paradise; a changed man he must be for- 
 evermore. But could he change? Would 
 
78 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Florabel, who obviously loved him well, de 
 mand that he should forget his ideals, desert 
 his destiny? 
 
 He paused in his pacing to look at himself 
 in one of Aunt Het s sky-aspiring mirrors. His 
 hair trimmed, his scarf Floss-tied in the mode 
 of the day, his imposing figure draped in a 
 rather well-fitting suit of gray he was already 
 quite a different person from the young orator 
 of Dyak. His appearance was, as Floss had 
 termed it, "snappy"; and he wondered if he 
 could stand himself that way. A life of seri 
 ous application and of self-support had aged 
 him beyond his years ; you would have placed 
 him at round thirty had you been there to 
 appraise his business possibilities. 
 
 It seemed a fearful wait, down there in the 
 mortuary parlor. What had the heartless Het 
 chosen to do to his Flossie, whose poor weak 
 hands were pitted unarmed against the dragon? 
 Chester was nervous, as well he might be. The 
 silence was unbearable. 
 
 "Hor-rors! Ho-lee hor-raws! Aw! Stop 
 it! Aw-aw!" 
 
 It came in a frenzied scream from the up 
 stairs apartments and caused an icy rill down 
 the back of the anxious waiter upon trouble. 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 79 
 
 His feet and his heart stood still at the same 
 time. When warm blood would course again 
 he tiptoed as far as the brass knight on the 
 newel post and peered superstitiously up the 
 stairs. An enormous red-and-green macaw sat 
 on its perch at the first landing, its head upside 
 down, one red eye fixed in critical scrutiny. 
 
 "Lord bless your life! Haw, haw!" 
 
 Chester breathed again. After all it was 
 only the parrot ; never a shriek, never a scream 
 had sounded from his adored Floss or from the 
 fire-devouring Het. But the incident had the 
 effect of unnerving him completely. What 
 sort of witch could it be that would keep this 
 bird of evil a sentinel on the stairs ? And what 
 had he and Floss to hope from the offended 
 monster lurking somewhere in her upper den? 
 
 "Oh, Goober! Goob!" 
 
 He was immensely relieved to hear Flossie s 
 thrilling voice, clear and undiscouraged. 
 
 "Yes, darling !" he shouted up the stairs. 
 
 "You can come up now." 
 
 He took it at three leaps, evaded a savage 
 peck from the parrot, and crushed his endan 
 gered bride in his arms. 
 
 "Don t," she whispered in an annoyed tone, 
 and by the look of her face it was plain to be 
 
80 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 seen that the ordeal had been a hard one. "Just 
 be natural and come on!" 
 
 She led him into the chamber of torment. 
 Blinking in the light of the big old-fashioned 
 boudoir he was preparing to be natural when 
 his calculations were quite shattered by the 
 miracle which pounced out upon him. Some 
 thing in a lacy coquettish garment had rushed 
 from behind a screen and before he could take 
 measures to defend himself someone had kissed 
 him heartily on both cheeks. He beheld an 
 elderly lady, about Floss-size, enameled and 
 elaborately jeweled, grasping him by the elbows 
 while her high cracked voice repeated. 
 
 "So this is the husband? I m so relieve d. 
 You re not half so ugly as I thought you would 
 be." 
 
 "Now, Aunt Het you know I said he was 
 the most bee-ootiful little old gigantic slob " 
 
 Flossie s protest thoroughly established the 
 marvel. So it was Aunt Het ! But what had 
 Floss been doing to her? 
 
 "As if I didn t have worries enough on my 
 mind," she went right on with some monologue 
 which apparently he had interrupted, "without 
 you two things running off to a third 
 rate preacher and getting married ! If you had 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 81 
 
 come to me in the first place I d have had the 
 First Spiritualist Church with the Reverend 
 Mr. Billings " 
 
 "Aunt Het believes in em," explained Floss, 
 indicating the Great Beyond. 
 
 "She believes in nothing/ pronounced the 
 old lady, folding her frivolous hands. 
 
 Chester thought it time to change the subject. 
 
 We re we re very grateful that you re not 
 angry " 
 
 "Angry?" 
 
 He looked in alarm to see if her false teeth 
 were dropping. They were firmly established 
 and revealed by innumerable smiles. His wife s 
 great-aunt had the Flossie look, faded but 
 still girlish. 
 
 What should I be angry about?" 
 
 Well, when you saw Miss Brannon Mrs. 
 Framm coming back married, you know " 
 
 "I was never so relieved in my life." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 "I could have danced with joy. Just to think 
 she s finally off my hands !" 
 
 This last was inspiring. 
 
 "If you d only know what misery that girl 
 has cost me !" 
 
 She sighed. 
 
82 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "But auntie, love/ upspoke that girl, whose 
 study of psychology had taught her at least to 
 know the psychological moment, "the trouble s 
 just begun/ 
 
 "I thought so. Oliver came to me last night 
 and told me to prepare." Oliver, it turned out, 
 was her spirit guide. 
 
 Aunt Het sat down and Chester had a 
 fearful feeling that the teeth had dropped the 
 fraction of an inch. 
 
 "We haven t got the price of a hot tamale 
 between us, Aunt Het," explained Chester s 
 wife. "If we could live on love we d just swell 
 up and bust. But we can t." 
 
 "So you ve come home to live on me?" The 
 withered lady set her little mouth so that the 
 index of her temper was invisible; yet there 
 were signs of storm. 
 
 "Just temporarily, Aunt Het. You see my 
 Goober s aw-fully talented. Aren t you, Cic 
 ero? And if you could just lend us a trunk 
 room to sleep in and feed us any old scraps 
 that Oscar doesn t want " 
 
 Oscar being the parrot, that appeal was 
 humble enough. "I don t intend to let you 
 starve!" snapped the old lady, her frivolity 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 83 
 
 departed. "But what are the special talents of 
 your your Goober, as you call him?" 
 
 "He would do splendidly in the insurance 
 business," was Flossie s quick diagnosis. Which 
 was startling news to Chester A. Framm. 
 
 "But you don t know anybody in the insur 
 ance business except Mr. Applethwaite." 
 
 "Old Mr. Blink? Yeppy. He s vice presi 
 dent of the Invisible Life and he can t refuse 
 to give Chester a tiny little job." 
 
 "What ?" There came an unmistakable rat 
 tling of ivory with the explosion. "Do you 
 mean to say you would have the very poor 
 taste to ask a favor of him after the way 
 you ve treated and tormented and jilted him?" 
 
 "Course I would, old auntix! He told me 
 eleven times in one evening that he loved me 
 more than wealth or fame. I guess after that 
 the least he could do would be to give my sweet 
 heart a job." 
 
 "Well, of all the " began Aunt Het, but 
 
 failing in eloquence continued: "I should say 
 that Mr. Applethwaite was about the most un 
 likely candidate in the field." 
 
 "Sure. And that s why I m going to tackle 
 him." 
 
 "Flossie," exclaimed her great-aunt, ac- 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 knowledging defeat in the last of a thousand 
 things, "I sometimes think you re playing a 
 system." 
 
 This was the manner of Chester A. Framm s 
 introduction to life s real problems. He had 
 always despised the wastrels who marry for 
 wealth, but it would have taken a stretch of the 
 imagination to have accused him of that. The 
 cumbersome suite which Aunt Het gave them 
 on the third floor was many degrees more ex 
 alted than a trunk room, and the food was 
 surely not discarded by Oscar. Though their 
 bedroom and parlor were cluttered with an 
 overflow of curios from below, their quarters 
 were comfortable beyond their foolish deserts. 
 During the first uncertain weeks of married 
 life Floss did many odd jobs in this small estab 
 lishment, even washing clothes in the old- 
 fashioned bathtub and on a wabbly gas jet 
 heating over their breakfast, which came up 
 on a tray. Aunt Het, who had buried three 
 husbands, preferred to spend her mornings 
 with Oscar the parrot and a mixed company 
 of loved ones from the Beyond. It was a com 
 fortable, patronizing arrangement which at 
 first chafed the pride of Framm. That pride 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 85 
 
 grew callous beyond ordinary chafings, as we 
 are yet to see. 
 
 They had scarcely carried their limited bag 
 gage to the temporary quarters and hung their 
 clothes in two of the looming spirit cabinets 
 when Floss set herself to a talent which had 
 been revealed during the honeymoon. She took 
 off her hat and trimmed it. Back in Dyak days 
 Chester had often wondered at her profusion 
 of millinery; matrimonial experience taught 
 him that she could entirely alter the appear 
 ance of her headdress in less time than it takes 
 most women to comb their hair. 
 
 On this pioneer day Floss "went upstairs 
 wearing a blue feather. Five minutes later she 
 was standing in front of a ramshackle mirror 
 trying on a lacy turban with silver braid wound 
 round and round. This was Chester s purely 
 untechincal impression as he sat on the edge 
 of the bed and reflected that his wife s appear 
 ance was modish in the extreme. Tight waists 
 were being worn in that period of the world s 
 history, and Floss could make herself very slim 
 at midlady without extravagant lacings. 
 
 "Are you going to see this this Blink now ?" 
 inquired her husband, nervously admiring the 
 flash of her wonderful complexion in the mir- 
 
86 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 ror as she stood there patting her honey-colored 
 hair and perking from side to side. 
 
 "You ll notice I m wearing a plain blue walk 
 ing suit," she soliloquized, "gently outlining the 
 figure and showing a touch of scarlet at the 
 throat. He was always crazy about me in 
 blue poor thing! What were you saying, 
 Goober?" 
 
 "Are you going to see this Mr. Blink right 
 away?" 
 
 "Yeah." She spoke it casually, her mouth 
 being full of pins. It was as though he had 
 asked her if she was going to walk or take a 
 street car. 
 
 "But, precious I m not sure I shall care 
 about the insurance business." 
 
 He had to wait for his reply until she had 
 used all the pins on her lace collar. 
 
 "I m not frenzied about it either. But what 
 are we going to do? We can t start right in 
 making orations. I don t know of anybody 
 getting rich out of that except the man who 
 sells soap on the street in front of the City 
 Library." Suddenly she dropped a bar pin, 
 the convertible hat and a scrap of silk as, turn 
 ing round, she faced her Chester with an ex 
 pression of divine guidance. 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 87 
 
 "Cicero !" she crowed. "Speaking of the City 
 Library and the soap I ve got an idea !" 
 "We need one," said he. "What is it?" 
 "Nope, I shan t tell you until you re polite/ 
 "I m polite," he protested, trying to kiss her. 
 "What s the idea?" 
 
 "Nope. It s got to cook until it s tender." 
 When she had resumed her hat he took her 
 as far as the corner, but there she pointed him 
 west as she turned east. 
 
 "Aunt Het won t give us any lunch," she 
 decreed. "But if you ll meet me at the Poodle 
 Dog half past twelve I ll tell you about Mr. 
 Blink and what he says." 
 
 "The Poodle Dog? Do you think we ought 
 to eat at those expensive places when we re 
 nearly broke?" 
 
 "Course we ought!" She opened wide her 
 golden eyes at the very idea. "Why, Goob 
 all the scientists say that if paupers were bet 
 ter nourished there wouldn t be any poverty or 
 crimes. Now run along and think hard." 
 
 Any town looks cold to the unemployed. San 
 Francisco, which has harbored many galleons 
 out of strange seas, was once accused by a 
 poet of being serene, indifferent to fate. I have 
 
88 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 never found it to be either, but the forenoons 
 there are clammy, especially on the shady side 
 of the street. At least this was the case in 
 my day, which was Chester s day ; indeed I have 
 no reason to think that the famous fire and 
 I almost said earthquake ever altered that 
 aspect of Nature. 
 
 Coming out of a warm California valley into 
 this inspiring fog belt Chester was obliged to 
 turn up his coat collar as he walked. Trudging 
 along, shivering, blue, he was the picture of 
 one who had lost his soul s wish to gain his 
 heart s desire. He was in a strange flux of 
 happiness and misery. Could he ever make 
 peace with his offended mother? Apparently 
 not. The Widow Framm, he knew by experi 
 ence, loved and hated like an Indian. Lost in 
 the roses of his misfit romance he felt the 
 scratch of the thorns at every step. If there 
 be a difference between love and infatuation he 
 was infatuated more than he was in love. At 
 any rate, that peculiar composition of fluff and 
 mockery whom he called his wife now filled 
 every crevice of his heart. He would do any 
 thing for Floss. 
 
 Anything, did he say? 
 
 He stopped on the edge of a down-shooting 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 89 
 
 street comer and considered his case. For him, 
 so it seemed, she had given up one of the rich 
 est men in San Francisco. And for her he 
 had sworn to trample out, destroy forever that 
 one talent which is death to hide. Less than 
 an hour before the hasty marriage ceremony 
 she had burst into a flood of hysterical tears 
 and declared that she wouldn t marry him un 
 less he swore never, never, never to make a 
 public speech without her knowledge and con 
 sent. The impassioned Chester had sworn. 
 Was it an ingrowing jealousy of Carlotta Beam 
 that possessed her or was she obtuse to his 
 true merit ? Both, probably. At any rate, since 
 love was not all in his book of life he was re 
 solved to wear down her prejudice as soon as 
 they were on their feet financially, and take up 
 the study of the law after work hours. For 
 Chester A. Framm had no intention of sacrific 
 ing his genius at the altar of Aphrodite. 
 
 At length his wanderings got him down to 
 Market Street within sight of the dingy, pon 
 derous dome of the old City Hall. The official 
 sight reminded him bitterly of his greatness, 
 now in a state of suspended animation. He 
 walked along the vistas of Pompeian grandeur, 
 marking the stream of hard-faced lawyers 
 
90 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 passing in and of soft- faced politicians passing 
 out. Some came in rich carriages, others afoot 
 mostly afoot. The men whose countenances 
 he so wistfully examined scarcely pleased him 
 as types ; very little statesmanship here, he con 
 cluded, and was about to pass on when a black- 
 sanded sign with gold letters caught his eye 
 Public Library. 
 
 So this was the place where, according to 
 Floss s naive suggestion, he might employ his 
 oratory in the humble trade of selling soap. He 
 glanced morbidly over the cobbled streets, but 
 nothing of the soapy spellbinder was to be seen. 
 Chester paused and regarded the black-sanded 
 sign. Public Library. After all, he had nearly 
 two hours on his hands. Surely Floss could not 
 object to his employing his odd time in his 
 favorite study. 
 
 He obeyed the impulse, went in, picked out a 
 broad volume entitled Speakers Past and Pres 
 ent, and with this stole guiltily into the reading 
 room. There was an available oak table near 
 the window, with one industrious female 
 crouching over her book ; and in this compara 
 tive solitude Chester opened Speakers Past and 
 Present at the logical place, the Preface. It 
 turned out to be a set of biographical sketches, 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 91 
 
 limited to Speakers of the Assembly at Sacra 
 mento. Chester sighed. Fate was against 
 him. Therefore he closed the volume in some 
 disgust and had barely looked up when the 
 studious female at the other end of the table 
 looked up also. Their dream-filled eyes met. 
 
 Horn of judgment! It was Carlotta Beam! 
 
 Chester, who was no coward, would have run 
 away, carrying the book, the table, the library 
 wall with him in headlong flight. But man, 
 having outgrown the honest direct methods of 
 the rhinoceros, has schooled himself to sit pat 
 in the face of an embarrassing situation. Ches 
 ter s eyes were on Carlotta, Carlotta s on Ches 
 ter. The more he looked the more confused it 
 all became, because Miss Beam, if she had been 
 hurt by his elopement from Dyak, was indeed 
 concealing it bravely. He had never before 
 seen her naturally serious face wear so bright a 
 smile as she showed him when, closing her 
 book, she came over to his chair. 
 
 "Chester !" she cried. "Isn t this miraculous] 
 I hadn t the least idea" 
 
 "Sh-h-h!" 
 
 An old gentleman at the next table uttered 
 this rattlesnake s warning as he pointed to a 
 large sign No Conversation. 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Whereat Chester rose limply and whispered 
 "Outside." 
 
 As they went to the entrance and stood lean 
 ing against the coping Chester was sure she 
 was looking unusually well; there was a little 
 color in her sallow cheeks and her dark eyes 
 lingered fondly upon him. "If you only real 
 ized it," she smiled happily, "it was you who 
 brought me up to San Francisco." 
 
 "Me !" he gasped, wondering if she was about 
 to take legal steps to separate him from Floss. 
 
 "Your graduation speech. I happened to 
 remember an incident in the life of Burke 
 which would fit splendidly into your theme. It 
 wasn t in the college library, so I took the first 
 train to - Chester, what in the world s the 
 matter?" 
 
 When he had partly returned to his senses 
 he was aware that she was holding him up 
 against the stone lintel of the entrance. San 
 Francisco was going round and round, and in 
 the confusion of architecture, hills, street cars, 
 lawyers he could see her face, deathly pale, 
 peering at him. 
 
 "What s wrong? What have you done? 
 What - " 
 
 "Carlotta, haven t you heard?" he managed 
 
THE SHALLOWS OF HAPPINESS 93 
 
 to say; but already he had clinched the steel for 
 a blow. 
 
 "I only knew you d gone away. Your 
 mother " 
 
 "I m not coming back. I m sorry, Carlotta. 
 I ll never make any speech. That s all over." 
 
 "Chester, I can t understand. You were 
 going ahead with everything last week. If you 
 think I ve interfered too much " 
 
 "You would have been the making of me/ 
 he murmured; "of me or any other man." 
 
 The heartfelt praise had gone well over her 
 tragic head, it seemed, for her face tightened 
 and her dark eyes were regarding him with a 
 look which was hells deep in its scorn. 
 
 "Why aren t you coming back? What have 
 you done?" 
 
 "I ran away and got married." 
 
 She paused just a second. 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 "Florabel Brannon." 
 
 It was brief and straight to the sharpened 
 point which he dug into her heart. 
 
 "I didn t know you would go that way," 
 she told him in the queerest tone in the world ; 
 and without another word she walked down 
 the stone steps. 
 
94* THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Her exit from his life was as somber and as 
 proud as the departure of Medea from Jason s 
 unworthy palace. 
 
 "Car " 
 
 He tried to call after hen but his throat was 
 ashes. 
 
 At half past twelve he hunted up the expen 
 sive Poodle Dog and found Floss accusing him 
 out of her brilliant eyes. 
 
 "Do you know what you look like?" she 
 asked. "You look the way The Lost Chord 
 sounds on a jew s-harp sort of thin and sour. 
 I ve had a bum morning too. Poor Mr. Blink 
 cried when I told him. I hate to make a fat 
 man cry. He s got a sort of absorbent com 
 plexion, you know seems to take up moisture 
 like a blotter. Aren t you most starved?" 
 
 "I guess so," mumbled the happy groom. 
 "What about my job?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. I got so sorry for Mr. Blink that 
 I nearly forgot to ask him. But it s all settled. 
 Twenty a week to begin with. Start work 
 Monday." 
 
 Aunt Het had been right when she had 
 accused Floss of playing a system. 
 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 BOTTLED BLUSHES 
 
 IT WAS an early morning in June, at about 
 the time when Chester came to the conclusion 
 that he hated Mr. Blink almost as much as he 
 loved the little imp who had introduced him to 
 the monster. Dressed for the office the bud 
 ding insurance man sat fussing with a soft- 
 boiled egg. Flossie never seemed to wake up 
 cross ; and at this moment she was singing as 
 she pinned on a morning cap made last night 
 from an old lace handkerchief and rosettes de 
 vised from scraps of lingerie ribbon. So fresh 
 she looked and so blooming and rosy you would 
 never have thought that she had anything on 
 her mind weightier than the impromptu trifle. 
 
 For her Goober s benefit she was buttering a 
 slice of toast, which she had warmed over a 
 patent gas toaster, smuggled in under Aunt 
 Het s very nose. Chester was considering his 
 case again. 
 
 "It s that orator who stands in front of the 
 
 95 
 
96 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Public Library selling soap," she said apropos 
 of nothing. "He s been arrested again. As 
 though it could be a crime to sell soap any 
 where, even in church." 
 
 "You had some sort of idea connected with 
 the Public Library, didn t you?" asked her hus 
 band, fishing for a scrap of eggshell as though 
 to remove from his life an unpleasant memory. 
 
 "Do you feel pretty well, Goober? Sort of 
 strong and powerful and ready to receive?" 
 she inquired, handing him over his toast. 
 
 "Receive what?" Floss method of attack 
 was making him wary. 
 
 "Oh, everything strokes of lightning and 
 things." 
 
 "You haven t got me a job selling soap in 
 front of the library?" he temporized. 
 
 "Old Brutal ! You couldn t do that you re 
 not eloquent enough." 
 
 "Thanks. However, I m pretty strong this 
 morning." 
 
 "Huroo ! Then I ve got our future all in a 
 wad." 
 
 She went capering over to one of Aunt Het s 
 hermaphrodite bookcases and out of a walnut 
 drawer she brought a scrap of paper which 
 looked as though it had been torn from Noah s 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 97 
 
 own notebook. She dropped it beside the tray. 
 
 "What s this ?" asked the enamored one, try 
 ing to look practical, which was impossible be 
 cause she had got behind him and was tucking 
 the ends of his necktie into his collar. The 
 scrap of paper, he could see, was ruled in blue 
 lines and all scribbled over with faded ink. 
 
 "Old Nuisance ! That s my complexion." 
 
 "Your which?" 
 
 He tried to disentangle the arms round his 
 neck, for her complexion was at that instant 
 in a most unseeable position, its round little 
 chin balanced against the top of his head. 
 
 "We ve got to get rich, Goober," she decided 
 a moment later, as soon as she had nestled her 
 complexion into the hollow of his shoulder and 
 was in a position to speak down his collar. 
 "We ve got to make millions and squillions so 
 that we can drive round town in a golden char 
 iot and show the diamond settings in our teeth 
 to the poor. The poky old insurance won t give 
 us a decent salary until we re too old and sensi 
 ble to care about money. Besides, you ll never 
 succeed in the insurance business." 
 
 "Why not, cutie?" 
 
 "Because you re not a good enough talker." 
 
 He winced. 
 
98 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Thanks again/ he said. 
 
 "You know, Goober, there s more than one 
 woman in the world who can teach you to hit 
 the high places " 
 
 Good heavens! How like a burlesque of 
 Carlotta s ideal! 
 
 "I m not going to let my candy husband play 
 second trombone to anybody, not in all this 
 awful big green world," the childish innocence 
 of her voice went on. "I m going to make a 
 regular normulous hit out of my Goober. I 
 want to see my sweetheart s picture stuck up 
 on every billboard all over the universe. And 
 I m the girl that can put it there." 
 
 "Of course you can. I m sure you can," he 
 said in the tone of the half convinced. 
 
 "I don t mean Shakespere or any of those 
 mighty uggles. But I can make Goober so great 
 he ll just pop out of his clothes." 
 
 "But how about your complexion?" he in 
 sisted, being ever logic- 1. Her stranglehold 
 permitted him to peep down at the scrap of 
 paper whose brownish script looked like a 
 recipe for an English plum pudding. 
 
 "It s ev-erything," she told him in her best 
 baby drawl. 
 
 "Not going on the stage ?" 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 99 
 
 "Horrid old stage. Nopey, nopey! I 
 wouldn t just even think of such a thing." 
 
 "But you can t take your complexion off and 
 sell it." Which was rather a light sally for 
 Chester A. Framm. 
 
 "Now, Cicero! We ve been married most 
 two months. Where do you think my complex 
 ion comes from?" 
 
 The suggestion gave him a shock. On a 
 bureau beyond the bedroom door he caught a 
 glimpse of the white jars and frivolous bottles 
 whose uses he had never looked into. He re 
 membered his mother s diatribe to the effect 
 that the yellow-haired chit painted and pow 
 dered and smoked cigarettes. 
 
 "All women use cold cream," he loyally in 
 sisted to the cheek so tightly pressed against 
 his. 
 
 "OldSillicumr 
 
 "Florabel !" He spoke it sternly. "Let me 
 look at you." 
 
 She stood away for inspection. Mona Lisa 
 never did a better bit of smiling than did Flora 
 bel Framm as she folded her white and useless 
 hands across the fluffy front of her peignoir 
 and turned her sweet cheeks slowly now right, 
 now left. Perfection ! Does Nature rouge the 
 
100 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 tea rose or rice-powder the early mignonette? 
 Her cheeks held the same color that he had 
 first noticed in them the day he led her along 
 the footpath behind the bleachers cheeks of a 
 small child playing in the wind. 
 
 "Floss/ he cried, "either you re a little fraud 
 or a great artist." 
 
 "I ain t neither of those things," she chirped. 
 "I m a great chemist, that s what I am." 
 
 "You re a great something, that s sure," he 
 admitted and that is about as far as his diag 
 nosis got in all his married life. 
 
 "Angel Bloom Complexion Cream," she rat 
 tled on. "That s the name I got for it. It s 
 invisible, you know just sort of oozes through 
 the way currant jelly shows under whipped 
 
 cream." 
 
 "Who ever told you all that?" 
 
 "My grandmother. She was so famous for 
 her complexion that two or three army officers 
 shot themselves or each other, I ve forgotten 
 which just because she was so adorable. 
 When I was eleven years old and went down 
 to visit her in Roanoke she told me right 
 straight on her deathbed it was a sort of a 
 deathbed, because she never got up for ten 
 years, except once when she went to a horse 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 101 
 
 race she told me all about Angel Bloom and 
 said it was nev-er, nev-er too early to begin 
 to be fascinating." 
 
 "And she wrote it out for you?" 
 
 It s all down there in her handwriting." 
 
 Grandmother certainly wrote an obscure 
 hand. After a session of eye strain he man 
 aged to make out such phrases as "slow fire" 
 and "be sparing with suet," which sounded to 
 him not in the least complexional. 
 
 "So that s the idea," he grunted, not thinking 
 much about it one way or the other. 
 
 "Yeah ; that and my complexion." 
 
 "Your complexion?" 
 
 "Can t you see what a fine ad it would make, 
 Goob? I ve got the loveliest coloring in Amer 
 ica, on or off the stage. Now that point s 
 settled. Well, we re a corporation the Framm 
 Complexion Company Ink." 
 
 "Company what?" 
 
 "Ink," she chimed. "They always stick that 
 on corporations to make them sound honest. 
 I ve made you president and I ll be secretary, 
 treasurer and general manager " 
 
 "Don t let s talk nonsense, darling," he 
 warned her from his lofty height. 
 
103 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "I don t know how/ she replied just as 
 though she meant it. "I know you re just itcK- 
 ing to get down to the insurance. But just 
 look what I made/ 
 
 This time she fished under the Bagdad cover 
 of a divan, and the object she produced was 
 three feet long and of limp cardboard. It was 
 a sorrowful inspection he gave the work of art. 
 He hadn t thought even Floss would have the 
 heart to do that and her best, her reverenced, 
 her adored photograph ! It was the picture she 
 had given him on the day of their wedding, 
 showing Florabel in an evening gown, her hair 
 done in a Psyche knot, and with that piquant 
 smile on her kissable mouth. 
 
 ff Well, what will you be doing next?" he 
 groaned. This of course was an unfair ques 
 tion. 
 
 She had pasted the photograph in the very 
 center of the composition and surrounded it 
 with a legend printed out in her ill- formed 
 letters. 
 
 DON T You LOVE A PEACH? 
 
 That was the challenge above the photo 
 graph, and below : 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 103 
 
 I M THE FRAMM COMPLEXION GIRL 
 
 ANGEL BLOOM CREAM DID IT 
 TRY ME 50C INSIDE 
 
 "I like it all but the Try me. Fifty cents 
 inside/ " she said, perking her head critically. 
 "That sounds too much like selling tickets to 
 typhoid germs. Isn t it soo-purb?" 
 
 "It s superbly idiotic/ he groaned. 
 
 "That s what s so charming about it. And 
 I ve saved sixty dollars out of your wages. 
 That ll pay for the first advertising. Then 
 you ll resign from the insurance and " 
 
 "See here, Floss!" Here sounded the first 
 note of a lover s quarrel. "There s got to be 
 a limit somewhere. I m willing to drop my 
 ambitions and go into business for you; I m 
 willing to work and slave for you; but I ll be 
 perpetually damned if Fm going to let you 
 turn me into a hairdresser." 
 
 "There s oodles of money in hairdressing," 
 she pointed out quite placidly. "But you 
 wouldn t make such a good one as you would 
 before I made you get a haircut." 
 
 She was combing her fingers through his 
 
104 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 shorn locks when he prevented her gently but 
 firmly and put on his hat. 
 
 "You haven t even kissed me once/ she 
 pouted at the door. He paused long enough 
 to attend to that. 
 
 Chester took his way toward the Invisible 
 Life Insurance Company every morning with 
 the feelings of a man whom someone has pleas 
 antly drugged, then sent to slow torment. All 
 through the day he was baited along by the idea 
 "I m doing it for Floss," and the thought helped 
 speed him through the heavy seas of figures 
 which were deadly dull to the oratorical mind. 
 Sometimes Satan would walk in through the 
 prosperous glass-and-mahogany partitions and 
 remind him of his better self the self which 
 Carlotta, had he chosen, might be even now 
 lifting upward, upward to the heights where 
 thought is golden and speech is inspired. 
 
 Sometimes in the hall Chester would en 
 counter Graham V. Applethwaite, the gentle 
 man whom Florabel had boiled down to Mr. 
 Blink, then discarded. He was a swollen old 
 bachelor who rather resembled our popular idea 
 of a trust save for the fact that his eyes were 
 entirely concealed behind plate-glass spectacles. 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 105 
 
 When he met his earnest employee, if he saw 
 him at all, he would give him a charitable, 
 patronizing smile, a smile which crushed. Ches 
 ter hated it. It would be well if all unsuccess 
 ful lovers could adopt toward their victors a 
 smile like Mr. Blink s. 
 
 In his work Chester had no compass whereby 
 to guide him. He merely knew that he got 
 through the days and fairly ran home to Floss, 
 who always had a program arranged for the 
 evening and never allowed him much time to 
 think. Sometimes they would spend the eve 
 ning playing poker with young things of Floss* 
 own caliber. Floss, who played like a prodi 
 gal, usually won, which balanced things for 
 him at the end of the week. Often they would 
 go to the theater with Aunt Het, who always 
 bought the tickets and insisted on vaudeville 
 or musical comedy with an occasional dash of 
 burlesque; the Spirit World seldom interfered 
 with her earthly pleasures. She was an incor 
 rigible trifler, was Aunt Het, and as such sel 
 dom failed to make herself amusing. 
 
 But the week following the interview in 
 which Floss elected her Chester to the presi 
 dency of the Framm Complexion Company Ink, 
 found little Mrs. Framm disinclined to amuse- 
 
106 THE BLOOMING ANGEE 
 
 ments in the after-dinner hours. She looked 
 actually tired. Once she appeared with her 
 useless forefinger tied up in a cotton rag; she 
 consented to having it unwrapped and showed 
 a long savage burn which she wanted kissed 
 so that it would get well. A sweetish, not 
 unpleasant odor seemed to overhang the at 
 mosphere in their third-floor suite. He never 
 remembered Floss using such a perfume and 
 so much of it. 
 
 One morning Chester s bare toe came pain 
 fully against some brittle object which seemed 
 to have popped out from under the bed. It 
 was a long-necked, round-bellied bottle, a silly 
 thing with roses blown into the glass. 
 
 "How did this get here?" he asked, holding 
 it up. 
 
 "It just would," drawled Floss from her 
 pillows. This was one of the times when she 
 wouldn t get up. 
 
 "Looks sort of funny to me," he growled, 
 for he was entertaining his suspicions. 
 
 "Maybe I m a secret drunkard," said she. 
 "But I never could make out how anybody 
 could be a secret drunkard I can always smell 
 it a block off. Kiss me, nuisance, and please 
 don t slam the door when you go out." 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 107 
 
 It was on his way home that very night that 
 some fate caused him to stare into the vulgar 
 solution of his mystery. On one of the sidehill 
 streets at a corner less than two blocks from 
 Aunt Het s abode there stood an old-fashioned 
 drug store of about the third grade. It had 
 a handsome sign lettered Holbetter s Phar 
 macy and a gilded mortar and pestle over the 
 door. The place was in a basement, two steps 
 down from the sidewalk, and its cramped pro 
 portions plainly indicated Doctor Holbetter s 
 status in the apothecarial world. 
 
 Fate reminded Chester of a tube of tooth 
 paste. He paused. There is no druggist, be 
 he ever so humble, who does not handle tooth 
 paste. Chester A. Framm got his eyes as far 
 as the scrawny show window, and then came 
 recognition. It was as though he had found 
 a friend in the morgue. A dozen round-bellied, 
 long-necked bottles, similar to the one he had 
 kicked under his wife s bed, stood boldly in a 
 row. A large window card printed in red and 
 white occupied the place of honor at center 
 Flossy s picture! 
 
 DON T You LOVE A PEACH ? 
 
108 THE BLOOMING ANGEL _ 
 
 It was printed in black and red and had the 
 look of permanency and authority which bold 
 face type is apt to give. The Framm Com 
 plexion Girl was announced in all her impu 
 dence, but her unsatisfactory line about Try Me 
 had been dignified and repressed to Trial Size, 
 
 Chester went into the shabby interior, and 
 assuming the guilty nonchalance of a detective 
 brought forth the proprietor, who came briskly 
 out from behind a weather-beaten glass screen. 
 He was a leathery little mild-featured gentle 
 man who affected the style of hair and goatee 
 made famous by the late Colonel Cody. 
 
 The druggist, who proved to be Doctor Hoi- 
 better himself, chewed nervously as he served 
 his customer with an obsolete brand of tooth 
 paste. 
 
 "By the way," drawled Chester, trying to 
 look innocent as he pocketed his change, 
 "what s this complexion stuff you re showing 
 in the window ?" 
 
 "Angel Bloom?" The druggist had a 
 nervous, staccato delivery, punctuated by a 
 click-clicking sound which he made in the side 
 of his cheek as though urging a tired horse. 
 "Latest thing. Yes, sir. Lady to improve and 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 109 
 
 * m * m ** im ^ >m ^^^^^^^ i ^* mmmm * m ~~ >m *** ii> ~ m ^* mmmmm *^ m ^^^ i ^** mi * * mmiim immmi ^^* imi ^ 
 
 beautify? Can t do better. Guaranteed." 
 Click-click. 
 
 "A new thing?" 
 
 "Absolutely. Only put it out yesterday. Sold 
 four bottles right off the reel. Theatrical 
 people." 
 
 "Your own invention, I suppose?" 
 
 Doctor Holbetter had now rounded the coun 
 ter and taken a bottle from the row in the 
 window. 
 
 "All we ve got in stock." Click-click. He 
 tipped the bottle to show its contents, which 
 were pinkish in color and of the consistency of 
 skim milk. "Interest in the concern. Discov 
 ered by a lady. Secret formula. See her pic 
 ture in the window? Pretty good! With a 
 face like that she could sell ham in a synagogue. 
 Real nice lotion. Serious medicine. Merit in 
 it. Wholesale, proper advertising " 
 
 "I ve got plenty at home," said Chester, back 
 ing away from the bottle which the druggist 
 was evidently trying to force on him. 
 
 "Never regret it. Actress came in for second 
 bottle. Wanted it for sister. Just get this 
 thing on the wholesale " 
 
 Flossie on the wholesale ! That was the way 
 her shocked husband took it as he charged home 
 
110 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 and found her serenely ripping the fur from a 
 hat he didn t recognize. She sat by a window 
 and the gold of a late afternoon was mingling 
 with the gold of her hair, which was slightly 
 tousled. The strips of fur, as she ripped them 
 off the frame, made exciting sounds like ex 
 plosions of distant firecrackers. Her eyes 
 were downcast; she was in a dream. Women 
 engaged with fancywork always look like 
 Madonnas. 
 
 "See here, Floss," was the way Framm burst 
 into the picture, "who s that man, Holbetter?" 
 
 "Buffalo Willie, you mean?" asked she, 
 pressing a velvet rose with her thumb against 
 the frame as she held the confection at arm s 
 length and considered the effect. "Why, he s 
 vice president of the Ink." 
 
 "H-m. Apparently you and your Buffalo 
 Willie are doing splendidly with this thing you 
 call your Ink." 
 
 "Don t be jealous, Old Brutal. We ve made 
 you president, you got to admit. Don t you 
 remember away back in Dyak how you longed 
 to be President?" 
 
 Another dig at the late Carlotta apparently. 
 
 "Your picture in a drug-store window!" he 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 111 
 
 snorted. "Why didn t you put yourself in a 
 circus poster and be done with it ?" 
 
 "I thought of that/ She had apparently 
 decided on the velvet rose, for she was now 
 sewing it rapidly to the brim. "But when you 
 make circus posters you ve got to have money 
 for regular art. What we need s capital, Goob. 
 So I went round to the printer with my sixty 
 dollars. He soaked me twenty-two for fifty 
 printed cards. I wanted to have my picture 
 in colors, but he said that would mean lithog 
 raphy. Every kind of graphy is horrid expen 
 sive, so I just painted my photos with water 
 colors and pasted em onto the cards. You 
 know they re pretty. You told me once that 
 my picture was lovelier than Venus or ice 
 cream or anything. Didn t you?" 
 
 "Well, what if I did?" 
 
 Wasn t that like Floss? 
 
 "Come here and kiss me twice." He did, 
 and as usual experienced her charm. "How 
 did you like our Angel Bloom?" 
 
 "It s all right, I guess. But what is it? 
 Where did it come from?" 
 
 "I cooked it over the gas heater. I nearly 
 burned the house down two or three times 
 it was more fun. And then I didn t have any 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 bottles or labels and things. So I went round 
 to Doctor Holbetter he admits he s a doctor 
 and made him vice president. It seems he 
 had a hundred and forty-four empty bottles 
 out back of the store. They used to contain 
 Holbetter s Canine Flea Solution. It seems 
 that dogs don t have that kind of flea any more, 
 so Buffalo Willie was holding those empties till 
 he thought up some other wonderful invention. 
 I told the old darling all about Angel Bloom 
 and he promised to give me twelve dozen emp 
 ties for one dozen fulls. Isn t he a sweet 
 heart?" 
 
 The druggist, as Chester recalled him, had 
 been a withered remnant reeking of aloes, sug 
 gestive of mummification. 
 
 "And oh, my own indispensable Goob !" She 
 had scattered her trimming to the four winds, 
 and flying to him had thrown herself into his 
 lap. "I m oozing ideas. The big Boston Drug 
 Store on Kearney Street have promised to take 
 two dozen and my picture for their window. 
 I ve been filling bottles all day in the factory " 
 
 -"Factory?" 
 
 "The trunk room, foolish!" 
 
 With a uselessly slippered toe she indicated 
 
BOTTLED BLUSHES 11& 
 
 the little room that had been smelling of 
 strange scents this mysterious week. 
 
 "How much does it cost you to make the 
 stuff?" he solemnly inquired. 
 
 "Twenty-one cents a bottle. It wholesales 
 for twenty- four." 
 
 "Well then, you ll clear four dollars and 
 thirty-two cents, maybe, if you can sell the 
 whole gross," he encouraged her, after com 
 putation. 
 
 "Lunk !" she whispered. 
 
 "Am I wrong?" 
 
 "Yeppy. We ain t going to be wholesalers 
 until we re big and strong." 
 
 "What are we going to be ?" 
 
 "It s won-derful, Cicero ! I ve got our whole 
 life settled. We re going to move into a cute 
 little flat over a store Framm s Angel Bloom 
 Parlor and folks will come from miles round 
 asking, Who is this complexion girl? and I ll 
 come out with a bottle in each hand and say, 
 Only me ! Isn t it all too lovely for words ?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed ! And who s going to pay the 
 rent on this paradise?" 
 
 "Oh, you and me and Buffalo Willie." 
 
 "I see. And just what status will I have 
 round the place?" 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Why, Goober! Haven t you guessed?" 
 
 "Can t imagine/ 
 
 "You re going to be the cheese. You ll wear 
 a new necktie every hour and show the ladies 
 round the place and bring me out as a sample. 
 Don t you savvy? I m planning this all for 
 your dear little sweet sake." 
 
 "By Jupiter !" He came standing and shook 
 her off his lap. 
 
 "You re getting mad again," she discovered, 
 pouting slightly. 
 
 "I ll not do it !" he roared. "I simply won t 
 have anything to do with this silly, undignified, 
 dishonest performance. I simply won t, that s 
 all!" 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CASTAWAYS 
 
 BUT what does one do when Fate is fighting 
 on the other side? Fight on and be defeated 
 or accept the alternative, which is disarma 
 ment. 
 
 It was on a Wednesday when Chester A. 
 Framm frowned upon the sacrilege in Doctor 
 Holbetter s grubby show window. Thursday 
 dawned bright and fair, with Chester already 
 ashamed of his loss of temper. Flossie never 
 lost her temper; she was very patient with 
 him. He couldn t bear to go away and leave 
 those ill words behind. Therefore their morn 
 ing s reconciliation was heartfelt and long. 
 Flossie cried quite becomingly, thus mangling 
 his soul to a shapeless substance as though it 
 had been run through a meat chopper. He 
 grew eloquent in his descriptions of the kinds 
 of brute he had been. She admitted it and 
 punctuated her protestations of love with little 
 heart-tearing sobs. 
 
 "5 
 
116 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Chester was late at the office, but he got 
 there warm with the knowledge that Flossie 
 was the dearest thing in all the world and that 
 he would do anything for her short of becom 
 ing one of those damned hairdressers. 
 
 In the early afternoon as he was coming 
 back from his cheap and hurried luncheon he 
 thought he saw a flash of her pinkish gown 
 ruffling its way into a trolley car at the corner 
 beyond the Indivisible Life Building. The fact 
 that she wore an unfamiliar hat merely estab 
 lished her identity. He was intending to twit 
 her of it, jokingly of course, but that night 
 when he reached their upstairs apartment he 
 found her dramatic with a most unusual cau 
 tion. 
 
 "Hush!" she whispered. "Aunt Het!" 
 
 "Aunt Het is she sick?" 
 
 "Yeppy. Sick of us." 
 
 "What have we done?" 
 
 "Better take off your shoes, sly like a mouse. 
 Put on your felt slippers and give me a cig 
 arette." 
 
 She tiptoed over and locked the door, then 
 settled down on the divan, her eyes wide and 
 scared. 
 
 "Her false teeth came clean plumb out so 
 
CASTAWAYS 117 
 
 that I could see the plate you know the way 
 they make em to look like the roof of your 
 mouth. She called you an idler !" 
 
 That s nice." He had been running errands 
 for Flossie s rejected lover all day and every 
 muscle ached for rest. "Reasonable of her, 
 I m sure." 
 
 "No, it ain t. But Aunt Het hasn t got to 
 be reasonable. She s a Baha worshiper." 
 
 "What s a Baha worshiper?" 
 
 "Some sort of religion you get in Southern 
 California. It makes people awfully funny. 
 Last night she got a vision and it said you were 
 a minor astrolabe. Of course that cooks your 
 goose. She came round with a regular scene. 
 She wants im-mediate payment for a month s 
 board and lodging " 
 
 "Are we that far behind?" gasped Chester, 
 rather vague as to their arrangements. 
 
 "Well, we would have been bang up to the 
 scratch if I hadn t spent that sixty dollars on 
 drugs and chemicals." 
 
 Numerous empty, full and half- full Angel 
 Bloom bottles strewed the place and told the 
 tale of extravagance. 
 
 "Is she going to put us out?" he asked 
 anxiously. 
 
118 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Not necessarily. When we go down to 
 dinner we ll just be chickadees. Maybe she ll 
 blow over. You can t imagine how many times 
 Aunt Het s blown over." 
 
 "You ll get round her/ he beamed, justified 
 in admiring Flossie s powers of get-roundness. 
 
 They dined in the big lofty room whose main 
 adornments consisted of oil paintings of Aunt 
 Het s three late husbands. These were a study 
 in progressive styles. Number One showed a 
 wide open collar and chin beard, Number Two 
 wore drooping mustaches and a bang; while 
 Number Three was smooth-shaven and by his 
 manner of dress appeared quite recent. Whis 
 kered or smooth, they had all gone their way, 
 and their common widow, still going strong, 
 appeared promptly at seven to take her place 
 at the head of the table. 
 
 She looked calm, Chester thought as he 
 pushed her chair in for her. During these 
 months he had grown to regard her as a rollick 
 ing sort of person, rather fond of cheap red 
 wine and only queer as to her parrot and her 
 spirit guides, who seemed inoffensive compan 
 ions. 
 
 "Chester," she said as soon as her woeful 
 Chinaman had brought in the soup, "what is 
 
CASTAWAYS 119 
 
 it you have on your feet when you come up 
 the stairs in the afternoon? Roller skates?" 
 
 Chester blushed. 
 
 "I wasn t aware " he began with dignity. 
 
 Tie s never aware, Aunt Het," chipped in 
 his child wife. "That s exactly what makes 
 him the adorable Goob." 
 
 "You shouldn t take such things so lightly," 
 the old woman uttered the rebuke. Apparently 
 the adorable Goob sounded like one of the gods 
 of her theology. "But I shouldn t be disturbed 
 at half past five in the afternoon. 
 
 "You must attend to your shoes, Chester. 
 Possibly they need oiling." 
 
 "I sometimes have a touch of nerves myself," 
 he agreed, remembering Flossie s formula Be 
 natural. 
 
 "Who ever said anything about my nerves ?" 
 
 Her eyes had hardened to small twinkling 
 dots and her teeth were dropping, dropping 
 a most alarming sight. 
 
 "I I wasn t intending any offense," he tried 
 to apologize. "We all have our nerves." 
 
 "What have you to be nervous about?" she 
 glared. 
 
 What had come over the woman ? Since last 
 he had seen her she had changed from an 
 
120 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 amiable frivolous thing to the monster he now 
 beheld. 
 
 "Well, my work " 
 
 "Work! Do you call what you re doing 
 work?" 
 
 "I m always anxious to get something bet 
 ter/ Chester was game to the last. 
 
 "I ll thank you not to mention my nerves 
 hereafter!" she took him up short. "What s 
 my religion for, I should like to know ?" 
 
 Chester, who had no power of enlightening 
 her, held his peace. But the moment was hor 
 rible. 
 
 "There s the fun-niest pair of acrobats at 
 the Orpheum," Flossie struck bravely in, quite 
 easily pretending that all was well as could be. 
 
 "What can they do?" inquired Aunt Het; 
 and this was all the more astonishing because 
 her look became tranquil as the harvest moon. 
 
 "They pretend to be strong men," she gig 
 gled. "One of them picks up a thousand-pound 
 weight between his teeth, and just when you 
 think he s going to crack his spinal column he 
 drops it the weight, I mean and it turns out 
 to be rubber. And then his partner comes on 
 and lifts him right up over his head all with 
 one hand. He does this nine or ten times. 
 
CASTAWAYS 
 
 He s attached to a pulley, don t you know. It s 
 too grand !" 
 
 "Let s go," suggested Flossie s astonishing 
 great-aunt; and at that moment she and her 
 niece looked enough alike to be twins. 
 
 The diverting swindles committed to fast 
 music by the Rubberneck Tramps at the Orphe- 
 um restored Aunt Het to her happy self again, 
 but Chester s heart was as ice. What calamity 
 did her recent storm portend? She had made 
 it plain enough that the love birds in her esti 
 mation were far less welcome in her home than 
 was Oscar the parrot. An uncertain twenty 
 dollars a week stood between them and starva 
 tion. And there was nothing in the world to 
 prove that Chester had made good at the insur 
 ance business. 
 
 Next morning, Friday, it was cold. He took 
 his foggy self down to the Indivisible office and 
 had mourned two hours over his desk before he 
 was brought to by the voice of the sleek blond 
 secretary, a bearer of Friday s tidings. 
 
 "Wanted in Mr. Applethwaite s office." 
 
 Chester s trembling knees got him as far as 
 the pompous mahogany desk above which the 
 upper part of Mr. Applethwaite s body loomed 
 like a bust of Plutocracy. Mr. Blink s face 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 wore its customary patronizing smile. It is a 
 peculiar sensation to be thus outfaced by one s 
 wife s rejected lover. 
 
 "Er Mr. Framm," the great man went 
 straight to the point, "I don t think we can 
 use you any longer. Er - " 
 
 "You mean I m dismissed !" gasped the un 
 fortunate. 
 
 "Well, yes. I should say you re being dis 
 missed. Possibly some time in the future - " 
 
 Chester s feet seemed nailed to the floor. 
 Mr. Blink was squinting into the papers on 
 his desk and there appeared nothing for it 
 but to go. 
 
 "This is pretty sudden, Mr. Applethwaite," 
 the dismissed one was so rash as to declare. 
 
 "Yes. Isn t it ?" Merely a passing comment 
 on the weather. 
 
 "Might I ask if I have given satisfaction?" 
 
 "You might." 
 
 "Of course if I haven t I should like to know 
 so that next time - " 
 
 "Please don t worry about that point." The 
 sweetish old face writhed itself into a smile. 
 "I m sure you ve been quite satisfactory. Good 
 day, Mr. Framm." 
 
 When Chester got down into windy Market 
 
CASTAWAYS 
 
 Street he had an impulse to go back to Dyak 
 and implore forgiveness at his mother s iron 
 ing board. The mood passed. As a matter of 
 fact wild horses could not have dragged him 
 away from the younger Mrs. Framm. But 
 how was he to face her? How could he tell 
 her that he had made a failure of the only 
 possible work that could keep them from star 
 vation? Then resentment got him by the 
 throat It served him right for twisting him 
 self into that which he was not, for jilting his 
 destiny jilting Carlotta. 
 
 He had sought the cheap success from which 
 she would have warned him. 
 
 It was no great walk back to Aunt Het s 
 house. His mood, attuned to the whistling of 
 the wind, got him as far as Holbetter s Phar 
 macy before he looked round for his bearings. 
 Turning the hilly corner he came in sight of 
 that high-stooped ornate fagade behind which 
 he and Flossie had passed the first fevered 
 months of their married life. 
 
 The exterior of Aunt Het s house looked 
 more cluttered than usual. The cause was 
 apparent at a glance. A large moving van and 
 a dirty one-horse hack were standing against 
 the curb. 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Vainly struggling with his apprehension 
 Chester almost ran toward the inscrutable 
 group. Behind the van a man in overalls was 
 just shoving a table under the sheltering can 
 opy. It was the very marble-topped monstros 
 ity that had held his breakfast tray these 
 troubled months ! 
 
 Flossie s stylish figure was seen coming 
 briskly down the steps, her left hand carrying 
 her small walrus-leather bag, her right clasp 
 ing Chester s shabby suitcase. 
 
 "Hello, Goob!" she cried, cheerful as a 
 cricket. 
 
 "Floss! What s happened?" 
 
 "Aunt Het s blown up/ replied his adorable 
 torment. "And we re being evicted." 
 
 "Oh, yes," agreed her husband with fright 
 ful calm. "And who s paying for this van?" 
 
 "AuntHet." 
 
 "By gad, it s an outrage ! I ll see her about 
 this. I ll - " 
 
 "Don t let s make any false motions," she 
 suggested. "We ve got an awful lot to do. She 
 was very sweet and insulting and generous. 
 She gave me all the old furniture she couldn t 
 use. Besides, you can t see her. She s locked 
 in with a trance medium." 
 
CASTAWAYS 125 
 
 "Where does she expect us to go now?" 
 "Oh, that s all fixed. Your hay fever ll get 
 bad again standing here in the wind. Come 
 
 on." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 The van began to move away. Flossie had 
 half pushed him into the depths of the cab. 
 With one foot on the curb she paused and 
 called an Eddy Street number to the man on 
 the box. 
 
 But when they had gone far on their pil 
 grimage into the unknown he broke down and 
 blurted: "Floss, what are we going to do? 
 I m fired. Fired cold!" 
 
 "There, there ! Did bad Blink go and hurt 
 my Goober? Don t you give one solitary 
 whoop, Old Nuisance!" 
 
 She had taken his head in her arms and 
 was soothing it against her soft vivacious 
 breast. 
 
 " Cause who cares? We don t. We re glad, 
 that s what we are." 
 
 "But what are we going to do?" he repeated, 
 absolutely vanquished. 
 
 Her reply, if she had intended any, was 
 interrupted by the behavior of the hack. It 
 stopped as though by appointment with a gild- 
 
126 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 ed street number twinkling through the gray 
 afternoon. Floss had opened the door, per 
 mitting her husband to crane his neck a little 
 farther. It was a small two-story shop build 
 ing which he saw, a trim front newly painted 
 in dazzling white. Through the plaster-splat 
 tered panes he could dimly see carpenters at 
 work with fresh shelving. But it was the sign, 
 daintily lettered in colonial type on the white 
 board over the door, which held him with a 
 wild surmise! 
 
 "FRAMM S ANGEL BLOOM SHOP" 
 
 "Come on, Cicero/ said the great man s 
 wife, leading him by the hand as a nurse leads 
 a timid child. "There s the dearest house 
 keeping apartment upstairs, and we ll paint 
 Aunt Het s furniture so its mother wouldn t 
 know it." 
 
 "Floss," he said; and barred her way. "I 
 believe you got old Applethwaite to fire me." 
 
 "Do you?" Her face was aglow with what 
 at that moment looked like pride and affection. 
 
 Lumbering down Eddy Street he could see 
 the moving van, replete with furniture which 
 Aunt Het despite her berserk rage had con 
 tributed. 
 
CASTAWAYS 127 
 
 "Floss," he persisted, "I wonder if I ll ever 
 get used to you." 
 
 "If you do," she warned him, "I ll get a 
 divorce." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 BUFFALO WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 
 
 IT WAS in the fall and Chester A. Framm 
 had just got back from Los Angeles after 
 a moderately successful tour introducing 
 Framm s Magic Hair Gloss together with the 
 now standardized Angel Bloom Cream. 
 Shamelessly, too, he had overseen the distribu 
 tion of Flossie s latest advertising novelty en 
 titled Mr. Framm Knows a Pretty Girl When 
 He Sees One. The poster showed Chester at 
 center-card holding hands with the Venus de 
 Milo artfully provided with white-gloved 
 arms and with Miss Vivian Hussel, the most 
 popular beauty on the American musical- 
 comedy stage. Vivian had been harder to 
 coax into the picture than had Venus, but 
 Floss had seen to it in her own sweet way. 
 
 On the morning of his return to San Fran 
 cisco he had again been astonished, for the 
 black-and-white front of the beauty shop, over 
 which he had presided with capable efficiency, 
 
 128 
 
WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 
 
 was undergoing another change. A house 
 painter on his ladder occupied a prominent 
 place outside the show window, whose sash 
 slats he was at that moment streaking with 
 vermilion paint. Mrs. Chester A. Framm, 
 modishly attired in a tight-fitting suit of blue, 
 stood on the sidewalk in affable conversation 
 with a jet-spangled old lady who, as she talked, 
 wagged in her right hand a huge bird cage con 
 taining an enormous red-and-green parrot. 
 Half a block away Chester recognized Flossie s 
 new acquisitions Aunt Het and her familiar 
 fiend Oscar. 
 
 "Lord sake! Lord sake!" shrieked the 
 winged devil, holding himself upside down by 
 his unbreakable beak. 
 
 "Why, Aunt Het !" exclaimed Chester as he 
 reached forward and did his duty by the smil 
 ing cheek she presented for his kiss. 
 
 "Goob, dear/ urged Flossie, almost before 
 the salutation had been repeated on her own 
 smooth lips, "won t you please take Oscar over 
 and hold him up next to the paint?" 
 
 "Next to the paint?" asked Chester blankly 
 as he took the bird cage in his helpless hand. 
 
 "We re trying to match him," explained his 
 
130 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 wife. "And please don t argue Mr. Horn s 
 charging us by the hour." 
 
 Framm took the shrieking Oscar over and 
 held him next to the paint, per instructions. 
 
 "Mr. Horn," tactfully suggested Aunt Het 
 to the house painter, "don t you think we d 
 better try a little blue in the red Oscar s 
 wings aren t at all the shade you re using." 
 
 "Color-blind, old sweetheart!" pronounced 
 Floss. "Don t you pay any attention to Aunt 
 Het, Mr. Horn." 
 
 Mr. Horn, who showed a scabby face under 
 a derby hat which he had punched full of holes, 
 apparently for ventilation, stood patiently aside 
 and compared Oscar s wings with the vermilion 
 on the window slats. 
 
 "A little yella would fix it, I guess," he voted. 
 
 "There !" crowed Floss triumphantly. "That s 
 what comes of being an artist. Oscar s scarlet, 
 isn t he, Mr. Horn? And his tail isn t sage 
 green like that stripe under the sign. It s apple 
 green, isn t it, Mr. Horn? There now, Aunt 
 Het. See what you almost did ! And you ve 
 lived with Oscar all these years and never saw 
 him in his true colors!" 
 
 "He s got to be an absolute match/ pro 
 nounced Aunt Het decisively. 
 
WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 131 
 
 "Aunt Het s offered to loan us Oscar for a 
 window display," Floss volunteered after a 
 minute inspection of the paint pots. 
 
 "Only for two hours in the afternoon," the 
 old lady qualified. 
 
 "Only two hours in the afternoon. We ll 
 have a dummy parrot sawed out of a board 
 and painted to match/ Floss rattled on. "Then 
 Oscar will come in daily and ballyhoo for the 
 Ink. Isn t it splendid !" 
 
 "Splendid!" echoed the president of the 
 Framm Complexion Company Ink. He rubbed 
 his hands in delight. Strange how the thing 
 was getting into his blood. 
 
 "But of course," he qualified, "maybe people 
 will ask what a red-and-green parrot has to do 
 with Angel Bloom." 
 
 "Sush !" cried Floss. "You ought to see our 
 window card The Parrot lives a Hundred 
 Years Framm s Compounds Create Lasting 
 Beauty." 
 
 "Let s go inside," suggested Aunt Het. 
 
 A crowd was beginning to gather, mostly 
 Chinese idlers, messenger boys and truckmen 
 a class unconsidered in the creation of 
 beauty shops. 
 
 The interior of Framm s was quite different 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 from the one Chester had first beheld from 
 the door of a fog-bound hack. The floor was 
 carpeted in pink and the wall was papered in 
 the same shade. All the shelves, cabinets and 
 show cases were ivory enameled. The Framm 
 compounds had, in the few months past, been 
 complicated into Angel Bloom Salve, Angel 
 Bloom Lotion, Angel Bloom Elixir, Framm s 
 Magic Hair Gloss and the Yard of Beauty 
 Shelf, the last including all the Framm prepa 
 rations with a celluloid manicure set thrown 
 in. Which was in the nature of a miracle; 
 but nothing more miraculous than this unher 
 alded and smiling appearance of Aunt Het 
 upon the scene. 
 
 "Well," smiled that mysterious being, seat 
 ing herself upon one of the whirling stools in 
 front of the show case, "Flossie tells me you re 
 turning out to be quite a business man." 
 
 "He s wonderful!" chimed in Floss. "I al 
 ways told you he would be." 
 
 "Thanks," responded Chester, flattered in 
 spite of his better nature. Then with a stroke 
 of boldness he had undoubtedly borrowed from 
 his wife he asked: "When did you get over 
 being cross with us, Aunt Het?" 
 
WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 13S 
 
 "I? Cross? When was I ever cross with 
 you two foolish darlings?" 
 
 "Something told me, the day we moved " 
 
 Floss, who stood behind him, pinched his ear 
 quite painfully. "Floss simply insisted on 
 moving/ went on the old lady. "My spirit 
 guide warned me against the insurance busi 
 ness and Mr. Applethwaite had promised to 
 dismiss you." 
 
 "Oh." Chester heard in so many words 
 what he had suspected this long time. The 
 discharge and the eviction and possibly the 
 spirit guide coming all in the same hour, had 
 been one of those Floss-arranged melodramas. 
 
 "And just look what it s done for you !" cried 
 Aunt Het. "Now you re boss of your own 
 business and making money hand over fist." 
 
 "Well, yes." 
 
 Chester was a shade less enthusiastic than 
 he had been a minute ago. 
 
 "Aren t you?" 
 
 "I ve been going over the trade in Los 
 Angeles," said he. "Flossie s advertisements 
 never fail to draw a crowd, but all the big 
 druggists have their own preparations. The 
 Mr. Framm Loves a Pretty Girl poster created 
 considerable amusement. I got some orders 
 
134 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 seven cases all told. But as far as I can make 
 out we re retailers trying to break into the 
 wholesale. The shop about pays for itself, but 
 we still owe for part of the fixtures. Floss 
 got us started with a loan on her street-railway 
 stocks, but that s about gone for raw ma 
 terials " 
 
 "Two hundred dollars in my own selfish 
 stocking," Floss corrected him. 
 
 "We have a limited credit for supplies which 
 we ve got through Holbetter; but Holbetter s 
 the smallest druggist in America, I suppose. 
 There s the matter of bottles alone. We re 
 using eleven different types and sizes which 
 we have to buy in small lots the most ex 
 pensive way. That s where we stand. We re 
 looked upon as a set of patent-medicine fakers 
 and a sudden expansion would blow us off the 
 map." 
 
 "Doesn t he sum it up won-derfully!" cooed 
 lovely Floss, clapping her hands. "And to 
 think when I found him he was nothing but 
 an orator. And now he talks like the president 
 of the First National Bank." 
 
 "There s some difference between us and 
 the First National Bank," he informed her with 
 a sad smile. 
 

 *?, 
 
 "MR. HORN," TACTFULLY SUGGESTED AUNT HET, "DON T YOU THINK WE 
 
 HAD BETTER TRY A LITTLE BLUE IN THE RED OSCAfi s WINGS 
 
 AREN T AT ALL THE SHADE YOU RE USING" 
 
WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 135 
 
 "We re a lot more fun!" chirped Flossie. 
 "Oh, see how I stenciled rosebuds on all the 
 doors. Aunt Het, are you going to lend us 
 Oscar to-day?" 
 
 "The paint might make him ill," objected the 
 old lady, rising with her sacrilegious cage. 
 "I ll have Wong bring him round with his 
 perch to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 "Hor-rors! Hor-raws! Awk! Awk!" 
 screamed Oscar as Aunt Het, defying her luck, 
 passed out under Mr. Horn s polychrome lad 
 der. 
 
 "Why didn t you tell me it was you that got 
 Aunt Het and Mr. Applethwaite to throw me 
 out?" he accused her as soon as Flossie s ec 
 centric relative had taken her departure. 
 
 "Old Nuisance," she replied, "you ought to 
 know why. It s impossible for me to think and 
 talk at the same time. And you ve scarcely 
 kissed me once since you got back." 
 
 Dr. Nathaniel Hawthorne Holbetter walked 
 in upon the love scene. He was a quaint little 
 person, and when costumed for the street he 
 wore an obsolete derby with a high square 
 crown over his abundant iron-gray locks. His 
 veiny right hand clasped an ebony cane with 
 an ivory handle carved to resemble a female 
 
136 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 leg bent at the knee. He affected greenish 
 broadcloth and a huge Masonic watch charm. 
 
 "You back, Framm ?" he asked sharply, mak 
 ing it plain that it was Mrs. Framm who had 
 drawn him there. His question trailed off into 
 a series of loud clicks. 
 
 "Just this minute," replied Chester. "How 
 are things going?" 
 
 "Rotten!" He clicked once. "Quite rot 
 ten !" He clicked twice. 
 
 "That s what I like about Buffalo Willie!" 
 exclaimed Floss, coming over and stroking his 
 dangerous chin beard. "He sees the bright side 
 of ev-erything. Isn t he cute, Goober ?" 
 
 Buffalo Willie s old face puckered itself into 
 a series of fond little wrinkles. It was plain to 
 see that the witchery of Floss had changed him 
 into a small hairy pet. 
 
 "Yes. Yes. Yes-yes." Buffalo Willie 
 emitted a long series of clicks. "But we ve 
 got to come down to tacks. Tacks!" 
 
 He seated himself on a stool and as he talked 
 he pulled fragments of dried root out of his 
 pocket and chewed savagely. 
 
 "Tacks. Things have to go forward or 
 back in this world. No standstill. That s the 
 trouble with the Pharmacy. Standstill. Feet 
 
WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 137 
 
 in the mud and you start to back up. Under 
 stand?" 
 
 "What s that drug you re always eating, 
 Willie ?" asked Floss, her mind as usual on the 
 concrete rather than the abstract. 
 
 "Licorice. Good for the throat. Have 
 some?" He passed a fragment over to her 
 and she chewed gingerly. 
 
 "Now these preparations. Overstocked, un 
 dersold. Expensive loft rented to manufac 
 ture. Six girls employed compounding the lo 
 tions and creams." Click-click. "Too many. 
 I laid two off yesterday." 
 
 "I had a notion we were undercapitalized," 
 objected Chester. 
 
 "Wrong. Overstocked. These new prepar 
 ations all very well. But they re scarcely on 
 the market. What we ve got to do is to sell 
 more Angel Bloom right away or " Click- 
 click. That seemed to settle it for Angel 
 Bloom. 
 
 "How much have we on hand?" 
 
 "Angel Bloom? Twenty-six hundred bot 
 tles. Seemed to put too much faith in the 
 preparation. How many orders did you get in 
 Los Angeles ?" 
 
138 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Tor Angel Bloom? Two cases/ Chester 
 was bound to admit. 
 
 "That s it. Something about the advertis 
 ing. Shouldn t wonder if the Magic Hair 
 Gloss might go pretty well." The hair gloss 
 was Holbetter s own invention. "But no 
 capital for that. Everything devoted to An 
 gel Bloom Cream. Not selling right. Framm 
 Complexion ad all right. That sort of stuff 
 has to percolate. Percolate." 
 
 "Of course we can t pay our debts with 
 stock on hand," agreed the president of the 
 Ink. 
 
 "Can t be done. Now the fourteenth. 
 Need at least eight hundred dollars before the 
 first. Otherwise " Click-click. 
 
 "In a word we re required to get rid of 
 twenty-six hundred bottles of Angel Bloom 
 Cream in two weeks if we expect to pull 
 through," was Chester s excellent summing 
 of the case. 
 
 "And miracles don t happen. Not in the 
 drug business." 
 
 "You poor sweetheart!" It was Floss who 
 came into the conference. "How like a child 
 you do talk!" 
 
 "Mean to say?" snapped the little old gen- 
 
WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 139 
 
 tleman. "Twenty-six hundred bottles of pink 
 lotion. Couldn t force it on em in two weeks. 
 Not without a pump!" 
 
 "We ll get the pump, Willie." 
 
 "Maybe we can. Maybe so. Maybe so." 
 
 "I m just the least bit bruised," she insisted, 
 "to think of the way you ve gone back on all 
 the nice things you said about my window card 
 with pretty me in the center." 
 
 "Some people like it," Buffalo Willie ad 
 mitted, "but it sells no goods. Only yesterday 
 dark fellow comes along. Stops in front of 
 the pharmacy. Dangerous looking. Danger 
 ous. Takes off hat, rubs head!" Willie 
 clicked twice. "Then comes rushing into store. 
 Where did you get that picture ? Dangerous. 
 Thought he was going to throw fit, so stood 
 ready with aromatic spirits. Friend of mine, 
 says I. Unknown lady inventor. Try a bot 
 tle? Will not, says he; but I ll give a dol 
 lar for the poster. Last one I had. Refused. 
 How s that?" 
 
 Chester looked at Floss, who at the moment 
 was looking at Buffalo Willie. 
 
 "Wasn t he sweet!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "Perhaps. Women have peculiar notions. 
 Hated this fellow. Spaniard. When I re- 
 
140 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 fused to sell he almost stole the Love a Peach 
 poster right out of the window. Bad lot. Fi 
 nally said My card! and went boiling into 
 the street. Get some queer compounds in my 
 business." 
 
 "He gave you his card?" asked Floss in the 
 gentlest possible tone. 
 
 Buffalo Willie went rummaging through 
 his peculiar clothes and fished out a peculiar 
 assortment of papers mixed with shreds of 
 licorice root. At last he blew the dust from a 
 small card before presenting it to Mrs. 
 Framm. Her face was a study. 
 
 "I knew he would!" she murmured eventu 
 ally, and passed the card to her husband, who 
 made no comment as he read: 
 
 MR. RAMON DE SILVA 
 Representing the San Francisco Blade 
 
 As soon as Chester had escorted Doctor 
 Holbetter to the sidewalk and been slyly 
 informed that Mrs. Framm was a wonderful 
 woman watch her accomplish anything -. 
 blow something up some time Chester re 
 turned to the interior of the Angel Bloom 
 Shop and asked of his amazing consort: 
 
WILLIE DESCENDING TO TACKS 141 
 
 "What are you going to do about this Spig- 
 goty?" 
 
 "Do about him? Why, use him, of course!" 
 
 "Now look here, Floss ! We can t have our 
 business wrecked any more than it is by hav 
 ing that nuisance round. What s he doing in 
 San Francisco?" 
 
 "I haven t asked him/ she replied calmly. 
 "But I suppose he s come up here to find me." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 "Isn t it providential? Just at the time we 
 need him." 
 
 "What can we do with him?" 
 
 "Use him in the Ink, foolish." 
 
 "In what capacity, if you don t mind say 
 ing?" 
 
 "Press agent." 
 
 "Press agent ! He looks about as much like 
 a press agent as I look like a hairdresser." 
 
 "How you get my ideas! Now do be a 
 dear old love-box and call up the Blade office 
 and ask Spig to have dinner with us at Mar- 
 chand s. Hurry, Goob, dear. We ve got to 
 sell oceans of Angel Bloom in a week, and we 
 can t leave a single cobblestone unturned in 
 San Francisco." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SUSIE THE BULL 
 
 AT EIGHT-THIRTY that evening the cozy 
 group of three were finishing an early dinner 
 at Mar chancl s. By the size of the check, 
 which Chester was paying, it was easy to in 
 fer that Floss had many important things on 
 her program of high-pressure salesmanship. 
 
 "So the whole circus tent s canvasmen, 
 menagerie and wagons is stranded out on the 
 sand lots. The property owners won t let 
 them exhibit, the mortgagees have seized half 
 their rolling stock, and you can hear the man 
 ager swearing in circus language the whole 
 length of Mission Street." 
 
 Thus The Spiggoty, apparently delighted 
 with his unexpected meeting, finished a long 
 story of the broken-down show which he had 
 reported briefly in this evening s edition of 
 the Blade. A changed and reduced Spiggoty 
 he was from the haughty Hildago of Dyak. 
 His blue suit was a trifle shiny, his manner 
 
 142 
 
SUSIE THE BULL 143 
 
 deferential to the successful rival; but there 
 was the same look of doglike devotion in the 
 somber eyes which he turned toward the girl. 
 
 "That s the very circus we want !" cried she, 
 dropping her hand bag and permitting The 
 Spiggoty to stoop for it. "Are you all quite 
 finished ? We ve got time to get out there be 
 fore they put the boa constrictor in his um 
 brella case or whatever they do with the poor 
 old dear at night." 
 
 In his newly accepted situation of press 
 agent for the Ink, Ramon de Silva had hinted 
 at possibilities. Chester dropped his napkin 
 and followed Flossie s mad charge out intOi 
 the street. His not to question why. Floss 
 had decided and the Company Ink had but to 
 foot the bills. In the car bumping out toward 
 circus town he remained the silent partner, 
 viewing with alarm his wife s evident delight 
 in her renewed acquaintance with The Spig 
 goty. Press agent! How long was this sur 
 prising arrangement expected to last? 
 
 At the end of the line an acrid smell and 
 weird trumpeting through the dusk proclaimed 
 the circus. It turned out to be a shabby af 
 fair with one tent still standing and innumer- 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 able gypsy forms grubbing about camp fires 
 or swearing at work horses. 
 
 "Could I see the manager or floor walker or 
 somebody in authority?" asked Floss of a 
 seamy individual who sat on a pile of colored 
 stakes and smoked an awful cigar. 
 
 "Ask for Hank," prompted The Spiggoty. 
 
 "If you would just speak to Mr. Hank," 
 smiled little Mrs. Framm. 
 
 The apparition muttered something sound 
 ing like "Ug" and strode away. 
 
 "Hank!" The name seemed to have af 
 fected the dainty inventor of perfumed lotions 
 as she stood hedged about by woeful menag 
 erie smells. "I suppose Hank is an abbrevia 
 tion for Handkerchief, ain t it?" 
 
 "That s the man," said Spig, pointing 
 through the dusk and indicating a roly-poly 
 figure as it emerged from a tent flap. 
 
 He came up looking mean and hard witK 
 his dyed mustache and pink shirt front. 
 
 "What s wanted?" he growled, giving them 
 the evil eye. 
 
 "Oh, this is Mr. Hank? I came out to see 
 if you would rent me one of the animals or a 
 cally-ope maybe." 
 
 "Huh. I m glad there s somebody in this 
 
SUSIE THE BULL 145 
 
 hick town that wants to pay for something. 
 I ve been under the main top for thirty years 
 and I never trouped out against such a bunch 
 of stiffs." 
 
 "I thought you d like San Francisco," she 
 agreed. "Almost everybody does at once. 
 Now have you got a royal Bengal tiger or a 
 marmoset to hire by the day?" 
 
 "Are you kiddin me, girlie?" asked Mr. 
 Hank; but he looked less fierce, as people were 
 inclined to do when their eyes were set on 
 Floss. 
 
 "Not the least little particle. What have 
 you got roaring there under that darling 
 tent?" 
 
 It was indeed roaring, even at that moment. 
 
 "Three bulls and some cats," volunteered 
 the proprietor. 
 
 "Oh. Then that s the dairy department!" 
 
 "Elephants and lions," prompted The Spig- 
 goty. "That s what they call em in the show 
 business." 
 
 "It must be dee-light f ul !" she cried. "Liv 
 ing out picnic style and calling everything by 
 irregular names. If I called them just ele 
 phants would you understand me?" 
 
 "I might," Mr. Hank permitted. 
 
146 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Well, maybe that s what I want." 
 
 "What would you be doing with an ele 
 phant?" His suspicious manner seemed to be 
 returning. 
 
 "You see we re running a beauty parlor." 
 
 "Ho! Ho!" Mr. Hank s roars rivaled the 
 trumpeting of his captive bulls. "What in hell 
 excuse me, lady do you want with an ele 
 phant in a beauty parlor?" 
 
 "I wouldn t just put him in it, you know. 
 And I d promise to bring him back at supper- 
 time all dusted off or whatever you do with 
 elephants after dark." 
 
 "H-m. Well, come here and look," said the 
 manager. 
 
 Under the flapping tent, shabbily lit by lan 
 terns, three swaying mountains of flesh could 
 be seen indistinctly. It was a nightmare pas 
 sage down the narrow aisle, shoulders fairly 
 brushing dark cages in whose slatted depths 
 eyes like balls of fire glared out while the pad- 
 padding of feline feet could be heard some 
 where too close for safety. 
 
 Right behind Chester s broad back an ap 
 palling roar belched through the gloomy cav 
 ern and almost knocked him off his legs. He 
 
SUSIE THE BULL 147 
 
 leaped several feet. Floss, strange woman 
 that she was, walked serenely on. 
 
 "It s just the lion," sang out the manager. 
 "He won t hurt you." 
 
 "You heard what he said," cooed Floss ever 
 so reassuringly. She groped out in the shad 
 ows and gave Chester her hand. It was icy 
 cold. He would have been more deeply 
 touched by this, no doubt, had he not noted in 
 the semidarkness that she had passed her 
 other hand to The Spiggoty. 
 
 "This way, lady/ suggested Mr. Hank, and 
 upon the word he disappeared between the two 
 high gray walls which upon closer inspection 
 proved to be the sides of full-grown elephants. 
 
 "Riley!" 
 
 "Hi-oo!" The jungle call responded dis 
 tantly from out the den of beasts. 
 
 "Fetch another lantern." 
 
 A light was seen weaving under elephantine 
 legs, and Chester, now taking the lead, fol 
 lowed between the living walls, Flossie and 
 her press agent walking gingerly in the rear. 
 Riley, a stubbled tramp in a plaid cap, held 
 the lantern high over his head, giving the vis 
 itors from another world a full view of Mr. 
 Hank s monsters. Three broad sunken fore- 
 
148 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^~~~ mm ^~^^^ m ~~ mm ~~^^~? lm *^^^^ m * l l> ^^ m *^ m l * m 
 
 heads lowered over them, three sets of stumpy 
 yellowish tusks seemed pointing straight at 
 their unprotected breasts while three pairs of 
 bilious wicked eyes rolled terribly in the sud 
 den glare. Chester, who had heard of ele 
 phants crowding forward and crushing their 
 victims with their foreheads, noticed the great 
 log chains which held their rear legs to stakes. 
 This reassured him. He hoped that Flossie 
 wouldn t be scared. She was as pale as death, 
 but her eyes were dancing. 
 
 They come rather large, don t they?" she 
 criticized. 
 
 "Them two," said the manager, indicating 
 two foreheads looming over them, "are nine- 
 foot bulls Caesar and Brutus. But this one 
 here" he took the lantern from Riley and 
 led the way a few paces along the canvas 
 "she s a runt." 
 
 "What a pity she never grew up," sympa 
 thized little Mrs. Framm. "She isn t over 
 seven feet tall." 
 
 "Seven-foot-five at the shoulders," the nat 
 uralist corrected. "She had a shock when she 
 was a baby. Her name s Susie and she s 
 smart as a whip for all that." 
 
 "Poor thing !" said Floss. "I suppose you d 
 
SUSIE THE BULL 149 
 
 rent her cheap on account of her withered con 
 dition?" 
 
 "Whaddaya call cheap ?" asked the man 
 ager. 
 
 "How do they come by the pound? You 
 affectionate darling!" 
 
 Floss addressed this last compliment to 
 Susie, who had slyly reached out her snakelike 
 nose and was smelling the decorations on the 
 lady s hat. Mr. Hank upraised the short 
 stick he was carrying and using it like a base 
 ball bat smote Susie resoundingly across the 
 trunk. Slowly, deliberately she rolled up her 
 inquisitive end. 
 
 "She s a nervous wreck, isn t she!" cried 
 Floss. "I d want her for one day, maybe two 
 j with her nurse, of course." 
 
 "What for?" insisted Mr. Hank, who, as he 
 had just proved, was a man of decision. 
 
 "Take me out into the air !" 
 
 Not only was she pallid now but her eyes 
 had ceased to dance. 
 
 Without a moment s hesitation Chester, 
 evading The Spiggoty s proffered attention, 
 lifted her in his arms and half carried her 
 through the unknown horrors until again they 
 breathed the sweet winds under the stars. 
 
150 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Get her a drink!" commanded the indig 
 nant husband. 
 
 "Sure," Mr. Hank obliged with a half- 
 filled flask which he drew from his hip pocket. 
 Chester had meant a drink of water, but Floss 
 wet her lips from the bottle and smiled again. 
 
 The four of them sat down upon a pile of 
 crates within reflecting distance of the bivouac 
 fire round which a dozen rough characters 
 grumbled together and drank something out 
 of a tin bucket. 
 
 "Now this is what. Buffalo Willie calls 
 tacks/ Floss went into the subject with re 
 newed vigor. "I ve positively decided to have 
 an elephant. Or have you any kangaroos in 
 stock?" 
 
 -"Four," admitted Mr. Hank. 
 
 "Kangaroos are so restless," she solilo 
 quized. "It needs a boomerang to make them 
 behave. I don t suppose you keep boomer 
 angs, Mr. Hank?" 
 
 Mr. Hank admitted that they were just out 
 of boomerangs, but urged : "Susie s got 
 brains. What do you want with her in the 
 complexion business ? When it comes to com 
 plexions I d say there was some that s got it 
 on her you, for instance. What s the idea?" 
 
SUSIE THE BULL 151 
 
 "It s lovely the way you appreciate things !" 
 she cried, offering Mr. Hank one of her best 
 smiles, which immediately turned his natur 
 ally repulsive features into a symphony of 
 delight Then she turned a rapidly signaling 
 glance to her companions. "You don t know 
 the least thing about natural history, Goob," 
 she hinted. "But Spig s my press agent." 
 
 Having learned diplomacy with life s rapid 
 advance Chester left them alone on the pile 
 of colored poles and went to the other side of 
 the bivouac fire, where men in a strange argot 
 were discussing Full House Marie and the 
 passion for a copper-roofed kinker which had 
 caused her desertion from the main top. A 
 half hour of this veiled scandal satisfied Ches 
 ter A. Framm, who sought out the bright- 
 hued lumber pile to face his wife and The 
 Spiggoty in conference with Mr. Hank. 
 
 "Waterproof?" Mr. Hank was anxiously in 
 quiring. 
 
 "No. That s the weak point. If it should 
 rain we d have to change to a Bengal tiger or 
 something permanent. But I think the weath 
 er s settled. Won t you be friends with us, 
 Mr. Hank?" 
 
 There fell a space of contemplation during 
 
152 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 which the manager chewed a shapeless cigar 
 under his villainous mustachios. What he 
 could do with a little ready money was un 
 doubtedly uppermost in his mind. 
 
 - Keeper would have to go along/ he mum 
 bled at last. That would come to some extra 
 expense." 
 
 "Oh, the keeper of course !" she agreed witK 
 all her native enthusiasm. "And haven t you 
 got an awfully funny one?" 
 
 "There s Riley," he conceded. * He used to 
 lie a clown an August with an act on the 
 slack wire. 
 
 "He cracked one of his vertebrals and he s 
 been bull boss ever since. He s got a white- 
 face English-dude make-up that s a scream." 
 
 : "Per-fect!" she cooed. "Chester, think of 
 it! Isn t he a sweetheart?" 
 
 Even in an excess of enthusiasm Chester 
 could not characterize Mr. Hank as a sweet 
 heart. 
 
 "And of course you ll throw in Riley," she 
 coaxed almost lovinglly. 
 
 "I will not!" This was certain. "He ll be 
 twenty-five extra." 
 
 "How horrid of you! And how much will 
 Susie the bull come to?" 
 
SUSIE THE BULL 153 
 
 "A hundred dollars a day will be about 
 right." He said it savagely, hinting an attack 
 by canvasmen unless his terms were agree 
 able. 
 
 "That will be satisfactory," she said with 
 unusual hauteur. 
 
 "Flossie !" gasped her husband, little know 
 ing where the hundred and twenty-five dollars 
 would come from for this folly. 
 
 "When does Susie usually get up in the 
 morning?" she was asking smoothly of the 
 manager. 
 
 "We won t quarrel about that," he grum 
 bled. 
 
 "Well, then, Doctor Holbetter, my chemist, 
 will be round at eight with Mr. de Silva, my 
 publicity manager. And I ll be here at nine, 
 say, if Susie doesn t mind." 
 
 "I ve been follerin the red wagon a long 
 time," boasted Mr. Hank when they shook 
 hands on the transaction, "but this is a new 
 act on me." 
 
 "It s hardly anything to what I can think up 
 when I really try," she modestly informed 
 him, and led her retinue toward the trolley. 
 
 "Let s get off at a drug store," said Floss 
 almost as soon as they had got on. 
 
154 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Preparations for Susie?" asked Chester 
 now too feeble for argument. 
 
 "Sort of. I want to telephone Buffalo Wil 
 lie the poor dear will be up all night, I sup 
 pose. And then we must get Mr. Horn to do 
 the sign," 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 [WHAT ANGEL BLOOM CREAM COULD DO 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO was always cosmopolitan, 
 but it was never sufficiently so to remain indif 
 ferent to what it saw that balmy morning in 
 mid-September when, at the hour of eleven, a 
 new and startling version of the Floss Idea 
 conducted its solemn comic march up through 
 the Mission and into the very trade centers of 
 the town. 
 
 It s pink!" 
 
 The first small boy who was aware of Susie 
 far out in the suburbs started the watchword, 
 which was cried all over town ere the fatal 
 hour of noon. 
 
 "It s pink !" 
 
 Innocent bystanders rubbed their innocent 
 eyes and passed the remark on to astonished! 
 neighbors who repeated it, the phrase running 
 from lip to lip, none so disputatious as to deny 
 that obvious and colorful truth. 
 
 Pink was Susie, even unto the uttermost 
 155 
 
156 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 ends of her anatomy. Buffalo Willie had 
 mixed the compound which so smoothly cov 
 ered her vast bulk, but it was Flossie who had 
 added the coloring matter, a brilliant shade of 
 rose blushing through a field of snowy white. 
 Susie s trunk resembled nothing so much as a 
 yard and three-quarters of pink rubber hose. 
 Floss had added to the effect by touching the 
 old darling s cheek bones with bright spots of 
 red and, by way of contrast, whitening the 
 sunken forehead. There was something al 
 most indecent about so many square feet of 
 pinkness marching undraped before the public 
 stare. But it was necessary for the appartion, 
 led by its capering clown-dude, to swing with 
 in reading distance before the full significance 
 was comprehended. 
 
 Susie wore but a single garment, a snow- 
 white blanket thing, lettered with large 
 blotches of black: 
 
 ANGEL BLOOM CREAM 
 
 DID THIS FOR MY COMPLEXION. 
 
 IT WILL Do THE SAME FOR YOURS. 
 
 The pink elephant and her attendant clown, 
 equally lacking in a sense of humor, continued 
 
ANGEL BLOOM CREAM 157i 
 
 ^**^"**""^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^j 
 
 their stately march through town. The crowd 
 thickened. Shopmen left their shops unat 
 tended, butchers boys dropped their baskets 
 and ran after the prodigy, street cars halted 
 as though stricken with the sight. Once or 
 twice representatives of San Francisco s more 
 or less modern police force were seen to charge 
 the multitude in order to make make way for 
 the royal progress. 
 
 "We ll all be arrested within the next 
 block/ muttered Chester to his Floss as they 
 were following anxiously in the outskirts of 
 the crowd. 
 
 "Nope," responded little Mrs. Framm de 
 cisively. "Spig got the mayor s license to 
 march, parade and exhibit from eleven till 
 four." 
 
 For the first time he noted the fluttering 
 paper within her hand, which, by the way, 
 trembled somewhat. 
 
 "And then he deserted us, I suppose," 
 growled the much-enduring Chester. 
 
 "Spig? No he ll never desert us. He s 
 off somewhere stirring up the newspapers." 
 
 The pink elephant had now stopped in the 
 midst of a circumambient crush. The great 
 rosy mountain, rising above the throng, gave 
 
158 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 the effect of some gigantic piece of confec 
 tionery surrounded by hungry ants. Never 
 in the world s history had anything animate 
 been so pink and huge. Susie had got 
 jammed in and the police were clearing the 
 way. 
 
 The Framms, wedged in behind two elderly, 
 respectable colored persons, gained fragments 
 of useful criticism. 
 
 "Hit s contrariwise to de law of Gawd," 
 the black man, whose appearance was clerical, 
 was explaining to his wife. "De Good Book 
 say dat de beasts ob de woods an de fowls 
 ob de air shall not suffah beautifaction from 
 de hand ob man " 
 
 "Laws, honey!" giggled his consort, "ef I 
 cud find a cold cream make me pale rossberry 
 cullud laik dat elephum yes, ma am!" 
 
 Chester looked nervously round. It was 
 just as he feared. Floss had another idea. 
 
 "Goob," she shrilled in his ear, "run over 
 to the store and bring a dozen bottles of 
 Bloom." Aunt Het was tending the place 
 that morning. 
 
 -"What for?" he parleyed. 
 
 "Oh, please!" she urged; and he could see 
 by her expression that she was going to cry 
 
ANGEL BLOOM CREAM 159 
 
 if he didn t. "Bring em round to the corner 
 of Kearney and Market. I ll stop the parade 
 there and " 
 
 "What for?" he persisted in his utterly un 
 reasonable way. 
 
 "Can t you see?" she hissed. 
 
 He who would have been on the way to a 
 dignified public career by now had he mar 
 ried Carlotta Beam turned grumblingly and 
 obeyed. Strange, he reflected, how people 
 obeyed Flossie men especially. Something 
 akin to disgust filled him and urged him to 
 disloyalty as he shuffled along toward the 
 frivolous little shop on Eddy street. A dread 
 ful fear possesed him. Was Floss conspiring 
 that he, the prize-winning orator of Dyak 
 University, should stand at a street corner 
 shouting the virtues of a cosmetic swindle to 
 the gaping town? 
 
 Then the picture of the fragile being whom 
 he loved more than fame or reputation bat 
 tling alone in the mob with her atrocious idea 
 got possession of him. He couldn t help it 
 now, Floss must have her way. He fairly 
 ran toward the green-and-red front on Eddy 
 Street, and once there, quite disdaining the 
 astonished cries of Aunt Het and her parrot, 
 
160 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 he snatched a dozen bottles from the shelves, 
 poked them recklessly into pockets and under 
 elbows, and galloped back toward Floss s 
 latest scene of disturbance. The nearer he 
 got to Kearney and Market Streets the more 
 clearly he saw that Floss was about to com 
 mit one of the brilliant desperate errors of 
 genius. The prospect so appalled him that 
 once or twice he was near to dashing the bot 
 tles to the curb, an act of mutiny. 
 
 But the charm of his little commander bore 
 him swiftly, steadily on. Aunt Het in one 
 of her moments of candor had said that Floss 
 was playing a system. The key to that sys 
 tem was simply this: When in doubt attack 
 the most unpromising field. She had married 
 him out of Dyak upon this principle; she had 
 got him a job in the office of her rejected 
 lover; she had arranged his eviction from 
 Aunt Het s apartment; she had hired an ele 
 phant and painted it in the colors of beauty 
 all a part of her system. But Chester had 
 come to his limit of endurance. 
 
 By the condition of Market and Kearney 
 Streets it was plain to see that the peach-col 
 ored Susie had stopped according to schedule. 
 Boys were climbing telephone poles, people 
 
ANGEL BLOOM CREAM 161 
 
 were scrambling to the roofs of trolley cars. 
 The noise surged to a shout, then resurged 
 into laughter. Chester, laden with those 
 damnable bottles, fought his way forward, 
 but the going was ever more difficult with 
 each shoulder thrust. The crowd grew sud 
 denly still with the silence of marvel. Gazing 
 nervously toward the pink elephant Chester 
 realized the cause of this frozen attention. 
 Susie was being put through her tricks. 
 
 Slowly, ponderously, like a giant done in 
 charlotte russe the pink elephant got up on her 
 hind legs and raised her roseate trunk toward 
 the midday sun. 
 
 "Salute the ladies and gentlemen!" shouted 
 the white-faced comedian with the dudish 
 dress suit and the exaggerated monocle. 
 
 Susie spread her forelegs above her pink 
 belly and uttered a trumpet call which sounded 
 from Telegraph Hill to the Cliff House. 
 
 Chester, who had managed to squeeze him 
 self to the front ranks, was relieved by one 
 thing. Floss was nowhere to be seen. 
 
 "By gosh, it is pink!" some brilliant natural 
 ist discovered quite out loud. 
 
 "Pink pink pink!" The very heavens 
 seemed to echo the cry. 
 
162 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Where and how was this all going to end? 
 
 Chester A. Framm, who should have been 
 inured to marvels by this time, found out soon 
 enough, The picture was forever to last in 
 his memory all San Francisco circling round 
 a small open space ; the pink elephant standing 
 full length, like some nightmare caryatid; a 
 small Semitic citizen somewhere in the back 
 ground struggling with a pushcart load of 
 assorted fruits and vegetables. 
 
 "Ay-hoo!" bellowed the clown dude, and 
 blushing Susie began to get down. She came 
 down in sections, as performing elephants pre 
 fer to do. First she gave way cautiously at 
 the knees, then she descended to a Gargan 
 tuan squat, then she curled her pink trunk and 
 brought her forefeet with a thud to the as 
 phalt. The last phase of the maneuver con 
 sisted in raising her hind quarters and stand 
 ing in the normal elephantine position, sway 
 ing from side to side. 
 
 San Francisco began to shout a shout 
 which was interrupted by Susie, who did, un 
 der the circumstances, the unkindest thing 
 within her power. She uttered one heart 
 breaking shriek, swayed seasickly to one side 
 and fell all of a heap. Great was the fall 
 
ANGEL BLOOM CREAM 163 
 
 thereof. In the impact of that avalanche the 
 fruit-bearing pushcart was struck, and a col 
 orful geyser of oranges, bananas, pineapples 
 and lemons went spouting to the zenith. A 
 pallid little huckster crawled out from under 
 something and his crazy gesticulations were 
 lost in the crowd. 
 
 "I knew it !" cried Chester A. Framm, drop 
 ping a half dozen bottles to wring his agonized 
 hands. "That damned paint has killed her." 
 
 Numerous San Franciscans surging for 
 ward hemmed him in, but not too closely for 
 his eyesight to confirm his worst fears. Susie 
 was lying flat on her side, like some curiously 
 tinted leviathan, stranded and lifeless. The 
 clown dude had knelt down and, it appeared, 
 was gazing anxiously into her open mouth. 
 
 "Dead." 
 
 Chester heard some disinterested sympa 
 thizer pronounce this like the tolling of a 
 cracked bell. 
 
 Inside the circle a policeman had appeared 
 and was pushing back the throng with the 
 spoken ritual which policemen have employed 
 under such circumstances since the days of 
 Pharaoh: 
 
 "Stand back there! Give em air!" 
 
164 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 They stood back and gave em air so 
 promptly that Chester found himself deserted 
 by the ebbing humanity, almost alone in the 
 front ranks. The clown dude had settled him 
 self despondently upon Susie s shoulder and 
 was regarding her outstretched trunk with a 
 moody gaze. What should Chester do? As 
 the temporary employer of the wrecked pink 
 elephant what was his status before the pub 
 lic? 
 
 The question was decided for him in a jiffy, 
 for an imposing female figure had swept for 
 ward out of the throng and stood accusingly 
 before the clown dude. 
 
 "Who is the owner of this animal?" she was 
 asking in a deep-throated distinct tone which 
 held a familiar ring for Chester s ears. 
 
 "None of your business, lady," was Riley s 
 diplomatic answer, which threw the crowd 
 into transports of joy. 
 
 "That s exactly what it happens to be," she 
 pointed out in her cultivated voice. "I am a 
 representative of the Humane Society." 
 
 Riley got down from Susie s shoulder. 
 
 "Ain t nobody been crool to no animal, 
 lady," he protested, his chalk-white clown s 
 face doubly tragic in its earnestness. 
 
ANGEL BLOOM CREAM 165 
 
 "It s plain to see that you have killed the 
 elephant/ she lectured, "by stopping its pores 
 with a coat of house paint." 
 
 "Before Gawd, lady " 
 
 "Are you responsible for this animal?" 
 
 "No m. I m only the stiff that " 
 
 "Who is responsible for him?" 
 
 "That guy over there." 
 
 The clown dude pointed straight at the spot 
 where Chester was standing exposed to view. 
 The tall lady turned and gave him the full ben 
 efit of her scornful eyes. 
 
 Chester withered. It was Carlotta Beam! 
 
 "I m responsible for him her," he boldly 
 informed this new complication, for it was 
 evident that there was no escape now. 
 
 "Ches " she started to say, then bit her 
 
 classic underlip. She was really very beauti 
 ful as she stood there; an untidy, Slavic sort 
 of beauty. A strand of her raven-black hair 
 had come undone and her dark eyes burned 
 with astonishment, rebuke, indignation. 
 
 "I didn t know, Mr. Framm," she began 
 coldly, "that you were engaged in the circus 
 business," 
 
 Facing the woman who in a desperate meet 
 ing had informed him that his feet were stray- 
 
166 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 ing in the primrose paths he was loath to tell 
 her in so many words that he was not a circus 
 man but the proprietor of a patent skin lotion, 
 two samples of which were now protruding 
 from his pockets. 
 
 "It was entirely an accident, Miss Beam/ 
 he replied as levelly as he could. "We merely 
 hired this elephant by the day. She is not 
 painted with house paint; she is colored by a 
 perfectly harmless substance. Oh, search 
 me!" He was losing patience with himself 
 and Carlotta and the gaping multitude. 
 
 "Lady/ 5 cut in the policeman, standing of 
 ficiously between, "if you re going to prefer 
 charges, you d better do it now/ 
 
 Carlotta stood a little moment, her deep 
 tragic gaze fixed upon the man who had fallen 
 so low. 
 
 "I don t want to make any charges," she 
 said generously. "If I ve made any I I 
 withdraw them." 
 
 Chester was about to stammer his thanks. 
 
 "No you don t!" 
 
 It was undoubtedly Flossie s voice, but how 
 It got there and what had lent it that fighting 
 note was beyond Chester s dizzy comprehen 
 sion. Yet there stood Floss beside the police- 
 
ANGEL BLOOM CREAM 167 
 
 man, the gold of her eyes spitting fire, her 
 fashionable little figure drawn taut as she 
 faced her old rival of Dyak days. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Framm!" 
 
 Carlotta looked positively foolish. Flossie 
 had taken the wind out of her sail as she had 
 done so many times of yore. 
 
 "I heard you say before all these people that 
 you represented the Humane Thingumajig," 
 declared Mrs. Framm in a voice which pene 
 trated to the outermost edges of the throng. 
 
 "Humane Society," responded Miss Beam, 
 straightening against the blow. 
 
 "Well, then we ve hired an elephant for 
 advertising purposes. You ve seen it drop 
 dead because of our terrible horrid con 
 temptible mean treatment. And you want to 
 arrest us." 
 
 "I was just saying to Ches to Mr. Framm 
 that I wish to withdraw the charge." 
 
 "What do you want to withdraw the charge 
 for?" Flossie shot the question as straight 
 as an arrow, "Are you afraid to appear in 
 court against us? Afraid that you can t 
 prove you re a member of the Society for the 
 Prevention of Things?" 
 
 "Hush I" whispered Chester. 
 
168 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "I won t hush !" replied Flossie. "Carlotta 
 Beam, what are you afraid of?" 
 
 "I am not aware " she began. 
 
 "O Lord!" groaned the little persecutor. 
 "Here s somebody else who s not aware." 
 
 But Carlotta wasn t to be interrupted in her 
 rhetorical flow. 
 
 "I am not aware that I expressed fear, Mrs. 
 Framm. And if it is your wish that this ob 
 vious case of cruelty shall be prosecuted in 
 the public courts, then I reverse my intentions. 
 It is plain to be seen that this unfortunate 
 beast has been smeared with a preparation 
 that has done him bodily harm." 
 
 "About six bottles of that preparation 
 wouldn t do you bodily harm," mocked Flossie. 
 Which was unworthy even of her. 
 
 "Officer/ spoke Carlotta in measured tones, 
 "I demand that these people be arrested" 
 
 The officer, who proved to be a seraph 
 named Doody, turned a broad face, first to 
 Carlotta, then to Floss. Already it was easy 
 to see whom he preferred. 
 
 "What the devil did you do that for?" 
 groaned Chester of the flushed and lovely lit 
 tle criminal at his side. 
 
 "Shut up!" was all she said. 
 
ANGEL BLOOM CREAM 169 
 
 And these were the bitterest words that had 
 thus far passed between them. 
 
 "It s a shame, lady." The look which Offi 
 cer Doody gave Mrs. Framm was more sym 
 pathetic than the law required. "If it wasn t 
 
 in the line of earnin me daily bread " 
 
 And he gave her a melting eye. 
 
 "That s the only thing that saves you/ 
 trilled Floss, returning an eye for an eye. 
 
 Two policemen escorted them to the patrol 
 box and stood guard over the new-found 
 treasures. Several other policemen passed 
 through the throng collecting evidence. As 
 the Black Maria came clanging round a cor 
 ner, slowed down and backed up to accom 
 modate the Framms, something like a dense 
 pink cloud was seen by Chester to rise up 
 ward and upward above the populace. It was 
 a pink cloud that swayed from side to side; 
 a pink cloud from which yards of pink rub 
 ber tubing writhed back and forth, soliciting 
 for peanuts. 
 
 Susie had come to. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 THE PINK VERDICT 
 
 MAGISTRATE MICHAEL HENRY HARORAN, 
 before whom the case was tried in the morn 
 ing, had at about this point in his career so 
 fixed himself in the heart of California that 
 he was already being mentioned for promo 
 tion to the State Supreme Court and from 
 there to higher honors. The Framms, having 
 been released on Aunt Het s bail, sat in the 
 midst of the Municipal Building s combined 
 smells, which ranged from the morgue down 
 stairs to the detention room at the right of 
 the throne where Judge Haroran was meting 
 out justice. 
 
 "Did you see the gang out in the street?" 
 whispered Floss to the discouraged man be 
 side her. "They re packed half across Ports 
 mouth Square. People who can t get in have 
 stuck round to get a look at Susie and- " 
 
 "Sh-h-h!" he cautioned her, because the 
 great Haroran who had a seamy face 
 
 170 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 171 
 
 L^^*^^^^>T^^T^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ., . 
 
 adorned by two reddish eyebrows, which as 
 he talked seemed to be pursuing each other 
 like two blind mice across his forehead was 
 then advising one Ah Wok never again to 
 employ a hatchet in the winning of his own 
 true love. The Haroran method was rapid, 
 for he had scarce consigned the yellow man 
 to a month of laborious peace when he began 
 to lecture a maimed longshoreman upon the 
 ethics of handling loose paving stones. 
 
 "Isn t it marvelous! Everybody s waiting 
 for us!" whispered Floss delightedly; which 
 caused Chester to glare round the crowded 
 room and decide that what she said was true. 
 
 The benches were crowded with spectators 
 and the social standing of the audience was 
 high a small minority of listless hangers-on, 
 opium addicts, women of the quarter; a large 
 majority of well-dressed citizens and ladies of 
 quality. A flood of sprightly newspaper com 
 ment had roused San Francisco s easily 
 tempted gala spirit and was lending a fash 
 ionable air to the police court s squalor. 
 
 Every eye, so it seemed, was on the 
 Framms, and even Judge Haroran, perform 
 ing acrobatics with his mouselike eyebrows, 
 
172 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 appeared to be awaiting the dramatic titbit 
 of the day. 
 
 "Phew!" Floss exhaled feelingly. "It 
 smells so in here that I don t blame the ele 
 phant for staying outside. Hello! There s 
 Buffalo Willie with the clown dude and the 
 heart specialist." 
 
 Holbetter and Susie s keeper were seen hud 
 dled against the door, closely associating with 
 a peppery, square-built gentleman whose eco 
 nomical gray mustache indicated a conserva 
 tive cast of thought. 
 
 "Doctor Hilcross!" muttered Chester, rec 
 ognizing California s most fashionable physi 
 cian. 
 
 "Yeah. He s a crosspatch. Took me ever 
 so long to convince him. But I cried and 
 here he is." 
 
 Another familiar face could be seen com 
 ing down the aisle. It had a dimple in its 
 chin and a deeper one in its rosy left cheek. 
 Sparkling Irish eyes sought out Mrs. Framm 
 as Officer Doody, the susceptible policeman 
 who had made the arrest, stopped and leaned 
 over in an attitude of fatherly solicitude. 
 
 "A fine crowd ye ve drawn, Mrs. Framm. 
 I ve seen man-ny a society murther case has 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 173 
 
 drawn a wor-r-rse wan. An reporters an 
 correspondents from every paper on the 
 Coast! It s notoryus, ma am, an a credit to 
 yer foine mind." 
 
 Reporters indeed! Out of the jumble came 
 numerous brisk young men with wads of yel 
 low paper and quick glances from the clerk 
 of the court to the prize exhibit of the day. 
 A man with a camera moved cautiously along 
 the wall, apparently jockeying for a good po 
 sition by the door. Chester reflected upon the 
 unenviable prominence in which they now 
 found themselves; he was reminded of poor 
 Susie, whom he had seen a few minutes ago 
 out on Kearney Street being pinched and 
 poked by a morbid mob, eager to know 
 whether the leaden complexion she now wore 
 was natural or merely a coat of gray paint 
 laid over her really pink skin. 
 
 He was grimly determined to see it through 
 what else could he do under the circum 
 stances? but the knowledge that they were 
 at the end of their rope disheartened him even 
 before the law could do its worst. 
 
 More Chinese feuds were settled out of 
 hand. Bow Kin and Toy Few had quar 
 reled over an opium pipe, with the result that 
 
174 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Kin had sought to submerge Few under a 
 bowl of hot rice. 
 
 "Think of the way they waste food!" was 
 all the good Floss got out of it; though 
 Messrs. Bow Kin and Toy Few were dedi 
 cated to thirty days in the workhouse. 
 
 Floss missed nothing. 
 
 "What s a workhouse like?" she cheerfully 
 inquired, giving Chester a nudge. 
 
 He didn t know, and he didn t want to 
 know. 
 
 Over in the front row he could see Carlot- 
 ta s serious look of waiting. Through his un 
 happy mind there swam a vision of yester 
 day; of that same still, studious gaze with 
 which she had regarded him as he delivered 
 his prize-winning remarks on William of Or 
 ange. His mentor, his light of leading, his 
 intellectual guide and here she sat in a pesti 
 lential court room waiting to testify against 
 him in the matter of an undignified petty of 
 fense. At least, thought Chester A. Framm, 
 his wit should now be pitted against hers. He 
 would have that bitter satisfaction. The dra 
 matic possibilities intrigued his imagination. 
 He and Carlotta would fight the case as one 
 lawyer against another. 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 175 
 
 Officer Doody again interrupted with the 
 whispered information that the Framms 
 would be next on the docket. And had they 
 witnesses ? 
 
 "Oh, splen-did witnesses !" she smiled peach- 
 ily up at her latest captive. "Doctor Hilcross 
 the specialist, and Doctor Holbetter the chem 
 ist, and" 
 
 The court clerk here interrupted with one 
 of those unintelligible noises familiar to court 
 room announcements. It was a continuous 
 droning bray terminating in words which 
 sounded like "Chezera Framm and Florba 
 Framm." 
 
 "I think he s calling us," intimated Floss, 
 tugging at her husband. 
 
 Together they proceeded toward the awful 
 seat of judgment. Carlotta had come for 
 ward, too, and Chester was relieved to see that 
 Buffalo Willie, true to his trust, had assem 
 bled his fellow witnesses. The room lay in an 
 obliging hush. Several newspaper men ably 
 ushered by The Spiggoty had crowded as 
 near as possible to the bench. 
 
 The Framms and the vengeful Carlotta 
 were now standing right under the fiery top 
 knot and acrobatic eyebrows of the most 
 
176 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 famous police judge on the Pacific Coast; 
 and Chester s first impression was of those 
 twin hanks of hair chasing themselves prank- 
 ishly up, up on his forehead as he leaned for 
 ward. He smiled. It was plain to be seen 
 that he had got sight of Floss and liked the 
 view. 
 
 The clerk of the court unfolded a disagree 
 able document and mumbled over something 
 to the effect that Chezera Framm and Florba 
 Framm were charged with a misdemeanor 
 to Wit. To Wit seemed to have vague things 
 to do with smearing house paint on an animal 
 to Wit. There was, altogether, more wit than 
 humor in the clerk of the court s mumbled 
 complaint. 
 
 "Officer Doody!" 
 
 His Honor uttered it in his great rolling 
 voice, and the seraphic policeman came for 
 ward. 
 
 Officer Doody launched jauntily forth into 
 his version of the adventure, working racily 
 toward the climactic scene which terminated 
 as follows: 
 
 "Then the elephant, Y r Honor, layed right 
 down on the job, Y r Honor, wreckin a poosh- 
 cart an snorin like wan dead. At that the 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 177 
 
 la-ady rushes forward an demands the arrist 
 of hot of em " 
 
 "One minute, Officer Doody." The magis 
 trate, who had continued to lavish his attentive 
 glances upon Flossie s hat she had trimmed 
 it this morning with a long pheasant s feather 
 brought his eyebrows down from their percri 
 atop and suggested: "Be more explicit, 
 please. Which lady rushes forward and de 
 mands the arrest of both of what?" 
 
 "The Humane Soci ty la-ady demands th 
 arrist of bot the defendants, if it please Y r 
 Honor. The elephant, which was a female, 
 was a-layin there quite pink from head to 
 tail." 
 
 "Pink and prostrate," soliloquized Magis 
 trate Haroran, who was evidently a favorite 
 with the press, for several reporters flew to 
 their pencils while the court room tittered. 
 
 "Is the society s representative present to 
 prefer charges?" 
 
 "Here, Your Honor." 
 
 Carlotta Beam, pale but determined, took 
 her place in the midst of her enemies, and 
 upon the invitation of the court grew explicit. 
 
 "The elephant was found in a state of com 
 plete collapse which, as it was plain to see, 
 
178 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 was superinduced by the thick coat of house 
 paint that covered its body, thus interfering 
 with the normal functions of the skin." 
 
 "What was the color of the paint, if you 
 please?" 
 
 The celebrated eyebrows had raised them 
 selves again and were now forming a merger 
 with the superior shock of auburn hair. 
 
 It was evident that Judge Haroran did not 
 admire Carlotta as a type. 
 
 "Pink," she replied distinctly. 
 
 The magic word started another ripple 
 throughout the room; the ripple crescendoed 
 to a roar. 
 
 "Order in the court!" bleated the bailiff, 
 though he himself was covering his mouth. 
 
 "That is the same elephant now standing 
 outside on Kearney Street?" 
 
 For a nervous moment it looked as though 
 the magistrate would turn and wink at Flos 
 sie. 
 
 "Oh, Mister Judge," broke in Floss, "that s 
 Susie. She s the pink elephant, only she s 
 been washed off." 
 
 "H-m. Circumstantial evidence would go 
 to prove, I should say, that the elephant sur- 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 179 
 
 vived the ordeal. However, might I ask, 
 Miss " 
 
 "Beam," Carlotta promptly supplied. 
 
 " Miss Beam, in what way do you con 
 sider that the pink paint has been injurious 
 to the animal s health?" 
 
 "The condition in which I found the ele 
 phant," Carlotta responded decisively, "would 
 prove that." 
 
 "Mrs. Framm" Judge Haroran s expres 
 sion entirely changed; his eyebrows had come 
 down to an amiable level, his little eyes 
 snapped merrily "how can you prove that 
 your house paint didn t cause the the down 
 fall of Susie?" 
 
 "In the first place," replied Flossie, "she 
 wasn t painted with house paint at all. In the 
 second place Susie was a damaged elephant. 
 She has a weak heart. She s had spells for 
 years." 
 
 "I see. And how can you prove that she s 
 had spells for years?" 
 
 "Doctor Hilcross examined her last night," 
 replied the ever-ready Floss. 
 
 "Ah, you mean Doctor Hilcross, the heart 
 specialist?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," chirped Floss. "He s over by 
 
180 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 the door keeping next to the ventilator. He s 
 a crank about fresh air." 
 
 A stocky square man with a square gray 
 mustache and square slit of a mouth was being 
 led forward. 
 
 "Doctor Hilcross" the Court s air was 
 ever so respectful "did you examine the ele 
 phant last night as the defendant says?" 
 
 "I did," testified the celebrated heart spe 
 cialist in his choppy, chiding tone. 
 
 "And what did you find?" 
 
 "A nervous heart, valvular irregularity and 
 a murmur. Apparently the trouble had ex 
 tended over a course of years. Several of 
 the circus people informed me that the ele 
 phant had been subject to spells of vertigo at 
 frequent intervals. This is not uncommon 
 among pachydermous animals born in captiv- 
 ity." 
 
 "Would you say that yesterday s spell of 
 vertigo was helped along a trifle by the dec 
 orations?" 
 
 "Positively not!" 
 
 "Thank you, doctor. That will be all." 
 
 The busy physician, stopping only to give 
 Floss a curt nod, went his busy way. But 
 already she was motioning to Buffalo Willie, 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 181 
 
 who was edging forward, flourishing his 
 ivory-topped cane. 
 
 "I ve brought in a chemist/ explained 
 Floss, holding the little druggist affectionately 
 by the arm, "to tell you about the pink stuff 
 that covered up Susie. This is Doctor Hoi- 
 better Nathaniel Hawthorne Holbetter." 
 
 "We re holding quite a reception," grinned 
 the judge. "Doctor Holbetter, are you a qual 
 ified chemical expert?" 
 
 "Five years assistant city chemist, San 
 Jose, Cal.," Nathaniel Hawthorne Holbetter 
 explained in his shorthand method. 
 
 "That ought to qualify you. Have you 
 examined the beauty preparation which 
 adorned the pink elephant?" 
 
 Judge Haroran was now having a perfect 
 time. 
 
 "Mixed it myself." 
 
 "Ah. Then would you mind telling me how, 
 you compounded the prescription?" 
 
 "Delighted. One part talcum, one part 
 flour, five parts water, eosin to add color. 
 Sig. : Apply externally." 
 
 Sensation in the court. More bawls for 
 order. 
 
 "Eosin," echoed the judge, whose eyebrows 
 
182 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 *^ I *^^ ^^^^^ ^^ M "* MM "^ ^^*^* ^^^ ^^""**^ ^** ^^^ M ^^* * ** " M *^ > " "*"^ 
 
 were again performing cart wheels over his 
 forehead, "sounds violent. Would such a 
 chemical superinduce fits in an elephant ?" 
 
 "Feed it to babies!" barked Buffalo Willie. 
 "Often eat worse. Like it." 
 
 "Is this the formula for your beauty 
 cream?" 
 
 "It is not," barked the little druggist. 
 "Don t waste that on elephants." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 It was evident that Judge Haroran saw, for 
 he was looking straight into the lovely eyes 
 of Flossie Framm. Undoubtedly he was be 
 witched. 
 
 "Mrs. Framm," said he at last ever so 
 gently as he leaned far down from his pulpit, 
 "what is the name of the preparation your 
 pink pet was advertising?" 
 
 Floss took a deep breath. 
 
 "Framm s Angel Bloom Cream!" 
 
 She sang it aloud in a clear sweet voice 
 which tinkled into every corner of the gloomy 
 court room. 
 
 "Wonderful!" said the eminent jurist He 
 lowered his jaw and his eyebrows in the same 
 grimace ; he had leaned far over, pressing the 
 tips of his fingers together till the knuckles 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 183 
 
 cracked. "And tell me, Mrs. Framm, do you 
 honestly think that this er Framm s An 
 gel Bloom Cream contains any chemical that 
 would do bodily harm?" 
 
 Flossie had sidled very close to the throne, 
 and there in a series of poses that could not 
 be misinterpreted she turned first one bloom 
 ing cheek, then the other, to the full inspec 
 tion of His Honor s ravished eyes. 
 
 "Would you say that it has done any harm 
 to me?" she asked in a still, small voice. 
 
 "Case dismissed!" thundered Judge Haro- 
 ran, racing his eyebrows wildly as he turned 
 his stern gaze upon some mythical book, sup 
 posedly reclining on the desk to comfort and 
 to calm the judicial mind. 
 
 Already the gentlemen of the press were 
 abandoning their table and swarming toward 
 the door in a competitive effort to head off the 
 Framms. 
 
 That day and the next were exhausting 
 ones in the Angel Bloom parlors, where a 
 rush of barter and trade kept Chester and 
 Aunt Het jumping from counter to counter 
 all day, and where, upstairs, Flossie was at 
 the end of her keen little wits supplying the 
 
184 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 press with interviews sufficiently sensational 
 to glut her sense of artistic values. 
 
 It was a dull season for murders, politics 
 and divorce sensations; the evening papers 
 had done the trial at length and in their best 
 vein. The Spiggoty, who occasionally led off 
 humorous news in the Blade w r ith bursts of 
 lyric rhyme, contributed the following: 
 
 There once was a girl in the social whirl 
 
 With an elephant on her hands. 
 She stopped to think: ce l will paint him pink 
 
 And play to the big grand stands." 
 So she made a rush for a whitewash brush 
 
 And a bucket of Angel Bloom 
 But, as soon as she painted, the elephant 
 fainted; 
 
 So this is our tale of gloom. 
 
 The morning papers specialized on photog 
 raphy. Susie was again brought out, deco 
 rated again in rose and white, and posed in 
 an upright position with Floss sitting on her 
 forehead. Floss dictated The Story of My 
 Life for a Los Angeles Sunday edition; and 
 a remarkable narrative it was, relating how 
 Angel Bloom had been handed to her grand- 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 185 
 
 mother by a dying Egyptologist who had 
 stolen it from a sacred casket of Ra. 
 
 Floss got the hard words out of The Spig- 
 goty s old set of encyclopedias. Editors all 
 up and down the Coast telegraphed queries 
 to their correspondents. Free advertising 
 raged, and the effect on the market was in 
 stantaneous. 
 
 Next evening when Floss had got into her 
 kimono and was resting her tired feet on a 
 chair Doctor Holbetter stalked into the scene 
 with his usual burden of ill tidings. 
 
 "Even the Chinese drug stores want it!" 
 he barked. "Telegraphic orders all up and 
 down the Coast. Six cases to Boston Drug 
 Store. Window displays Mr. Framm Knows 
 a Pretty Girl all over town. Too bad. Chance 
 to get rich. No capital." 
 
 "Willie," chirped Floss, "if you went to 
 heaven you d kick about the music." 
 
 "Know nothing about heaven. Farthest 
 north I ve been s Seattle. But do know this: 
 Only two hundred bottles not sold. No capi 
 tal to manufacture more. No credit. What? 
 What?" 
 
 He went off into a long succession of clicks. 
 
 "Aren t you a reputable citizen aren t you 
 
186 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 one of those things? Can t you borrow some 
 thing on your drug store?" 
 
 "Don t make me laugh." He stood and 
 chewed licorice, his little chin beard going 
 busily. 
 
 "I ve tried all the banks," said Chester, who 
 had never been so tired in his life. "They 
 don t regard us as a serious concern." 
 
 "And I hope they never will !" cut in Floss. 
 
 "But I should think you two great big bru 
 tal men would be able to raise a few thousand 
 dollars without all that to-do." 
 
 "There s Applethwaite " 
 
 "He s mad at me," Floss informed him. 
 That apparently was another story. 
 
 "Exhausted our credit with wholesale drug 
 concerns," Buffalo Willie chewed on. "Too 
 bad. Can t fill orders." Click-click. 
 
 "Oh, well," yawned Floss, "I suppose I ll 
 have to raise the money in the morning. And 
 now please get out. I m going to bed." 
 
 Next morning Chester, who had been 
 mournfully seeking credit of an obscure sav 
 ings bank in the Portsmouth Square region, 
 was astonished by the sight of his Floss, 
 dressed to kill or at least to wound enter- 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 187 
 
 ing a small Bohemian restaurant just round 
 the corner from the Municipal Courts. Thus 
 thrown into the position of a domestic spy 
 he lingered at a corner and was further aston 
 ished to observe Judge Haroran step into the 
 same restaurant by another door. 
 
 Unworthy jealousy raged in the heart of 
 Chester A. Framm. Urged by the base in 
 stinct he waited a discreet few minutes, then 
 followed in by the same door Floss had 
 taken. 
 
 The place, which specialized in Mexican 
 food, was divided into two small rooms. 
 Chester took a table by the wall where, peer 
 ing into the compartment beyond, he became 
 an unseen witness to the latest comedy of Flos 
 sie s invention. 
 
 Judge Haroran was eating alone. At the 
 table nearest him Floss was also eating alone. 
 They were facing each other. The judge was 
 reading a newspaper. Floss was reading an 
 other. Haroran ordered; Floss ordered. The 
 judge, who was apparently in a forbidding 
 mood, glowered into the paper, groping now 
 and then for his food and pulling it round the 
 edge. Floss lowered her paper now and then 
 and peeped shyly over. Chester could not re- 
 
188 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 strain a grin. Floss had met her match this 
 time. 
 
 The grin was destined to linger only for 
 the duration of one frugal course, for after 
 the judge had emptied his plate, he lowered 
 his paper and glanced toward the table oppo 
 site him. Their eyes met. Haroran bowed 
 coldly and resumed his paper. Floss again 
 took up her reading. 
 
 After all, thought Chester, Floss was doing 
 this for the Company Ink. Just how he 
 could not fathom but his sympathy drifted 
 toward his peculiar little wife. It was with 
 a sort of triumphant thrill, then, that he saw 
 Haroran at last rise gawkily, pay his score 
 and saunter over to Floss table. 
 
 The meeting was cordial apparently, for 
 they shook hands; and the judge, after the 
 manner of men captivated against their wills, 
 seated himself on the edge of a chair. Floss 
 was going on in her animated way, using her 
 eyes to advantage, gesturing with all the 
 force of her eloquent frivolity. The judge 
 got farther into his chair, and before Ches 
 ter s astonished eyes was revealed the picture 
 of a man being gradually charmed, entranced, 
 hypnotized. All this took about fifteen min- 
 
THE PINK VERDICT 189 
 
 utes, at the end of which time a waiter inter 
 rupted the interview with a bottle of ink and 
 a large sheet of writing paper. 
 
 Chester had seen enough. 
 
 A half hour later he met Floss at a Kear 
 ney Street corner. She seemed not in the 
 least surprised. 
 
 "The old cherubim and seraphim!" she 
 smiled through the heightened color of her 
 excitement. "Being one of those lawyer 
 things he couldn t take my word for it. So I 
 gave him our note for ninety days at seven 
 per cent." 
 
 Chester whistled, having no more adequate 
 expression at his command. She had passed 
 over to him a long blue check which men 
 tioned the sum of five thousand dollars and 
 bore the signature of Michael Henry Haro- 
 ran. 
 
 "Well, you went to a peculiar place for it," 
 was his last weak protest. 
 
 "Mister Geese! That s just where gold 
 miners go for their gold to peculiar places." 
 
 Thereupon she kissed him affectionately, 
 much to the diversion of upper Kearney 
 Street. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 HOW SHE INTRODUCED HIM TO IMMORTAL FAME 
 
 THE lapse of fifteen years is bound to be 
 dramatic. It can make a rich man out of a 
 poor man, a beggar out of a chief; it can kill 
 you dead, dead, dead and leave an absent- 
 minded few to ask "What has become of 
 Jones?" It can turn your life into a sour lit 
 tle tragedy or a sweet big romance. Or it 
 can leave you at a standstill which is not 
 really a standstill because, as Buffalo Willie 
 expressed it: "Feet in the mud and you ve 
 got to back up." 
 
 Fifteen years after the adventure with the 
 pink elephant found Colonel and Mrs. Ches 
 ter A. Framm you notice the "Colonel," 
 don t you? occupying an expensive suite at 
 the Hotel Merlinbilt, New York. "Col. and 
 Mrs. Chester A. Framm, valet and maid, San 
 Francisco, Cal." thus it appeared on the reg 
 ister. He could write it now without a quiver 
 of the pen that military title which, like his 
 
 190 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 191 
 
 i^^ mmiiimi ^^~*~ mmmi>m ^^~ mmimm ~ mm ^ mmm ^^^^~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 chronic hay fever, had grown upon him with 
 the years. But Floss did not create hay fever 
 as she oft reminded him during sneezy 
 spells; whereas she never denied that she 
 brought Colonel into his life. 
 
 She had bestowed the title with one sweep 
 of her helpless little hand. Had she chosen 
 to make him an earl it would have been the 
 same. But she had decided that Goober 
 looked military, that a thingumbob would add 
 dignity to his middle-aging personality. 
 Therefore she had linked her own persuasive 
 genius to The Spiggoty s, and between them 
 Colonel had become a fact A celebrated 
 series of street-car advertisements, circulated 
 through as many states as the flag has stars, 
 had begun its appeal with "Colonel Framm 
 says/ Soon afterward a horde of small-town 
 newspapers broke out into boiler-plate witti 
 cisms, supposedly repeated from the lips of 
 Col. Chester A. Framm. No eagles were ever 
 won with less trouble for the winner. 
 
 So when the curtain again rose, after the 
 above-mentioned interval of time, the Framms 
 had been a fortnight in New York, and, like 
 your true San Franciscan, Chester was pining 
 to go home. A busy two weeks it had been, 
 
192 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 for the Company Ink had now dignified its 
 name to Framm s Institute just what it insti 
 tuted was never made clear ; and Flossie s per 
 petual energy had caused a chain of parrot- 
 colored beauty shops to wind its perfumed 
 way literally from California to Maine. Buf 
 falo Willie had invented an original needle 
 spray, standardized hydropaths had been pro 
 vided with each shop. Thus it had been easy 
 to account for every minute of Chester s time 
 during these fifteen years of material suc 
 cess; easy to account for his nestling into the 
 cushion of luxury with never a thought for 
 Carlotta Beam and the ideals he had traded 
 for mere tinsel. 
 
 Never a thought, did I say? 
 
 It was a late September morning and the 
 Framms were taking late coffee in the break 
 fast room of their suite. Had you studied 
 them there, as did the waiter who brought in 
 a second helping of fresh butter, you would 
 have said that they were father and daughter 
 instead of man and wife. Chester had a lim 
 ited imagination Floss discovered that be 
 fore she married him but he had a capacity 
 for hard work and was born with a powerful 
 sense of responsibility which had acted con- 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 193 
 
 stantly as a check and a balance to his wife s 
 amazing artistic flights. 
 
 The effort had aged him. There lay a nude 
 strip along his skull between the bump of ven 
 eration and the mound of philoprogenitive- 
 ness. He was rather gray above the ears. 
 His heavy noble face was deep-lined and he 
 wore eyeglasses that trailed a mournful rib 
 bon. Yet who would say that he was not a 
 proud and happy man? Hay fever is the 
 lightest of heavenly curses, and no husband 
 has ever died of a wife who is always amusing 
 even when she annoys. Every inch a colonel 
 he looked that September morning. 
 
 But what had happened to Flossie Framm 
 in the long wait between acts? Nothing, ap 
 parently. A microscope might have revealed 
 crow s-feet at the corners of her wonderful 
 eyes; possibly she had in some moment of 
 confidence with herself plucked a half dozen 
 silver threads from out the honey gold of her 
 hair. But Flossie at thirty-seven was still a 
 young girl, whereas Chester at forty-one was 
 ahem middle-aged. There, I ve said it ! 
 
 Strange contrast, say you? Not in the least, 
 say I. Floss had made her fortune by jump 
 ing chasms and not worrying about it; Ches- 
 
194 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 ter had stood on the marge and held the rope 
 for her. And in such a combination it is 
 usually the rope holder who suffers from nerv 
 ous strain. 
 
 "Floss," began the colonel, mangling the 
 cube sugar in the bottom of his cup, "don t 
 you think we can start back to the Coast?" 
 
 "Old Patch!" she trilled, dropping her pa 
 per. Floss read the papers less for the news 
 than for weird and strange advertisements 
 smuggled in remote corners. "I believe 
 you re smoking too many cigars. No wonder 
 you have the sneezes. If you d only stick to 
 cigarettes the way I do " 
 
 "We re through with business here," he 
 growled, "and we ought to get back." 
 
 "What would we be doing back?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Isn t that like you? I thought you were 
 crazy about that new twenty-two-room house 
 and the bungalow at San Rafael. And there 
 are the children to consider." 
 
 "I think I ll sell em," replied Floss thought 
 fully; then becoming aware of her husband s 
 horrified look: "Not the children, of course, 
 the messy old sweethearts ! But your mother s 
 looking after Eva and Buffalo Willie never 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 195 
 
 lets Nat get out of his sight. Since I named 
 the children for those two vain old things you 
 may be sure nothing s going to happen to 
 them. Besides, they re very easy to manage." 
 
 "Yes indeed/ replied Chester A. Framm. 
 "They re like their mother. 
 
 "Are you going to leave me or something, 
 Chester?" she asked with one of her heart- 
 melting looks. 
 
 "I ve got over that stage," he grinned wick 
 edly. "But what s the idea about selling our 
 Pacific Coast property?" 
 
 "Oh, we wouldn t sell our Institute shops. 
 Oh, no! Or our offices. Never, never, never! 
 And we might rent the Presidio house to 
 somebody who wants to start a hotel or keep 
 boarders." 
 
 "Florabel!" He only called her that upon 
 occasions. "Where are you going to stop?" 
 
 "I wasn t aware," she informed him, that 
 I was going to stop anywhere." 
 
 "You never had an idea that didn t run up 
 into the thousands." 
 
 "Easy come, easy go," she reminded him 
 lightly, reaching down for the little pink slip 
 per she had just kicked off. 
 
 "That house cost well over a hundred 
 
196 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 thousand dollars. It was supposed to estab 
 lish us for life " 
 
 "I hope nothing will ever do that/ 
 
 "Do you intend that we spend the rest of 
 our time in hotels?" 
 
 "Nope. We ll have a home all right. But 
 this time it ll be on Fifth Avenue." 
 
 "With what idea in view?" 
 
 "Ain t none, foolish. Only it s our move, 
 that s all. You remember how I said, right 
 after we were married, that we d make squil- 
 lions and squillions of dollars and I d have 
 your name a mile high on all the billboards? 
 Well, didn t I keep my promise?" 
 
 Chester knew too well that she had. Had 
 he cared to glance out of the window he would 
 have seen a tall billboard blazing with "Col 
 onel Framm says" and an impressionistic por 
 trait of himself beside a giant s bottle of 
 Angel Bloom. 
 
 "Yeppy, I kept my promise," she congrat 
 ulated herself. "But we ve worn out the 
 Coast We re considered very rich out there, 
 but the best families always associate us with 
 Kair oil and cocoa-butter massage. Here it s 
 different We re merchant princes from afar, 
 that s alL Framm s Institute sounds lovely 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 197 
 
 and dignified and grand. Therefore we can 
 just let out a mirthful whoop and take a high 
 dive into the middle of Society. Cheer up, 
 sexton, we ll be a long time dead I" 
 
 "Then you ll be wanting water-front prop 
 erty at Bar Harbor and rolling stock to 
 match." 
 
 "Everything !" she cried enthusiastically. 
 "Won t it be great, Goob? I ve picked out 
 two or three houses on the Avenue; I don t 
 know whether we ll take the Florentine- 
 morgue effect or the little white dungeon with 
 the marble fruit cake over the door." 
 
 "Whichever you choose, you ll want to move 
 out as soon as you get in. Look at the money 
 we put into that San Francisco house. Look 
 at that sunken garden! Think of what we 
 paid that landscape architect! And those 
 servants quarters great Scott! They re a 
 hundred times more luxurious than the flat 
 we started housekeeping in. And the banquet 
 hall alone stood me nearly " 
 
 "Goober," she interrupted in her best little- 
 girl voice, "what was your idea about that 
 banquet hall?" 
 
 "Mine?" He tried to look stern, but only 
 succeeded in looking guilty. 
 
198 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "You just would have one forty feet long 
 with room for a hundred places. Old sly pie! 
 Without a small angel to watch over your 
 pillow you d " 
 
 "What are you driving at?" He tried to 
 restrain a hanging tendency on the part of his 
 lower jaw. 
 
 "Goober, you just perfectly and awfully 
 well know that you had that room built 
 specially so that you would get a chance to 
 make big grand after-dinner speeches." 
 
 "Nothing of the sort!" 
 
 "You fun-ny little hero!" She came over 
 and choked him with one of her caresses. 
 "You won t ever get over wanting to be 
 Cicero, will you?" 
 
 "And you ll never get over hating the very 
 idea of my exercising my natural talent." 
 
 This was nothing new with the Framms. 
 Chester had been breaking out like this on an 
 average of twice a year. 
 
 "Is its poor little life all blighted and curled 
 up because it wedded a piece of fluff?" she 
 sympathized, and ran her fingers over the 
 place where once she had rumpled his abun 
 dant hair. 
 
 "It s a little late for me to start in with a 
 
i 
 
 "YOU WON T EVER GET OVER WANTING TO BE CICERO, 
 WILL YOU?" 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 199 
 
 public career," he went on doggedly. "But 
 at least I could learn to make a few graceful 
 speeches take up the thread of my life where 
 it was when " 
 
 " when I came and busted it," she 
 
 agreed. 
 
 "You never will take me seriously." 
 
 "Oh, awfully! I nearly cried the time you 
 tried to address that street meeting in Cin 
 cinnati." 
 
 "Yes. And you ran a pin into my leg 
 before I got started and pretended it was a 
 mistake." 
 
 "It was. A mistake to let you get started." 
 
 "Now that we re talking candidly," he 
 growled, "I might as well tell you that I 
 haven t been obtuse to the way you ve tripped 
 me, spiked me, put a spoke in the wheel every 
 time I ve tried to open my mouth in public. 
 Good Lord, Floss, I m neither tongue-tied nor 
 an idot. Milton speaks of that one talent 
 which is death to hide " 
 
 "And your one talent is finance. Goober, 
 you re the most reliable business man I ever 
 saw. If you hadn t had a perfect genius for 
 bookkeeping and stock reports and market 
 conditions I d have blown up the firm on an 
 
200 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 average of twice a week for the last fifteen 
 years. How many times would that make, 
 Goob?" 
 
 "One thousand five hundred and sixty," he 
 replied without the slightest hesitation. 
 
 "There! If I tried to add two and two 
 I d make it come out six," she complained. 
 
 "Yes," he admitted: "and you d get away 
 with it too." 
 
 "You re so unreasonable about me. What 
 makes you think your angel is standing in 
 the way of your great big mighty oratorical 
 gifts?" 
 
 "Well," said he, "I started in by being a 
 very promising speaker." 
 
 "Go on." She had resumed her chair and 
 her cigarette. 
 
 "I began life by winning the William H. 
 Barbour prize for oratory. I may have been 
 a mere boy, but I made a decided impres 
 sion on " 
 
 "Weren t you f un-ny !" she rippled. "Stand 
 ing there bellowing about William the Fruit- 
 man with old Doctor Pindar sitting behind 
 the water pitcher looking like a sacred frog!" 
 
 "There you go again ! * 
 
 "Goober, most sweetest, who ever told you 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 
 
 you could make a speech?" It was an echo 
 of the very jibe she had thrown at him that 
 far-away night of triumph when he had 
 sought her behind the palms in a boyish hope 
 that she, too, would be impressed. The echo 
 brought clarity to his mind. Undoubtedly 
 Floss remembered Carlotta Beam, just as he 
 remembered her. In that taunt the expression 
 of a lifelong jealousy was sounded. Could it 
 be possible that this strange, capable, frivo 
 lous little genius had shaped him into what he 
 was in order to show Carlotta? 
 
 The tragic name was already on his lips, 
 but he stayed it to grumble: "The greatest 
 gift in the world, if it is purposely discour 
 aged, starved and stunted, begins at last to 
 atrophy and - " 
 
 " - mummify/ she prompted; a way she 
 had when he started a long sentence. 
 
 " - mummify. Before we were married 
 you cried and made me promise never to make 
 a speech without your consent. When I or 
 dered a set of The Thousand Greatest Ora 
 tions you changed the order so that when 
 the books came they were The Thousand 
 Greatest Recipes - " 
 
 "They were won-derful too!" she inter- 
 
202 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 rupted. "I stole a formula for hair wash that 
 we re still using in the Institute/ 
 
 "Then when we d begun to make money 
 and the drug convention in Los Angeles asked 
 me for a fifteen-minute address " 
 
 "You didn t play fair. You sneaked away 
 without my consent." 
 
 "That helped, didn t it? They d just called 
 my name at the speakers table and I was 
 getting on my feet when a boy came in with 
 a telegram!" 
 
 " Remember your promise that was 
 
 what I wired," Floss reminisced. 
 
 "Yes," growled the Colonel, "and as a man 
 of honor, of course, I had to sit down and put 
 my ambition in my pocket." 
 
 "You were always an honest Injun," Floss 
 admitted with a fond, proud glance. 
 
 "It s been that way from start to finish. If 
 I tried to study law at night the books got 
 lost or you started a phonograph in the next 
 room. When we were struggling along there 
 was some excuse you could always say that 
 my higher ambition cut into my working time. 
 But these latter years there s no excuse. I ve 
 given up hoping to be a great public figure. 
 But speech making is a graceful accomplish- 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 203 
 
 ment for a man of means. Not only that, 
 but I ve got time to look round there are 
 public offices and diplomatic posts open to rich 
 men with the talent to fill them. Are you do 
 ing anything to help me? What did you play 
 on me on my last birthday dinner?" 
 
 "I always did hate toasts," she objected. 
 "And did you ever see a bromide that didn t 
 love em? And you looked so fun-ny when 
 you got up to respond just the way you did 
 that night when you won the big tin medal. 
 I knew you d thank me for interrupting " 
 
 "With that awful story about how Aunt 
 Het hugged the Chinaman when the Hyde 
 Street car ran away downhill?" 
 
 "Well," she sighed, "people listened to it, 
 didn t they?" 
 
 "Life s been just one interruption after an 
 other. Last September when the International 
 Cosmetic Convention met in Pittsburgh I had 
 a big chance. They offered to make me the 
 orator of the evening. You pretended to 
 give your consent. I spent two hard weeks 
 working up that speech." 
 
 "It wasn t my fault that our machine got 
 lost in the horrid old state of Pennsylvania 
 and that we didn t get into Pittsburgh till 
 
204 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 eleven o clock and all the Cosmetics were 
 going home/ 
 
 "No. It was merely an act of fate. It 
 was also purely accidental that you slipped 
 the chauffeur fifty dollars. " 
 
 This was rather a heavy bit of sarcasm, but 
 it bore the stamp of truth. 
 
 "Poor old Goober," she commiserated. 
 "Who ever told you you could make a public 
 speech ?" 
 
 This was one jibe too many. 
 
 "Carlotta Beam told me," he blurted out. 
 "Told me a thousand times. And she was 
 right. She had faith in me." 
 
 "Faith s a won-derful thing," she said, but 
 it was not her voice that seemed to speak. 
 For an alchemic moment her face had aged 
 until it looked centuries old. "We built our 
 fortune on faith, you know, old Goober." 
 
 He made no response, but sat fascinated by 
 the strange wise scrutiny she was giving him. 
 
 "Faith can move mountains," she said, "but 
 it often stubs its toe on molehills. Goober, I 
 know how you feel sometimes. It s the way 
 I used to want more hats and pretty clothes 
 during those years we were living over the 
 store on faith. You didn t notice that, did 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 205 
 
 you? How you must long sometimes to find 
 Carlotta and sit on a cloud and make big 
 grand beautiful thoughts! Why don t you, 
 Goober?" 
 
 "Don t I what?" 
 
 "Hunt up Carlotta." 
 
 Even in the thrall of this unique moment 
 he hesitated before he confessed. 
 
 "I tried to once. That was about four 
 years ago, when I was first traveling over 
 the Coast for the Institute shops." 
 
 "Oh. And you found her?" 
 
 Florabel s smooth cheeks had deepened to 
 peonies. Her eyes narrowed as she smiled. 
 Again the little pink slipper had fallen off. 
 
 "No." Chester realized nervously that he 
 must now finish what he had so ill begun. 
 "It was an idle notion. But I wanted to 
 ask to ask if there was still a chance for 
 me to develop along the old lines." 
 
 "You perfectly natural Goob!" said Floss, 
 quite restored and even interested. 
 
 "I wasn t breaking any contract with you," 
 he explained doggedly. "I didn t want to 
 make a speech but I did want to know about 
 myself. I found Dyak pretty much run down. 
 Old Pindar was dead and a fellow named 
 
206 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 . _ : , ., 
 
 Mitchell had the chair of English Literature. 
 Mitchell said that the Beams had been trans 
 ferred to some small Eastern college several 
 years ago and that he was under the impres 
 sion that Carlotta had married a professional 
 man lawyer, politician he wasn t sure 
 which." 
 
 "Whatever he is," murmured Floss, "she 
 must have made him very famous by now. 
 Strange I haven t seen her picture in the 
 papers next to the Swedish Ambassador or 
 the Secretary of State or the Grand High 
 Moocow of the Elks or " 
 
 Her reflection broke off dramatically. It 
 was evident that she was coming down with 
 an idea. 
 
 "Goob!" she fairly shrieked. "I ve got it. 
 Got it by two hind legs and a tail!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "You really truly want to make an appear 
 ance with miles of speakers table all round 
 you, thousands of faces wide open over their 
 demitasses, champagne and limelights going 
 off rapidly and you standing there with the 
 loveliest pearl-white corded-silk vest and dia 
 mond studs " 
 
 "Crazy again!" was all he said. But the 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 207 
 
 ^^^*^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 years had taught him not to let it go at that. 
 
 "Yeppy. Testimonial banquet to Col. Ches 
 ter A. Framm, of California, held in the Mer- 
 linbilt Gallery at eight-fifteen sharp on the 
 evening of October eighteenth. Patrons of 
 Honor : Hon. William H. Barbour, the Portu 
 guese minister, Doctor Sergius van der Meer 
 and o-oh, Goober!" 
 
 Her eyes widened and she sat transfixed. 
 
 "Do you know who s stopping now at this 
 very hotel?" 
 
 Chester couldn t guess, so Flossie was 
 prompt to supply the information. 
 
 "Michael Henry Haroran! You know 
 that mouse-eyed old judge who tried the pink 
 elephant for us?" 
 
 "He s Supreme Court Justice Haroran 
 now," said Chester, repeating what everybody 
 knew. 
 
 "I don t care if he s king of Europe," she 
 declared; "I ll get him to head the list of 
 patrons of honor." 
 
 Til bet you can t," he challenged. 
 
 "I ll bet I can," she took him up. 
 
 "Now let s hurry ! You ring up The Spig- 
 goty and tell him to come right over. And 
 
208 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 I ll get dressed and see the management about 
 hiring their banquet hall and " 
 
 "Floss !" Chester would never learn. "You 
 can t do anything like that. In the first place 
 I don t know that I want to throw away 
 several thousand dollars." 
 
 "Foolish, it won t cost us a cent. There 
 are about ninety million people round New 
 York who do nothing but wait for banquets 
 with big names attached to them. Five dol 
 lars a plate and " 
 
 "In the second place we re perfectly un 
 known here." 
 
 "That s the very thing we aren t going to 
 be on the morning of October eighteenth. 
 How does that listen to my sweetheart? Life 
 long ambition all in a gob presidents and 
 senators and millionaires sitting round drink 
 ing your words and California champagne at 
 Paris prices. What s the matter, Old Nui 
 sance? Would um prefer some nice Bolshe- 
 viki meeting out on Union Square ? Whatever 
 you say, old dear." 
 
 This was astonishing. Apparently Floss 
 had reversed herself in a manner hitherto 
 unknown to that dextrously reversing char 
 acter. Not only was she permitting his public 
 
INTRODUCED TO IMMORTAL FAME 209 
 
 appearance she was even forcing it on him. 
 There must be a joker somewhere. 
 
 "Well, you might go ahead and see how 
 you get along," he permitted. 
 
 "If I go ahead it ll get along," she assured 
 him with her supreme conceit. "Now come 
 on. We ll array ourselves in the rich embroid 
 eries befitting our station and tackle old 
 Supreme Roar" her version, apparently, of 
 Supreme Court Justice Haroran. 
 
 When they were dressed for the adventure 
 Chester was already committed to her pro 
 gram. He felt like a boy again. 
 
 "Lucky," said he, "that the change of cli 
 mate has cleared up my " He never men 
 tioned the disagreeable malady. 
 
 "Your hay fever," she supplied. "It s the 
 first time in ten years you haven t sneezed 
 all the way from Halloween to Christmas." 
 
 "Getting away from those flowers always 
 helps," he assured her. 
 
 The very thought of California s drying 
 herbage gave him a gentle tickling at the base 
 of his nose. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR 
 
 THE Florabel Framm Technic or Quick 
 Roads to Fame might with advantage be 
 introduced as a text book in our leading com 
 mercial schools; and Chester s experiences of 
 that late September morning should be writ 
 ten into an important chapter. 
 
 When she had got him into his braided 
 morning coat and herself into one of the most 
 exquisite creations from the workshop of 
 Fluere she took a look in the mirror and said 
 "Messy thing!" once or twice. The messy 
 thing proved to be an eighty-dollar hat with 
 a flowing white ostrich feather. 
 
 "I look like one of those Knights of Pythi 
 as," she commented. 
 
 Wherefore she tore off the white feather, 
 tucked into its place a yard of cloudy blue 
 velvet and was immediately cheered. Fluere 
 might have imitated the effect. As a matter 
 of fact one milliner did, so I am told. 
 
 2IO 
 
FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR 
 
 "Come on, Mister Slow," she commanded; 
 and her smooth-coated spouse followed into 
 the first phase of the adventure. 
 
 The Supreme Roar occupied a suite on the 
 fourth landing. When at last they were ad 
 mitted to his big reception room they found 
 him deep in conference with many dignified 
 gentlemen of about his own age. Time as well 
 as fortune had wrought dramatic changes in 
 Michael Henry Haroran since the days of the 
 pink elephant. The two hairy rodents, which 
 still scampered across his forehead, had turned 
 to white mice and his once auburn hair had 
 now become a beautiful bank of snow. You 
 would have recognized him on or off the stage 
 as the Supreme Court Justice. His large 
 heavy voice had increased in volume and he 
 was, upon the entrance of the audacious 
 Framms, lecturing upon the maritime laws of 
 1852. 
 
 "The clipper ship Ben Harrow had now lost 
 her status as a merchantman, and by the very 
 nature of her cargo had reverted to had 
 reverted to - " 
 
 Flossie Framm, never moving from her 
 place on the carpet, had undoubtedly hypno 
 tized him. The Supreme Roar shut off the 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 floodgates of the law and looked across the 
 room. The white mice which had been play 
 ing tag across his forehead scampered up and 
 hid under the snow bank. Then they ran 
 down and rested still as death above the bright 
 judicial eyes. 
 
 Well, upon my word!" bellowed the great 
 man, abandoning his audience and springing 
 forward. "If this isn t Mrs. Framm!" 
 
 "Thank you, judge!" cried Flossie, accept 
 ing both his hands. "We nearly drowned 
 listening to the clipper ship Ben Harrow, and 
 neither of us can swim a stroke. What s a 
 clipper ship, Judge Haroran?" 
 
 "Something, my dear, which was never de 
 signed for the comfort of tenderly reared 
 young ladies. And what have we on our 
 pretty mind to-day? Another pink elephant?" 
 
 Supreme Court Justice Haroran opened his 
 large mouth and bellowed forth a salute to 
 his own joke. Chester found himself tittering 
 appreciatively, as one does when a great man 
 jests. "Had I followed my star/ 7 he was 
 thinking, "I too might be holding levees every 
 morning and showering ponderous compli 
 ments upon the wives of obscure millionaires." 
 
FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR 
 
 "It s a white elephant this time/ Floss was 
 saying. 
 
 "White?" The two mice of the same color 
 stood up and performed an acrobatic feat. 
 
 "Yeppy. My husband." 
 
 "Ah, your husband!" 
 
 Judge Haroran remembered Chester long 
 enough to shake him warmly by the hand. 
 
 "You hadn t much to say, as I remember it, 
 during the celebrated case. But you were in 
 deed fortunate in your choice of counsel, Mr. 
 Framm." 
 
 "Colonel Framm," corrected Flossie. 
 
 "Colonel Framm," conceded Mr. Justice 
 Haroran. "Suppose we go in here and sit 
 down long enough for the clipper Ben Harrow 
 to round Cape Horn." 
 
 He led them into a small green-and-gold 
 anteroom and as soon as his guests were 
 seated caused a spindling gilt chair to creak 
 under his weight, for Judge Haroran was 
 growing stout. He beamed amiably upon 
 Chester, but the look he held for Flossie was 
 sentimental in the extreme. Sentiment min 
 gled with the impatient curiosity of a busy 
 man. 
 
 "When I found that your name was on tHe 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 register/ Floss went directly at her subject, 
 "I cried didn t I, Chester? That won-derful 
 loan you made, and the won-derful way you 
 did it !" 
 
 "Pshaw!" snorted the eminent one. "You 
 paid it back in ninety days fifteen minutes 
 margin. You re prompt as well as beautiful, 
 my dear." 
 
 Chester jumped. Promptness was a virtue 
 which he had never associated with his bride. 
 
 "Of course you thought I was crazy, judge. 
 But you don t know what that money meant 
 to us." There were tears in her bright eyes, 
 and Chester was not scornful, for he knew 
 that her whimsical words held but the plain 
 truth. "Did you ever see a fly with just one 
 leg stuck in the fly paper struggling and 
 struggling to get loose, holding up its little 
 paws to the other flies to come down and lend 
 a hand? Nothing doing. Well, that was us 
 only different. Because we knew that if we 
 ever got foot- free we could just walk over 
 hills and mountains of precious stones. You 
 pulled us out of the goo, judge. And here 
 we are. Chester s one of the best-known pub 
 lic men in the state of California, and that five 
 
FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR 215 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ m * m ~ iii ^ mm ^ imm **~~ mm ~ m *~^~ ^ m ^^~ m * i ~** mmmim * m *~~ m ~ ^~ mi * 1 ^*. 
 
 thousand you lent us has swelled up to five 
 millions. Isn t it five millions, Chester?" 
 
 "Seven," reported her financial head briefly. 
 
 "He s won-derful at figures. Chester, how 
 many skin specialists do we employ in our 
 institutes all over the country?" 
 
 "A hundred and twenty-two." 
 
 "Just listen at him! And everything s in 
 proportion. And that s why we ve come to 
 you, Judge Haroran." 
 
 "To me? I m charmed." 
 
 "You see the colonel s public duties have 
 kept him pretty much on the Coast. But when 
 the Golden Poppy Society heard that we were 
 intending to make New York our headquar 
 ters they came round to us and fairly begged 
 to be allowed to give the colonel a testimonial 
 banquet." 
 
 Judge Haroran looked surprise; not half so 
 surprised as Chester A. Framm felt at that 
 moment. 
 
 "I ve been away from California for seven 
 years," he confessed. "What is this Golden 
 Poppy Society?" 
 
 "I thought ev-erybody had heard of the 
 Golden Poppy Society," she murmured, look 
 ing truly disappointed. "It s quite a new 
 
216 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 organization just being formed by people 
 who have come away from the Coast. Object: 
 To make Calif or nians feel at home in New 
 York." 
 
 "I feel slighted not to have been asked," 
 intimated Haroran with a wink at Chester. 
 
 Til have them put your name down right 
 away." 
 
 "Ah. When is this testimonial banquet to 
 be held?" 
 
 "On the eighteenth of October," she replied 
 without the least hesitation. "It s to be held 
 in the Merlinbilt banquet hall; or possibly in 
 the Waldoria or the Fitz-Caldron. That 
 hasn t been decided. But the main point is 
 you." 
 
 "Me?" he queried, forgetting his Supreme 
 Courtly grammar. 
 
 "It s a sort of delicate point, judge. Hon 
 est, I don t know how to begin." 
 
 Plainly she was confused by her own au 
 dacity, for one of her most becoming blushes 
 suffused her cheeks. Judge Haroran leaned 
 over and stroked her hand, a fatherly caress. 
 
 "You surely wouldn t be bashful with me!" 
 he coaxed. 
 
 "There! You ve made it better, old dear. 
 
FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR 
 
 Now I m going to say it all in one breath. 
 The Golden Poppies want your name to head 
 the list of patrons, but they didn t have the 
 nerve to ask. And I insisted, sort of, so they 
 told me that I d have to do it. So here we 
 are. It was a mean trick to play on me, 
 judge, and if you feel like sentencing me and 
 the colonel for sixty-five or seventy days - " 
 
 A secretarial young man had now intruded 
 upon the conversation and stood conspicuously 
 apart, in the way secretarial young men have. 
 
 "What is it, Sherman?" asked the great 
 man, truly annoyed at the interruption. 
 
 "Judge Wimbleton, sir/ 
 
 "Oh, yes. Tell him I ll be right in." Then 
 he returned to the subject of interest. "So 
 they made you do the hard work, my dear? 
 Well, well!" 
 
 "And will you?" she pleaded breathlessly. 
 
 "Cer-tainly ! Cer-tainly ! What date did you 
 say?" 
 
 "October eighteenth. Aren t you a dar 
 ling?" 
 
 Judge Haroran smiled reminiscently. Prob 
 ably she had said just that the day he signed 
 the check. 
 
218 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "H-m. Use my name delighted. And 
 you ll excuse me, won t you?" 
 
 "How can you be so nice and be a lawyer ?" 
 cooed Flossie, rising with him. 
 
 "It has been done," he admitted, giving his 
 illustrious hands to both the Framms at once. 
 
 And here was where Floss really delivered 
 her stroke: 
 
 "If I had the nerve to ask you won t kill 
 me, will you?" 
 
 "Girl-slaughter is one of the luxuries de 
 nied the Supreme Court," he grinned. 
 
 "Well, do you think you would have time 
 to come and sit at the speakers table and 
 make a speech?" 
 
 The white mice, which had remained dor 
 mant during most of the parley, now began 
 leaping one over the other, threatening escape 
 from the judicial forehead. 
 
 "My dear," he growled, "what in the world 
 would I speak about?" 
 
 "Oh, I could think up a speech." 
 
 "Ah. And what would it be, my dear?" 
 
 "The Supreme Court has just passed a 
 thingumajig to discourage those horrid pat 
 ent-medicine fakers. Suppose you talk about 
 that." 
 
FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR 219 
 
 "" ~~ " --""" - " *- nmmimitmmm^f^^mmtmmmtm^^i^^^^ 
 
 The secretarial young man had again en 
 croached and stood suggestively at the thresh 
 old. 
 
 "Fll be here until Friday/ said Judge 
 Haroran. : "Good morning and you may use 
 my name on the program." 
 
 When the Framms got out into the hall they 
 moved silently upon the lift, which they took 
 up to the eleventh floor, the scene of their 
 apartment. 
 
 "What s this Golden Poppy Society?" 
 grumbled Chester as soon as they had got 
 out on the landing. 
 
 "It s me," said Floss. "I thought it up 
 while we were going down in the elevator." 
 
 They found The Spiggoty waiting patiently, 
 as the Framm press agent should, in the draw 
 ing-room of their suite. It was a fashionable 
 Spig now, addicted to robin s-egg-blue collars 
 and tan-topped shoes, adornments becoming to 
 his Latin type of beauty. He had represented 
 the Framm publicity in the East for; man^ 
 years, hence had become a sturdy Broadwaj> 
 ite. 
 
 "Spig!" shouted Floss, pulling off her smart 
 headpiece and waving it till the blue velvet 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 fell out of the crown. "Hell is popping out 
 of Harlem. Let s jazz !" 
 
 She fell into his deft embrace and together 
 they executed a few steps of the latest con 
 tortion. 
 
 "Whose life have you been spoiling now?" 
 asked the Spaniard as soon as he had recov 
 ered his breath. 
 
 "Chester s," she announced enthusiastically. 
 "The Golden Poppy Society of California is 
 going to tender him a grand testimonial ban 
 quet on the evening of October eighteenth." 
 
 "The Golden which?" 
 
 "Poppy Society. It isn t formed yet." 
 
 "Well, who s going to form it?" 
 
 "You are." 
 
 "Ami?" 
 
 "Yeppy. Right away. What are we paying 
 you twelve thousand a year for? Therefore 
 you must go forth into the byways and shy- 
 ways and pick up all the Calif ornians you find 
 loose most of em are. I give you forty- 
 eight hours. Sort em out, dust em off, find 
 out who s the richest and make him president. 
 Then say that Supreme Court Justice Haroran 
 and the Hon. William H. Barbour want the 
 society to give Chester a banquet." 
 
FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR 
 
 "Barbour s never said he would lend his 
 name," was Chester s comment. 
 
 "He will," was Flossie s. 
 
 "Man can die but once," was The Spig- 
 goty s. 
 
 So together they put on their hats and went 
 out into the world. 
 
 Floss came back with William H. Bar 
 bour s scalp and other trophies at the dressing 
 hour that night. 
 
 "He was a crosspatch," she informed Ches 
 ter as her maid was hooking her into a pink 
 thing with an exaggerated V in the back. 
 "But I told him that Judge Haroran was to 
 be speaker of the evening and that you had 
 made your start in life ahem! by winning 
 the William H. Barbour medal. The old thing 
 looks like a giant ground sloth. If he ever 
 runs for President again I m going to vote 
 the socialist ticket. But he s fallen in love 
 with me the way prehistoric mammals fell in 
 love with the top leaves on carboniferous 
 trees. Ain t that a grand word?" 
 
 "And he lent his name?" shouted Chester 
 from the other room, where he was having his 
 lawn tie caressed by a Japanese valet. 
 
222 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "Sure ! He wouldn t let the Supreme Roar 
 get ahead of him. But when I asked him to 
 speak he showed his buck teeth and I got out 
 before he began nibbling the feathers off my 
 hat. And I ve seen all the banquet halls in 
 New York. There s one in the Waldoria with 
 a picture of Venus and Apollonaris spraddled 
 all over the ceiling. I m sure it was painted 
 by a German, it s so vulgar and homelike." 
 
 "Which one are we going to take?" asked 
 Chester, who, his evening tie having been 
 knotted, appeared beside his wife s mirror. 
 
 "All the hotel proprietors are jealous as 
 opera singers. You never saw the beat of it ! 
 I really believe if we keep it up they ll pay 
 us to give that banquet. It seems they lose 
 money every night their banquet halls are 
 empty, and when I told them I wanted one 
 they followed me round like regular Romeos. 
 One of the proprietors the fat one with the 
 nice eyes offered to supply a list of people. 
 But the manager of the Merlinbilt was the 
 wildest of the lot. He promised to furnish all 
 the printing, including twenty-five hundred 
 invitations and souvenir menus with your 
 photo in a frame of golden poppies. I think 
 we ll choose the Merlinbilt, after all/ 
 
FAVOR FROM THE SUPREME ROAR 
 
 "And the matter of guests?" suggested the 
 practical-minded Framm. 
 
 "Jersey is full of people who do nothing but 
 sit round waiting for the next banquet. Five 
 dollars a plate is nothing to th em. The man 
 ager says he knows a Tammany Hall assem 
 blyman who wants to be governor. Won t 
 we have the grand speeches ?" 
 
 Til see a nose-and-throat specialist in the 
 morning/ soliloquized Chester, "and have him 
 make sure that my" he almost said hay fever 
 "my condition is all right. Then I ll go to 
 work composing my speech." 
 
 "What are you going to talk about, Did 
 Brutal?" 
 
 She had been turning her vain little head 
 from left to right, but he could see that her 
 reflection was studying him from the mirror. 
 
 "Ahem. The Secret of Success." 
 
 "The Secret of Success!" 
 
 She turned and struck a pompous pose. 
 
 "Great Scott ! Haven t you got over mock 
 ing me?" 
 
 "Kiss me quick and let s go down to din 
 ner. The Spiggoty s brought his new wife. 
 Jealous little dog, he just married her to spite 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 me! Then we ll have the Hector Macawbers 
 and the Phil Jasons. Oh, gosh!" 
 
 She breathed deep. 
 
 The Macawbers and the Jasons were rich 
 people on the fringe of society, whom the 
 Framms had encountered in a business way. 
 Briefly, they were large stockholders in the 
 perfumery trust 
 
 "Light stuff!" remarked Chester, studying 
 the public manner so soon to be his by right. 
 
 "Aren t they! We re going to leap from 
 roof to roof all night, stopping to dance wher 
 ever it s noisiest. I m wild to dance ! I want 
 to whirl and whirl till I m sick for the rest 
 of my natural life. Hurry up, pokums! I 
 seem to be always waiting for you to finish 
 dressing/ 
 
 Which was justice as administered by 
 Florabel Framm. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 
 
 THIS is not an account of a public execu 
 tion, but I am forced to admit that, as would 
 befit an execution, the morning of October 
 eighteenth dawned clear and cold and the 
 prisoner after a restless night awoke early 
 and ate a hearty breakfast of ham and eggs. 
 
 "You ought to stop going over that thing," 
 Flossie told him, remarking that his lips were 
 moving over his coffee cup. "A real bright 
 actor once told me that the more you say 
 your part over the worse you get. He said 
 that once he was playing Shakspere or Omar 
 Khayyam some grand play and he d been 
 saying his speech over to himself so long that 
 he forgot how to talk, so they had to ring 
 down the curtain in the middle of the big 
 automobile scene because " 
 
 "Don t!" groaned the miserable creature. 
 
 "Don t what?" She dropped the morning 
 paper and looked truly alarmed. "There! If 
 
 225 
 
226 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 you don t get your mind off that oration you ll 
 have a gallstone attack or something. Let s 
 be cheerful in spite of the banquet. Did you 
 see the lovely, lovely souvenir menu cards the 
 management is getting out? Take it home 
 and try it on your piano." 
 
 She fluttered over to a table and brought 
 back two samples of the Merlinbilt s sump 
 tuary art, and one of these she dropped on 
 the table beside the nervous prisoner s ham 
 and eggs. 
 
 Chester was aware of the blue-and-gold 
 marvel which framed his own features, won 
 derfully reproduced in soft brown tints. It 
 jwas a fine portrait of a man, thought Chester, 
 and should he make good to-night the likeness 
 would serve splendidly to advertise the new 
 senator from California or our next ambassa 
 dor to the Court of St. James. On the first 
 inside page there swam before his eyes the 
 pompous list which was to make the occasion 
 notable : 
 
 PATRONS OF HONOR 
 
 MR. JUSTICE MICHAEL HENRY HARORAN 
 HON. WILLIAM H. BARBOUR 
 BARON DA CAMOENS 
 
ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 
 
 BARONESS DA CAMOENS 
 DR. SERGIUS VAN DER MEER 
 SIG. HENRICI CRUSOE 
 THE EARL OF DUFF 
 LADY DUFF 
 
 "The Spiggoty tells me," Floss enthused at 
 this interval, "that this is the finest list of 
 patrons that never came to a banquet." 
 
 "You mean to say they re not coming!" 
 Chester said this with a tone of relief. 
 
 "Mister Simple! Patrons of honor never 
 go to the dinners they patronize. They just 
 put down their names and go to the movies. 
 But Spig s arranged it so that all the papers 
 will say : Among those present were Mr. and 
 Mrs. William H. Barbour, the Earl and Earl 
 ess of Duff whole tribes of famous people. 
 Just keep your mind on that, boss. Two or 
 three ex-Presidents, a whole flock of colonels, 
 the world s champion middleweight tenor,, am 
 bassadors of every shape, size and color. And 
 then I ve loaned twenty-two of my ball gowns, 
 and Ethel Macawber s loaned twelve and Belle 
 Jason four " 
 
 "Furnishing clothes for the patronesses?" 
 
228 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 he grunted, his mind still wild with the details 
 of that speech. 
 
 "Somebody s got to sit in the galleries 
 haven t you thought of that? Spig and I fixed 
 it Belle and Ethel have loaned all their 
 servants and told them to bring friends. 
 
 "I see." 
 
 "And tickets! Goob, we ve got to crush 
 seven million people into a room that holds 
 less than five hundred. Of course we ll be 
 raided by the police. Won t it be furious?" 
 
 The telephone rang. 
 
 "Hello, Spig!" crowed Florabel into the 
 mouthpiece. "Yeppy! . . . Oh, he s all right, 
 except his lips they re sort of blue. ... I 
 know, it s a disgrace the way we ll have to 
 overcrowd them. . . . What s that? Open up 
 the Klondike gamblers next door and hold an 
 overflow ? 
 
 "That s a grandiloquent thought, old lovely. 
 Be here at eleven-thirty and we ll hang the 
 bunting. Good-by." 
 
 "I m going out," gulped Chester A. Framm. 
 
 "That s right, sweetheart. Walk and ride 
 and jump into the river. Go see your eye- 
 nose-ear-throat-lung-and-brain specialist, but 
 
ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 
 
 don t fail to get back by six. I ve got to hang 
 you all over with clothes to-night/ 
 
 It was evident that Floss was taking her 
 excitement in her own particular way. 
 
 Chester went moodily forth, a prey to anxi 
 ety on the eve of greatness. His destination 
 was the specialist of innumerable talents 
 whom his wife had mentioned, but his walk 
 that morning was a meandering affair. The 
 past few weeks had been audacious weeks and 
 Chester had a feeling that he was getting run 
 down and needed a rest in some quiet island 
 where even the birds were forbidden to sing. 
 Ho w the efficient Spiggoty had formed, al 
 most over-night, the now vigorous Golden 
 Poppy Society; how he had pitted a California 
 real-estate operator and a Calif ronia congress 
 man one against the other in the race for the 
 Poppies presidency; how deftly Floss had 
 dined Mr. Junius McKoncle, made him presi 
 dent of the Poppies and wheedled him into 
 the Framm-testimonial idea; how Floss had 
 used the great names of Barbour and Haroran 
 as loadstones to draw to her other great 
 names; how the newspapers had taken up the 
 enterprise, now in satire, now in praise all 
 this had become ancient history to him. 
 
230 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 His principal thought was upon himself, his 
 speech. Even at this late date there were cer 
 tain points where the oration could be bettered 
 by a few local touches perhaps or reference 
 to the national situation. The most eminent 
 platform favorites had a way of passing 
 gracefully from the general to the particular. 
 Possibly his style Wets a little severe and 
 classic. Possibly it would have been better 
 had he borrowed a few of Flossie s epigrams 
 the one about the New York Subway play 
 ing whale to five million Jonahs. Undigni 
 fied. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen of the Golden Poppy 
 Society: It is with mingled pain and joy that 
 I stand before you to-night and acknowledge 
 the high compliment which, in my heart of 
 hearts, I know that I have done so little to 
 deserve " 
 
 "Hear! Hear!" a mocking echo of Floss 
 was shouting in his ears. 
 
 " . pain because this glimpse of so many 
 dear home faces awakens in my breast sad 
 memories of happy hours now forever van 
 ished and gone." 
 
 He had gone over this paragraph on an 
 average of thirty times a day for the last 
 
ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 
 
 twenty days. "How many times does that 
 make, old Nuisance ?" Floss would have asked 
 him just to test his arithmetical genius. He 
 had never uttered the speech in Floss hearing. 
 What he needed after all was sympathy and 
 understanding. For instance, what comfort it 
 would have given him could he have laid the 
 case before his wife, secure in the feeling that 
 she would know and help! Hadn t he put 
 too much stress on the pain he was hypo- 
 thetically confessing at the sight of so many 
 faces of bygone days? Possibly a joyous note! 
 How was it that Floss had expressed the 
 Subway and Jonah ? Oh for a true counselor 
 out of his difficulty? Carlotta. . . . 
 
 It was some minutes after one o clock when 
 he finished his reverie and limped into the 
 office of the helpful throat-and-nose specialist. 
 
 Half past six. Chester slouched back to his 
 apartment in the Merlinbilt, and it enraged 
 him somehow to find Flossie mirthfully pass 
 ing cocktails to The Spiggoty and The Spig- 
 goty s bride. Already they were rigged like 
 the clipper Ben Harrow. Mrs. De Silva, a 
 lithe saucer-eyed blonde, had been married out 
 of the chorus, and in order to maintain her 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 new status she behaved in a manner which 
 was dignified to the verge of paralysis. 
 
 "The funeral is kept waiting and the corpse 
 not dressed yet !" Floss began it almost before 
 he had come into the room. 
 
 "Floral tributes a mile high/ chipped in 
 The Spiggoty, whose manner toward Chester 
 sometimes held an annoying remnant of Gam 
 ma superiority. 
 
 "Flowers!" moaned Chester. 
 
 The telephone rang, smothering further 
 protests. 
 
 "You answer it, Spig," drawled Floss, still 
 pleased to see her dark adorer waiting on her. 
 
 De Silva sprang to the receiver. His bride 
 stiffened slightly. 
 
 "What s the name, please? ... Oh! J. 
 Fawcett Tweed? Yes, Mr. Tweed." The 
 Spiggoty turned and winked at his audience. 
 . . . "No, he in t in. ... I can t say, Mr. 
 Tweed. Sorry. . . . Good-by." 
 
 "J. Fawcett Tweed!" gurgled The Spiggoty 
 as he smote his sides and came back to the 
 table. 
 
 "What does he want?" asked Floss, appar 
 ently not understanding the situation. 
 
ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 233 
 
 "To make a speech," declared De Silva, and 
 gurgled some more. 
 
 "Clown! What did you snub him for? 
 Who knows what? Possibly State Senator 
 Plother ll break down or fall in a faint 
 Maybe we ll need help " 
 
 "From that bum?" upspoke The Spiggoty 
 in scorn and derision. "Do you know what 
 Tweed is? Broken-dow r n shyster, disbarred, 
 thrown out of every club in New York. Why, 
 for twenty-five dollars he d " 
 
 A knock at the door. 
 
 "Come in !" sang out the Framms in unison. 
 
 A page brought in an envelope on a silver 
 tray. It was a sample of the Merlinbilt s best 
 pearl-gray stationery, and Floss after break 
 ing the seal smiled faintly and handed it over 
 to her husband. It was scrawled in an untidy, 
 shaky hand. A dissipated rather than an old 
 hand, he would have said had he been any 
 chirographer. 
 
 "Distinguished Sir: Knowing that every 
 ftioment is of value to you I will not detain 
 you with protestations. But probably you will 
 recognize my name and see in me one who 
 may be of benefit upon this occasion. I am 
 
234 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 ready at a moment s notice to deliver a speech 
 of any length and upon any designated topic. 
 I can recite from the poems of James Whit- 
 comb Riley or my own humorous composi 
 tions. I have a repertoire of inimitable anec 
 dotes and my eulogistic themes are unexcelled. 
 My terms are reasonable. Twenty-five dollars 
 for " 
 
 Framm tore the note savagely across its 
 impertinent face and rushed into his dressing 
 room, whither Floss patiently followed in or 
 der, according to her promise, to drape him 
 all over with things. 
 
 Chester had shaken hands all round in the 
 large reception room outside the banquet hall. 
 Like a hero already established in public life 
 he had stood next to Mr. Justice Haroran and 
 permitted the world to pay him tribute at five 
 dollars a plate. It had been a confusion of 
 pomp, dressed to the last degree of splendor. 
 Floss in a coral evening gown, glittering with 
 jewels, had looked a little queen and thus 
 far had behaved with dignity in keeping with 
 the occasion. .Fame was already here. The 
 great heart of Chester A. Framm swelled be- 
 
ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 35 
 
 yond the confines of his well-cut shirt front. 
 He heard complimentary voices and said com 
 plimentary things. He forgot what he said, 
 but it was much and meant little. His one 
 disagreeable impression was that of a slimy, 
 puffy creature with a face like a mushroom 
 and an abominably ornamental shirt who 
 pumped his hand and introduced himself as 
 J. Fawcett Tweed. So the twenty-five-dollar 
 Demosthenes had risked his five on a chance. 
 
 "Yes, he did!" whispered De Silva, when 
 the suggestion was made. "He grafted his 
 way on the management." 
 
 The band struck up a patriotic tune and 
 Chester, ushered in by another door, led the 
 grand march to the speakers table, Mr. Mc- 
 Koncle, president of the Golden Poppy Socie 
 ty, lending him a worshipful arm. The vast 
 roomful of guests rose as to royalty. The 
 band was blaring mighty music; the room 
 was hung with blue and gold. Chester all 
 but swooned in the ecstasy of it. 
 
 He had little time for either hope or fear 
 during that mad, glad meal. The waiter 
 poured much wine, which the object of the 
 testimonial swallowed nervously and at fre 
 quent intervals. The president of the Poppies, 
 
236 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 who flanked him on the left, and Mr. Justice 
 Haroran, who hedged him in on the right, 
 were in a bantering mood. Public occasions 
 were nothing to them, and Chester answered 
 their sallies as best he could, wetting his dry 
 lips with vintage wine. 
 
 Probably Floss was right when she had 
 warned that the more he said his speech over 
 the worse it got. At a prominent table right 
 under his nose he could see the witch, who 
 had already dropped her ceremonial manner 
 and was having the time of her life with The 
 Spiggoty. The chorus-girl bride sat haughty 
 and cold next to an affable little fellow who 
 was attempting most feverishly to break the 
 ice. Why had Floss arranged this great 
 event ? Were things as they seemed ? Did she 
 actually, by a freak of pride, hope to launch 
 him publicly, to give him his heart s desire in 
 one golden evening? 
 
 It was a golden evening indeed. Masses of 
 gold centered acres of tablecloths. From a 
 giant chandelier in the center of the room fes 
 toons of a brilliant yellow something drooped 
 gracefully to the galleries, which were al 
 ready bright with pretty domestics in Flossie s 
 clothes. Gold, gold everywhere. Some sort 
 
ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 237 
 
 of flowers the thought of flowers increased 
 his nervousness. But the Supreme Court Jus 
 tice was at that moment telling him a comic 
 story which required attention. 
 
 At last the president of the Poppies tinkled 
 his glass for silence and Chester enjoyed the 
 wild illusion that the terrapin he had eaten 
 had come to life and was crawling, shell and 
 all, in the pit of his stomach. He gulped 
 another glass of wine just as the toastmaster 
 burst into his song of praise. Mr. McKoncle 
 drove his musical chariot up the western rain 
 bow and down the other side. The white- 
 tipped peaks of the Sierras got their share, 
 the sun-kissed missions of the Padres still 
 more. Mr. McKoncle, who had made his first 
 million building new old missions in the West, 
 knew what he was talking about until he got 
 on the subject of Col. Chester A. Framm. But 
 even on that unfamiliar ground he knew that 
 Framm had endowed the University of Dyak 
 until it "bade fair," to use the speaker s 
 phrase, "to rival nay, outrival any similar 
 institution in the Western Hemisphere." 
 
 Chester looked down at Flossie. She had 
 just said something behind her hand to The 
 Spiggoty. Chester sensed trouble in the air. 
 
238 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 He seemed to smell it. The tickling at the 
 base of his nose 
 
 It requires a long time for a man to be 
 hanged, when you take everything into ac 
 count. Ceremonies and occasions are mostly 
 designed for the purpose of drawing things 
 out. Chester s upper lip was beaded with 
 moisture, yet there was no reason in the world 
 why, being an intelligent man, he should not 
 have enjoyed what Judge Haroran said about 
 him. The judge, it seemed, was in a reminis 
 cent mood, and the term "pink elephant " was 
 frequently heard, followed by laughter. But 
 Chester was deep in the heights, if the para 
 dox is admissible. The judge s anecdotes went 
 so well that Chester twice made up his mind 
 to begin with Floss quip about the Subway. 
 Twice he vetoed it. The judge finished, after 
 poking two or three jokes at himselj: on the 
 subject of the Patent Medicine Bill. 
 
 State Senator Plother proved so long- 
 winded that the guest of honor had about 
 made up his mind that the meeting would 
 close without him after all. The state senator 
 was mostly worried about the unjust things 
 that had been said against Tammany Hall. 
 After an age he got down and President 
 
ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 239 
 
 McKoncle rose, beaming lovingly upon the 
 evening s martyr. 
 
 And at that moment Chester realized what 
 it was he smelled. There it lay, just beyond 
 arm s reach opposite his plate a wonderful 
 glowing harrow of it, a foot high and stretch 
 ing the full length of the speakers table. 
 Goldenrod ! 
 
 "Waiter!" he hissed, beckoning to some 
 phantom. 
 
 "Hst!" warned Justice Haroran, squeezing 
 his arm. "The toastmaster s talking about 
 you." 
 
 "That goldenrod!" the miserable wretch 
 tried to explain. 
 
 Haroran merely smiled, the activity of his 
 two white mice indicating that this was a 
 strange moment for the admiration of botany. 
 
 " and like all great men, a simple char 
 acter," McKoncle was raving his eulogium. 
 "Despite the greatness of our nation which 
 no man lives so base as to deny I might say 
 that from California has come the finest flow 
 er of our manhood. Speaking of flowers, 
 might I tell briefly, before the speaker of the 
 evening begins, what Mrs. Framm said to me 
 only last week? You should all know Mrs. 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Framm, that charming, sweet-voiced helpmeet 
 who by her silent counsel and soothing wo 
 man s touch has blazed the way to success. 
 We were conferring in the matter of decora 
 tions. The decorations must be blue and 
 gold/ I said. Yes/ said the dear little 
 woman, but it s too bad we can t find any 
 poppies. My Chester so loves the poppy. 
 And then she had one of her flashes of inspi 
 ration. Goldenrod ! she said." 
 
 So that was it! Chester leaned far over 
 the table and in a frenzy attempted to poke 
 the yellow, seedy, sneeze-producing bank away 
 with his fork. It was just beyond the tines. 
 He settled back. Perspiration was now roll 
 ing from his forehead down to his collar. The 
 effort was superhuman. 
 
 " - and over the glorious goldenrod of the 
 East the man who has so well honored the 
 poppy of the West will rise to greet you. Col. 
 Chester A. Framm." 
 
 "He s calling on you," whispered Haroran s 
 kindly voice in his ear. 
 
 Chester swam to his feet. His eyes were 
 rapidly filling with tears. But they were 
 neither the tears of patriotism nor of remorse. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen of the Golden Poppy 
 
ONE GOLDEN NIGHT 
 
 Society/ he began well enough: "It is with 
 mingled pain " 
 
 His watering eyes traveled down and rested 
 again upon that bank of goldenrod. 
 
 Ka-choo ! 
 
 The audience sat politely still. 
 
 "It is with mingled pain " 
 
 Ka-choo ! Ka-choo ! Ka-choo ! 
 
 "Will somebody " Choo! " those 
 
 damned flowers away !" 
 
 And Chester sat down, volleying as he sat. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 KATZEN J AM MER 
 
 THE Framms got through the week follow 
 ing the Golden Poppy Society s banquet less 
 smoothly than was their wont. Chester stayed 
 in bed several days and Floss nursed him; 
 nursed him like the heroic little gadfly that she 
 was. It was plain to see that she was sorry ; 
 moreover, there was never a nurse who could 
 handle his hay fever as Floss could. During 
 those sleepless nights his most endearing word 
 to her was a sneeze. She made no complaint. 
 She was used to it. In silent intervals Chester 
 turned his face to the wall and asked with 
 increasing bitterness what domestic miracle 
 had kept them together these eccentric years. 
 Almost from the first their match had been as 
 ill assorted as that of a lion yoked to a hum 
 ming bird. He saw it all now; and as he saw 
 it he sneezed again. A wild flame had burned 
 between them in their early days, a roseate 
 vapor which had thrown all things out of their 
 
 242 
 
KATZENJAMMER 243 
 
 true perspective ; but there was no denying the 
 fact that they were growing middle-aged and 
 mutually critical. Floss had played him once 
 too often. 
 
 Then she would come in wearing something 
 original, alluring and young, which would 
 have the effect of reversing all Chester s opin 
 ions. Floss was not middle-aged, and so far 
 as he could calculate she never would be. 
 
 However, he was determined that he would 
 not forgive her that perfidious cluster of gold- 
 enrod. The very memory of it sent him into 
 a passion of sneezing. He seemed to have lost 
 all interest in everything else. And yet the 
 dinner had gone off wonderfully well, thanks 
 to the big-hearted deception of Judge Haro- 
 ran, who after the colonel s first nasal volley 
 had come to his feet and informed the ban 
 queters that Colonel Framm, who had been 
 threatened with Spanish influenza, had risen 
 from a sick bed to attend the testimonial. 
 Whereupon the Supreme Court Justice had 
 lifted his two white mice and his roaring 
 voice in a remarkable speech setting forth im 
 portant views on the Internationalization of 
 Inland Waterways. Chester had stuck it out, 
 
244 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 weeping hay-feverishly into his napkin, then 
 had stolen away through a side door. 
 
 After five days of mourning, sneezing, in 
 trospection and more sneezing Chester got 
 suddenly better and decided to sit up. Flossie 
 insisted upon swaddling his legs in a blue 
 steamer rug, but his convalescence was rapid 
 and he was able to show his teeth when she 
 marched demurely in with a sizable bundle 
 of newspapers, which, sans explanation, she 
 dumped into his lap. 
 
 "What are these?" he snarled. 
 
 "What do you think they are, old patch- 
 a plate of oranges? There, Lamb Pie, I ll tell, 
 you what they are: Morning of October nine 
 teenth; full account of the Framm testimonial 
 banquet. You haven t seen em yet. Shall I 
 read em to my Goob?" 
 
 "Give me my glasses/ he commanded icily. 
 
 And sustained by the lenses he was able to 
 see that the dinner had been, from a stand 
 point of publicity, an overwhelming success. 
 
 "Col. Chester A. Framm Stricken With 
 Influenza at Banquet" was a favorite. But 
 none so brief as to fail in describing the 
 magnificent decorations, the list of distin 
 guished guests, the eloquence of President 
 
KATZENJAMMER 
 
 McKoncle and the epoch-making importance 
 of Judge Haroran s second speech. The por 
 traits of Michael Henry Haroran and Chester 
 A. Framm were linked together on many 
 pages. One illustrated supplement gave a 
 flashlight of the banquet. Never, perhaps, in 
 the history of journalism has a sneeze been 
 recorded with such pomp and circumstance. 
 
 "Now look here, Floss," declared her hus 
 band, shoving the papers off to the floor, "this 
 is all very well. But you played a silly vulgar 
 practical joke on me at a time in my life when 
 my dignity counted for everything. You hired 
 the biggest hall in New York and got the 
 greatest list of names in America for what? 
 For the satisfaction of giving me hay fever." 
 
 "God gave you hay fever," she responded 
 piously. 
 
 "Bosh! What sort of a mind have you? 
 For a woman of your age - " 
 
 "I m not a woman of my age!" she took him 
 up sharply. 
 
 "I withdraw that statement," he admitted. 
 "But you do talk more like a a - " 
 
 "Flapper," she prompted him. 
 
 "You go at things like a child of twelve, not 
 in the least realizing what you re meddling 
 
246 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 with. The sort of cheap and flashy success 
 you ve been engineering for me all these years 
 has given you an unlimited conceit " 
 
 "Don t you talk to me like that!" she cried, 
 showing what in her he had never seen all 
 the years of their married life. They had 
 never been candid enough to quarrel. 
 
 She had brought a heel of her frivolous 
 slipper down crushingly upon the carpet. Her 
 useless little hands were clenched, as was the 
 line of teeth, which showed whitely against 
 the angry flush. 
 
 "Floss my dear girl my darling child " 
 
 "I married you out of a steam laundry!" 
 she lashed out, using the voice of another 
 and terrible being. "You didn t bring me 
 anything but love; and there wasn t a rag 
 of pride that I didn t throw to the dogs to 
 make something out of you out of nothing. 
 Conceit! My word and you wanted to be 
 an orator!" 
 
 "I m sorry," he moaned. But she was 
 flouncing out of the room. 
 
 He struggled to rise and follow her. The 
 feat was impossible because, as it turned out, 
 she had fastened the steamer rug round him 
 with a complicated system of safety pins. 
 
KATZENJAMMER 247 
 
 He lay back and tried to consider his case. 
 They had been married fifteen years; and lo, 
 and behold! here was an entirely new and 
 unknown Floss. 
 
 Comic Relief walked in at that moment, the 
 character being impersonated by Mr. Ramon 
 de Silva. Chester could hear them chatting 
 quite frothily in the next room ; and Chester s 
 introspective self was poisoned by the thought 
 which, strange as it may seem, was voiced by 
 Floss as soon as she came into his presence, 
 blithely leading The Spiggoty. 
 
 "Goober and I are thinking of getting a 
 divorce," she announced in quite her regular 
 manner. "But I don t know how bout it, 
 Spig. You re the only other man I d endure 
 as a husband. And you ve gone and spilled 
 the rice by marrying Sissy." 
 
 The Spiggoty, who was wearing one of his 
 robin s-egg-bluest collars, indicated the same 
 spiritual shade as he fastened his somber eyes 
 upon the woman to whom, as Chester always 
 realized, he had given his lifelong devotion. 
 
 "A month late!" smiled the Spaniard. 
 "Usually you arrange things better, Floss." 
 
 "Oh, I could go and see Sissy. I don t 
 
 
248 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 think she likes you any better than you do 
 her." 
 
 "Floss!" In spite of Chester s vow not to 
 speak that way to her again the interjection 
 seemed necessary. 
 
 "The doctor, madam," interposed Floss 
 maid, appearing dramatically at the door. 
 
 "You two poor dears fix it up to suit your 
 selves," little Mrs. Framm commanded, and 
 went to meet Chester s specialist. 
 
 "Sit down," commanded Framm desperate 
 ly, motioning his press agent to the nearest 
 chair. "Spig, Floss and I have been quarrel 
 ing." 
 
 "Why shouldn t you?" asked The Spiggoty,. 
 shrugging his worldly shoulders. "You re 
 married, aren t you?" 
 
 "But this is different. I ve known you bet 
 ter than any other man alive these fifteen 
 years, Spig, and I can be forgiven for talking 
 right out. Floss and I have never talked like 
 this we ve ragged and tagged, but it has 
 always been a true-love match possibly that s 
 what s the matter with it. Never like this 
 before. Why, we came right out and told the 
 truth." 
 
KATZENJAMMER 249 
 
 "What is the truth?" asked The Spiggoty 
 sadly as Pilate might have done. 
 
 "Floss said that she picked me out of the 
 garbage can and made a millionaire out of me. 
 That s true. I said that in doing so she had 
 wrecked my better self and utterly perverted 
 
 me." 
 
 "The trouble with you, Ches, is that you re 
 so damned young," was The Spiggoty s sur 
 prising diagnosis. 
 
 "Young!" he snorted. "I m ages older than 
 Floss." 
 
 "No, you re not nobody is." 
 
 "Huh! At any rate things have come to a 
 crisis. We ve got to separate." 
 
 "As bad as that?" 
 
 "My boyhood ambition was to study law. 
 With Floss round, Blackstone would look like 
 a dime novel. I m rich enough to indulge my 
 tastes; and my tastes are all for a serious 
 public career in which Floss has no part. 
 That s the case in a nutshell." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 The Spiggoty pondered. It was rather a 
 fine face which this olive-skinned Latin had 
 developed in his early middle life. Strange to 
 say, there was a certain lingering poetry in 
 
250 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 it. Here, too, was possibly a story of per 
 verted ideals. Floss had turned him from a 
 proud Castilian knight into a superexcellent 
 press agent. 
 
 "When I m gone out of her life/ the sick 
 man enjoined with an impetuous rush of con 
 fidence, "I want you to look after her. Floss 
 has got something like genius; but like most 
 geniuses she couldn t live a week without a 
 business manager. I ve given up fifteen valu 
 able years to that. Now I m determined to 
 resign and be myself." 
 
 "Ches," said De Silva at last with one of 
 his dark smiles, "that s a splendid program 
 you ve blocked out for yourself. Splendid!" 
 
 "Well, what s the matter with it?" 
 
 "It lacks the one thing to make it a suc 
 
 cess." 
 
 "What s that?" 
 
 "Floss." 
 
 "You mean I can t get along without her?" 
 
 "Well, can you?" 
 
 Chester A. Framm said nothing intelligible, 
 but started to cry. This may be forgiven in 
 a man who was at once ill, tired and dis 
 appointed. 
 
 When Floss came in with the doctor the 
 
KATZENJAMMER 251 
 
 patient s moisty visage could be easily ac 
 counted for as glandular irritation. Doctor 
 Sumner, who nicely combined the social and 
 scientific training necessary to professional 
 success, went over the nose and its tributary 
 canals before declaring that there wasn t much 
 the matter with the colonel any more. 
 
 "Now I m going to recommend a treat 
 ment," he smiled, "which is painless, pleasant 
 and expensive. No, I m not going to send 
 you to Palm Beach or Hot Spings. The health 
 resort I am referring to is right round the 
 corner. Broadway, it s called." 
 
 "Broadway!" snarled the patient, who had 
 undoubtedly reached the disagreeable stage of 
 convalescence. 
 
 "Mrs. Framm tells me that you have been 
 taking life much too seriously all work and 
 no play. Your condition is a nervous one, 
 brought on by strain no relaxation. Now I 
 may be thrown out of the profession for say 
 ing so, but in my opinion Broadway has saved 
 more lives than it has wrecked. The only way 
 to stop a worry is by forgetting it. Two 
 weeks of musical comedy, dancing " 
 
 "I don t dance," objected Chester, who had 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 always regarded Terpsichore as the idiot sis 
 ter among the muses. 
 
 "You ll have fun learning," said Doctor 
 Sumner. "If time hangs heavy on your hands 
 you can go to tea dances in the afternoons. 
 Or hire a phonograph and have your wife 
 give you lessons here in the hotel." 
 
 "I ll die first," he groaned. 
 
 "Chuck Connors used to say that he could 
 die dancing," grinned the physician. "I am 
 quite serious in this, colonel. There s nothing 
 in the world the matter with you now but 
 nervous depression." 
 
 It was queer, but Chester at that moment 
 entertained a vision of the late Aunt Het 
 so strangely like Floss who had killed three 
 successive husbands and had made a frivolous 
 speech from her death bed. 
 
 "I ll turn you over to Mrs. Framm," the 
 doctor was going on. "I m sure she will prove 
 an excellent nurse for you. You don t object 
 to dancing, do you, Mrs. Framm?" Doctor 
 Sumner beamed. 
 
 "I know a few steps," admitted Floss. 
 
 "The little devil," thought her disillusioned 
 victim; "if she had paid more attention to her 
 
KATZENJAMMER 253 
 
 head and less to her heels to-day s estrange 
 ment had never come to pass." 
 
 "I would suggest that the treatment begin 
 at once/ urged Doctor Sumner, taking his 
 hat for departure. "If you will telephone me 
 in the morning at about twelve and let me 
 know " 
 
 As soon as he was gone Mr. and Mrs. 
 Framm and Ramon de Silva occupied chairs 
 in triangular formation and sat, hands folded, 
 staring into the vague. For the first time 
 in her life Floss seemed to have nothing to 
 say. When Chester focused his weary eyes 
 upon the situation he observed that his wife 
 and friend were regarding him earnestly from 
 their equilateral corners. 
 
 "Floss/ growled her husband, "I ll bet you 
 put the doctor up to that simple-minded 
 Broadway treatment." 
 
 "There he goes again !" Floss turned to The 
 Spiggoty as a witness. "You see, nothing ever 
 happens but what he blames it on me." 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE BROADWAY REST CURE 
 
 "WHAT sort of a rest-cure sanitarium have 
 you picked out for to-night?" 
 
 It was about seven o clock on the evening 
 of the same day, and the Framms were busily 
 engaged in arraying themselves as for a great 
 occasion. Strange as it may seem, Chester, 
 whose lawn tie was at that moment being 
 folded by his skillful Japanese, appeared to 
 be anything but an invalid. This, perhaps, 
 was due to the whimsicality of nervous dis 
 eases. 
 
 "Esther," said Floss to the maid, who was 
 hooking her up, "please be careful and tuck 
 those ribbons down in the back. Last time 
 you left them hanging out and I had to bribe 
 the waiter to " 
 
 "Florabel," persisted her husband, striding 
 sternly to the door, "I asked you a question." 
 
 "Uh-huh." He could see her rosy reflec 
 tion beaming at him from the mirror. "The 
 
 254 
 
THE BROADWAY REST CURE 255 
 
 place we are going? It s a joint. They call 
 it Hannigan s Bedlam Cabaret." 
 
 "Where do you learn about all those vicious 
 places ?" 
 
 "Don t give me all the credit. It s the 
 Macawbers party I got old Hector on the 
 phone and he declared that The Bedlam is 
 the place where the dissipated people go. 
 They ve asked the Phil Jasons, and, of course, 
 I coaxed them to include The Spiggoty and 
 his dippy bride. It s one of those places 
 where everybody pulls the tablecloth off after 
 twelve and you can do the dance of the seven 
 napkins without being thrown out." 
 
 "I think Doctor Sumner s a quack/ grum 
 bled Chester, about to turn back toward his 
 own dressing room. 
 
 "Chet, dear," she called after him, her 
 Angel Bloom complexion adding charm to the 
 mirrored visage he saw and worshiped in spite 
 of himself, "I ve been wondering something 
 about you ever since that Golden Poppy night. 
 If you made a speech what would you talk 
 about?" 
 
 "Huh. You wouldn t be interested." 
 
 "You re horrid!" The reflection sulked. 
 
 "Why should you be interested?" 
 
256 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 "I always did adore mental diseases. When 
 my Uncle Dab Fuller went crazy and thought 
 he was Cleopatra " 
 
 "If that s the sort of thing you like you ll 
 like that sort of thing." 
 
 He turned and took his empurpled visage to 
 his own mirror. He pretended he didn t see 
 her lovely reflection standing coaxingly behind 
 his a moment later; pretended to ignore the 
 girlish slenderness of her white arms and the 
 smooth, spirited little neck as pearly as the 
 gems that encircled it. She had to reach up 
 to draw his face round toward hers. 
 
 "Now tell me, Old Brutal! What sort of a 
 grand speech would it prefer to make?" 
 
 "With you round jeering at me?" 
 
 "Suppose I was dead and and you d mar 
 ried Carlotta. What would you talk about 
 to all the Romans and citizens and great big 
 intellectual brains assembled to give ear?" 
 
 "About fifteen minutes." 
 
 This was pretty good for Chester, who was 
 not a born humorist. 
 
 "I know. But you d have to have a subject. 
 Even Chauncey M. Depew and Job Hedges 
 have to have those things." 
 
THE BROADWAY REST CURE 257 
 
 He pretended not to hear and went on 
 smoothing the lapels of his evening coat. 
 
 "What besides fifteen minutes were you 
 going to talk about at the Golden Poppies?" 
 
 "Really in earnest ?" 
 
 "Horribly." 
 
 "I ve told you often enough the Secret of 
 Success." 
 
 "My word!" 
 
 "There you go again." 
 
 " Tm sorry, Chet. But do you mean to say 
 you intended to stand up before all those 
 people and give our snap away?" 
 
 "What snap, if you please?" 
 
 "How we came to make Angel Bloom 
 grandmother s recipe for rouge?" 
 
 "Who ever mentioned rouge? The trouble 
 with most women is that they have to see 
 everything in a personal light. Men serious 
 men aren t interested in such matters." 
 
 "What would make the big intellectual 
 brains sit up and clap their strong manly 
 hands?" 
 
 Chester walked a pace away from his Flos 
 sie and stood regarding the frail skill with 
 which she clasped a bracelet round her wrist. 
 
 "How would you go at the Secret of Sue- 
 
258 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 cess?" she persisted, cocking her head to one 
 side. 
 
 "Well, I d dwell on character the forma 
 tion of character how the struggles of youth 
 against obstacles develop the qualities of lead 
 ership " 
 
 "Some quotations from Tennyson and Mar 
 cus Aurelius?" 
 
 "Milton and Oliver Wendell Holmes," he 
 corrected her. 
 
 "Then there s Abraham Lincoln and the 
 pine-knot fire." 
 
 "See here, Floss," he broke out, "you must 
 have been reading my notes." 
 
 "All your life," she smiled. 
 
 Then giving him a long and serious gaze 
 she volunteered in a voice which was stranger 
 than her look: "Great Scott!" 
 
 "Thinking you could do better, I suppose?" 
 
 "No, I wasn t thinking that. I I was sort 
 of thinking how I d like to hear you make a 
 speech if you were anybody s husband but 
 
 mine." 
 
 The Hector Macawbers, who were very 
 rich beneficiaries of the perfumery trust, usu 
 ally dined in splendor at home, the colonel 
 
THE BROADWAY REST CURE 259 
 
 moodily reflected as he sat beside Flossie in 
 a taxicab that bumped them toward Bedlam. 
 
 "Aren t the Macawbers keeping house any 
 more?" he asked with a sigh. 
 
 "We didn t come to New York to sit round 
 a stuffy old plush house," she told him. "You 
 know what the doctor ordered. Hector and I 
 picked out Bedlam this afternoon over the 
 telephone. It s noisy and low full of broken- 
 down actors and lovely wretches. We can 
 dance our heads off." 
 
 "That ll be nice," agreed the danceless hus^ 
 band. 
 
 They found the Macawbers and their party* 
 waking for them in the noisy little lobby by 
 the Bedlam s elevator. Young banditti in 
 pinkish uniforms were busily robbing people 
 of their coats and hats; the sign Evening 
 Dress Obligatory was prominently hung over 
 the cloakroom door, from which a profane 
 stranger in a brown business suit was being 
 ejected 
 
 Mr. Hector Macawber was an overfed gen 
 tleman of fi s fty-five, whose slender waistline 
 and bulging sides hinted that he wore corsets. 
 Mrs. Macawber was a frilly person with silver 
 slippers and snow-white hair. Phil Jason, also 
 
260 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 i^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^\^^^^^^ m ^^^ m ^*^^ m ^ mm " mi ^^^ m ^^^^ mm ^ m ^r* m ^^ 
 
 of the perfumery trust, was a neatly groomed, 
 close-cropped little man who suggested the 
 commuting church member come to New 
 York for a good time. As a matter of record 
 he was born in lower Fifth Avenue, had been 
 twice divorced, and the stout but still beauti 
 ful woman at his side was an ex-choir singer 
 who had got her name in the papers as the 
 third Mrs. Jason. 
 
 There was a clatter of welcome. 
 
 "What a fascinating, queer place. I am 
 thrilled/ protested Mrs. Macawber as they 
 were going up in the elevator. 
 
 "Flossie just would come here. I suggested 
 the Insomnia Roof and the Nightmare Gar 
 dens but she insisted that Chester had to 
 have excitement." Macawber winked over at 
 Framm. 
 
 "I ve been having the most awful time with 
 him," confessed Flossie. 
 
 "What can you expect?" Old Macawber 
 looked ever so wise. "Husband, New York 
 puff. He s off!" 
 
 "They re dreadful," sympathized Mrs. Jason 
 in her languid contralto. 
 
 "Heck s going in for Bicardi rum this 
 week," proclaimed Mrs. Macawber. "It makes 
 
THE BROADWAY REST CURE 261 
 
 him very loud. What vice has yours taken 
 up?" 
 
 This last was put to Florabel. 
 
 "Public speaking," announced Chester s 
 little secret of eternal youth. 
 
 "Public speaking!" echoed the elevator. 
 
 "We have with us to-night Col. Chester A. 
 Framm, citizen, patriot and man," spouted 
 Jason. "Got the habit, I suppose, the night 
 you sneezed your way into the Hall of Fame?" 
 
 "Shut up !" commanded Flossie. 
 
 Framm, who was blushing like a schoolboy, 
 began to stutter, "It hasn t come on yet. You 
 see, my wife " 
 
 "Proud of you?" wheezed Macawber. 
 "Quite naturally. Who ever heard of a 
 colonel who wasn t an orator?" 
 
 The old beau stood staring pop-eyed. 
 
 "What s the matter now? Going to have a 
 fit right here between floors?" asked Jason in 
 counterfeit alarm. 
 
 "An in-spi-ra-tion !" 
 
 He opened his mouth, displaying a suspi 
 ciously even row of teeth, and would have 
 spoken further had not the door opened upon 
 the African din of New York s most frantic 
 nightmare dining room. The walls were done 
 
262 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 in violent vegetable designs with restless mon 
 strosities capering across the panels. Over the 
 ceiling stretched an awning of wild stripes. 
 More or less presentable young women in the 
 costume of Pierrot strolled between the over 
 flowing tables, passing srfiall cards with the 
 announcement : 
 
 A NIGHT IN LOVELAND 
 
 AND 
 
 FEAST OF AFTER-DINNER WISDOM 
 
 J FAWCETT TWEED 
 
 CELEBRATED RACONTEUR AND PRINCE OF 
 BOHEMIA AS 
 
 HOST OF THE EVENING 
 WELCOMES You ALL 
 
 Chester Framm had read the card twice 
 before he looked over and saw the grin on 
 Macawber s faee. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A PALE GHOST AND A SOLID TRUTH 
 
 "BY GEORGE, Chet," cried the merry old 
 blade, "here s your chance ! There s the speak 
 er s table all set and ready for yo.u." 
 
 Framm frowned at his wife, and heartened 
 by her averted gaze he decided that the Ma- 
 cawber style of wit was poor and nothing 
 more. The table to which he referred was a 
 large one, elaborately set with a dozen places 
 and standing on a raised dais at the end of 
 the room. 
 
 "What s the idea ?" he asked, again puzzling 
 over the card as he took his seat at their own 
 table. 
 
 "Abe Hannigan, who runs this place, got 
 the notion that he could conduct a continu 
 ous banquet here every night. So he s hired 
 a gang of professional banqueters to sit at 
 the host s table and a broken-down spellbinder 
 to act as host of honor. But I didn t know 
 
 263 
 
 
264 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 J. Fawcett Tweed had got this low/ explained 
 Jason, eying the empty head table. 
 
 "And who s this J. Fawcett Tweed?" 
 
 "You ve lived away from Broadway," was 
 Jason s commiserating hint. 
 
 "Tweed isn t the man he used to be, nor 
 never was," cut in Macawber. "He was one 
 of your ballyhoo lawyers with a silver tongue 
 and a leaden brain until the state disbarred 
 him for engineering a fake-condemnation pro 
 ceedings in the Bronx. Then he decided to 
 become a prince of good fellows you know 
 the type recklessly generous with other peo 
 ple s wine." 
 
 "He was quite sought after for a while," 
 chimed Mrs. Macawber. 
 
 "He is now by the subpoena man." 
 
 "You remember him," said the Spiggoty to 
 Chester "He tried to butt in at your ban 
 quet." 
 
 "I hope you ll like my party," remarked old 
 Hector to Mrs. Framm, but that lady s eyes 
 were all for the head table. 
 
 There was something ghastly about that 
 head table. It conveyed the same sense of 
 sacrilege which religious rites, funerals or 
 weddings often do in stage productions. Bright 
 
A PALE GHOST 265 
 
 with glassware and flowers artificial flow 
 ers probably the whole laden board awaited 
 its mock revelers. The effect was depressing. 
 The table had been set in such a way that the 
 imitation guests could face their audience as 
 they do in stage banquets. Broadway had 
 never thought of anything more mawkish 
 than this scene. 
 
 The band blared. Out of the nowhere 
 those puppet guests came trooping a miser 
 able painted crew, as Framm could see from 
 his not distant seat. Weirdly enameled wom 
 en and queer feeble men they sauntered self 
 consciously two by two and stood expectantly 
 by their chairs. Then came a salvo from 
 orchestral trumpets. A puffy little fellow 
 with the face of a diseased mushroom stood 
 at center plate and spread a mechanical smile. 
 The appearance of J. Fawcett Tweed brought 
 some applause, also catcalls. 
 
 "I thank you, fellow Bo-he-mi-ans," came a 
 sonorous whisky-laden voice. "Let the revels 
 begin/ 
 
 The poorly paid revelers at the main table 
 were seated accordingly, and Tweed was seen 
 to turn his stupid, self-indulgent old smile 
 toward the painted lady at his left. A stage 
 
266 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 butler poured wine it was easy to imagine 
 that ginger ale gurgled from the tin-foiled 
 neck of the bottle, and by Tweed s meager 
 occasional sips one might quite safely say 
 that such was the case. 
 
 "You don t mean to say he does it every 
 evening for money?" Framm found himself 
 asking, with both pity and marvel. 
 
 "Money and the drinks," grinned Macaw- 
 ber. "But Hannigan s foxy J. Fawcett 
 doesn t get a real drink until the party s over." 
 
 "He s never asked anywhere any more," 
 came Mrs. Jason s rich contralto. 
 
 "He made a pretty fair speech back in 
 1910," explained Macawber. 
 
 "He never was any good," objected Jast>n. 
 "I wonder who ever told him he could make 
 a speech?" 
 
 These comments were distributed over sev 
 eral courses of food which was a degree bet 
 ter than Bohemian and several degrees worse 
 than good. At the table of honor the imita 
 tion ladies and gentlemen were hanging on the 
 words of J. Fawcett Tweed; now and then 
 they wquld burst into a gale of laughter a 
 gale so nicely timed as to suggest the pressing 
 of a button at proper intervals. Chester dur- 
 
r A PALE GHOST 267 
 
 ing a break in his morbid contemplation found 
 his Flossie whispering intimately with the cap 
 tain of waiters, who wore a worldly smile and 
 glanced now and then toward the host of 
 honor. 
 
 "I m getting his biography/* she explained 
 when her husband caught her eye. "It seems 
 he is just playing here for the week. Last 
 week they had a Hindu juggler, and next to 
 come will be a troupe of trained dogs. The 
 waiter says that the people like the dogs best." 
 
 "Heck, why did you choose this dreary 
 place?" asked Mrs. Heck by way of whole 
 some cheer. 
 
 "Ask Flossie," he defended weakly. "She s 
 brought Chet to study and of course he s 
 got to make his usual appearance to-night." 
 
 "You just let my Goober alone !" demanded 
 Flossie; and her tone wasn t all banter. 
 
 "Come on give us an oration be a good 
 chap !" Jason put in his oar. 
 
 "My wife won t let me," protested the 
 blushing slave of ambition. 
 
 "Go ahead," said Flossie kindly. "It s so 
 noisy here I m sure nobody ever listens to any 
 body." 
 
 The sharp woody tat-tat of a gavel punctu- 
 
268 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 j^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^***"*^"^^* ?^ * ^" *^ 
 
 ated Bedlam. The band blared, the drums 
 ruffled. Right and left little hissing sounds 
 besought silence; for J. Fawcett Tweed was 
 standing by his chair on the dais. Leaning 
 slightly forward, his fat fingers braced against 
 the tablecloth, his swollen old face distributed 
 its lifeless smile right and left. 
 
 "Dear brothers and sisters in Loveland or 
 shall I say true affinities in the Land of 
 Love and Laughter? 
 
 "We welcome you here in the name of the 
 divine electric spark which leaps from breast 
 to breast in that chosen realm where respon 
 sibility is unknown, where care is as nought 
 and joy is unconfined." 
 
 "Poor wretch!" insisted Mrs. Macawber, 
 who apparently was one of your rich women 
 who love to indulge in pity. 
 
 "In Bo-he-mi-a," thus the husky voice rolled 
 it forth like the blast from a distillery, "there 
 is no such word as slave. We are all kings 
 and pardon me, ladies queens together. 
 Here the millionaire hobnobs with the clerk, 
 poverty sits cheek by jowl with riches. There 
 is no gold here" he turned to frown at a 
 waiter who was quarreling over his tip "no 
 gold here, save the true gold of mind and 
 
A PALE GHOST 269 
 
 heart. Here, amid the bubble of wine and 
 the laughter of bright eyes, we may pledge 
 the toast" ecstatically lifting a hollow- 
 stemmed glass of ginger ale: "Here s to me, 
 as bad as I am, and to you, as good as you. 
 are. For as bad as I am and as good as you 
 are I m as good as you are as bad as I am." 
 
 "Phew I" whispered Jason. "That joke was 
 chloroformed when I was a freshman." 
 
 "1891," agreed Macawber. 
 
 "As bright as I am as punk as he is," para 
 phrased Jason. "I m glad Flossie insisted on 
 our coming." 
 
 Col. Chester A. Framm, however, was only 
 aware of the applause which followed the af 
 ter-dinner bathos. He was ashamed of the 
 envious thrill along his spine. 
 
 "In the flower-laden court of Bo-he-mi-a," 
 the prince of good fellows went rolling on, 
 "all men are poets, for who so dull as not to 
 sing when the rarest flowers of thought are 
 strewn with a prodigal hand " 
 
 "Get the hook!" 
 
 This comment, which the colonel rather re 
 sented, came from a rat- faced little fellow who 
 sat beside a milk-white blonde at the table just 
 behind him. The blonde replied: "Shut up] 
 
270 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 He ain t an amachewer." Which raised her 
 in the colonel s regard. 
 
 His wistful eyes were again on the profes 
 sional speaker, and when he turned and 
 looked over at his wife he caught her studying 
 him with the amused affectionate expression 
 she often held for him. He turned sullenly 
 away. Awful example of misspent ambition 
 that this Tweed might be and Framm had 
 no intention of trading lives with him yet he 
 possessed the thing which Framm had always 
 wanted to cultivate in himself stage pres 
 ence. What though his phrases were empty as 
 sucked eggs, his condition a mockery among 
 his fellow men? In spite of that he could 
 stand alone, the observed of an audience; and 
 in the last analysis their jeers were drowned 
 in the general applause. 
 
 Every evening he could feel that ego-satis 
 faction which Chester A. Framm had known 
 but once on that mad, glad prize-winning 
 night when Carlotta Beam had shown him the 
 first step on the road to greatness. 
 
 He got another glimpse of Flossie. She was 
 taking in the speaker s table with all the sar 
 castic brilliance of her eyes. 
 
 The colonel was brought back to his sur- 
 
A PALE GHOST 271 
 
 roundings suddenly, shockingly, as by a dash 
 of cold water. Somebody was shouting his 
 name through the room: 
 
 "Col. Chester A. Framm!" 
 
 That horrifically personal address was be 
 ing roared from the speaker s table ; moreover 
 it was J. Fawcett Tweed who was roaring it, 
 his shapeless mouth wide open, his fat right 
 hand generously extended. 
 
 " and again I repeat that name, Col. 
 
 Chester A. Framm, a name which is doubly 
 blessed in every well-equipped boudoir 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land. 
 Let us hail the Cosmetic King! Need I say 
 that we are proud to have him with us to 
 night ? And yet it is not unusual in the court 
 of Bo-he-mi-a for princes of commerce to 
 come and make merry with struggling poets 
 and and workers in the busy marts of trade; 
 for in the realm of flowers is not the prim 
 rose the equal of the American Beauty? It 
 is an unusual treat which we all have in store 
 -. to hear a few remarks from the American 
 
 Beauty " It was not till now that full 
 
 realization of his danger came upon Chester 
 Framm. His tongue seemed to have turned to 
 chalk. 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 " - the American Beauty who has done 
 more to perpetuate American beauty I 
 mean the ladies, God bless em than any 
 other citizen of our great republic. Beauty, 
 they say, is only skin deep; yet by the skin 
 we are able to tell a peach from a potato. 
 But let not my own poor words detain you all 
 from a feast of good things. Ladies and gen 
 tlemen, Col. Chester A. Framm will honor us 
 with a few words on - " 
 
 He paused and seemed to consult his notes. 
 
 " - on The Secret of Success." 
 
 The room grew black before Framm s eyes. 
 In the haze Macawber s face seemed to have 
 grown purple and Mrs. Macawber s to have 
 taken on her favorite look of plutocratic pity. 
 He tried to shoot an angry glance at Flossie, 
 but the muscles of his face were out of order. 
 
 "Get up, you goose!" he heard her com 
 manding. 
 
 He staggered to his feet amidst an ava 
 lanche of hand-clapping and an earthquake of 
 bang-banging sounds the latter being pro 
 duced by means of little wooden spoons which 
 the management had provided as ready noise 
 makers. All the world was looking at him with 
 the same vacant stare he now knew how the 
 
A PALE GHOST 273 
 
 mob must look to the man inside the noose. 
 From the head table the impossible Mr. 
 Tweed smirked like some cruel idol. Framm 
 stood a tortured moment before he performed 
 his supreme act of self-sacrifice. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," he said quietly, "I 
 am no talker. But I thank you nevertheless." 
 
 And he sat down. 
 
 It was brief, inglorious and surprising even 
 to Chester. But what immediately followed 
 was in the realm of miracles. For the heavy 
 contact with his chair seemed to have touched 
 some synchronic spring across the table, a 
 spring which caused a little woman to leap to 
 her feet, snapping quick golden fires from her 
 eyes as she challenged the whole room. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," he heard Flossie s 
 chirping, clear, rather nasal challenge. "I m 
 Mrs. Framm. There s a speech that s been 
 bottled up in this family for about sixteen 
 years, and because my husband has been too 
 busy with real work to fool with dissipation 
 that bottle s never been opened. I will now 
 proceed to uncork it. The label on that 
 speech, I believe, is The Secret of Success. 
 Well, here goes. 
 
 "I don t know anything about great big 
 
374 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 grand successes like Napoleon. The only 
 work of genius I ve ever had a chance to 
 watch is my Chester building up the cosmetic 
 business. If you want to hear about him " 
 
 Cries of "Hear! Hear!" 
 
 "Well, now, friends, this is his secret of 
 success. He s got there by three things: 
 Finding something the people wanted, giving 
 it to them, and keeping his mouth shut. Ches 
 ter never advertises himself; he lets other fel 
 lows do it for him. Did you ever notice that 
 the fellow who blows the horn never conducts 
 the orchestra? That s Chester s philosophy. 
 There may be something fine about being a 
 great oratorical statesman, like Noah Web 
 ster. I don t know, because I never read his 
 tory books. But what I do know is this : My 
 Chester is just as big a hit as I want, and 
 just the kind of hit I m looking for. Sixteen 
 years ago he started in by trying to interest 
 a corner druggist in a dozen jars of home 
 made rouge. This week the shipments o f 
 Framm s Complexion Preparations through 
 out the United States, Great Britain and the 
 Colonies, if carried in a single train of box 
 cars would extend twice round Manhattan 
 
A PALE GHOST 215 
 
 Island and stick the end of its tail out be 
 yond Yonkers. 
 
 "If Chester s got to be bragged about I m 
 the one that should do it, because I m his wife. 
 At the age of twenty-three he started in to be 
 a great statesman and fizzled out after one 
 performance. At the age of forty-one he s 
 lost the power of speech, but he s the man who 
 puts complexion cream on the face of the 
 globe. And that s the secret of success if 
 you know what I mean. I d rather be boss in 
 a glue works than a cockroach in the Hall of 
 Fame. The thing to do is to find out what 
 you re good at, then do it; and if you can t 
 find out for yourself find somebody who can." 
 
 She sat down in the hush before the cloud 
 burst. Mr. Hannigan was the only complain 
 ant that night because, as he told the head 
 waiter : "Enthusiasm s fine for the place but 
 who pays for the breakage?" The Macawber 
 table became the focal point for one of those 
 distressingly cordial affairs known as getting 
 acquainted with New York. They would have 
 borne Flossie triumphantly on their shoulders 
 had they dared and had not Colonel Framm, 
 now master of his dignity, prevented. 
 
 As a matter of fact Chester would have ap- 
 
276 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 proved had not his egotism smarted with one 
 of those vanity wounds which an actor feels 
 when he finds that his poor little wife is be 
 coming billed as a prima donna. The for 
 malities ceased in a general clatter during 
 which Mr. Hannigan saw to it that breakage 
 was made golden for him in extra wine or 
 ders. The jazz began its harmonic convul 
 sions, the floor cleared for dancing. 
 
 "I m crazy to jazz! cried Flossie, and al 
 most on the confession found herself whirling 
 away against the broad shirt front of Hector 
 Macawber. Her husband, still deep in his 
 coma, sat facing a newly opened bottle of 
 wine. 
 
 "Ah, Colonel Framm!" 
 
 A champagne-thickened, fusil-oily voice* 
 spoke close to his shoulder. Looking round 
 Framm descried the bulbous face of the host 
 of honor. 
 
 "Mr. Tweed? How do you do." 
 
 The colonel found himself pump handling 
 the pretentious hand of the pretentious little 
 fellow. Tweed s air had changed from one of 
 lofty inspiration to one of cringing servility. 
 
 "It s a great honor to us," he insisted, quite 
 ignoring the passion with which so recently 
 
A PALE GHOST 277 
 
 4 
 
 he had eulogized Bohemia s democratic ten 
 dencies. "A great honor to have one of your 
 er importance in our midst. It gives tone 
 to the place." His eyes were wandering to 
 ward the champagne bottle. "I have often 
 thought it would be a good plan to organize 
 a little club restaurant where the better classes 
 our sort of people, you know could for 
 gather and exchange ideas." 
 
 "Upper-class Bohemia?" asked the colonel 
 with a sarcasm unusual to him. 
 
 "Exactly." The small watery eyes were 
 now resting so lovingly upon the bottle that 
 Framm could not unheed the hint. 
 
 "Waiter, bring a glass for Mr. Tweed." 
 
 The waiter, who was a magician, produced 
 a glass out of nowhere, and the orator scarcely 
 lingering to wish the colonel s very good 
 health drained it at a gulp. 
 
 "Excellent!" He smacked his thick lips. 
 "You never can tell about a wine " 
 
 "Until it s uncorked?" 
 
 "A splendid idea ! I hope you ll let me use 
 it in one of my speeches. It will be especially 
 appreciated as one of Colonel Framm s epi 
 grams." 
 
 Framm grunted his consent. He wished 
 
376 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 the man would let him alone, but he lingered 
 to help himself to a second glass. 
 
 "Ah! And, colonel, I wish particularly to 
 congratulate you on your charming and ah 
 brilliant wife. A splendid speech! A telling 
 speech! She goes in for that sort of thing, 
 perhaps ?" 
 
 "About once In a lifetime/ the colonel con 
 ceded. 
 
 "She should cultivate the talent practice 
 for the rostrum. Nothing can be gained with 
 out application. Public speaking is as much 
 an art, I might say, as acting or portrait paint 
 ing/ 
 
 As he talked and drank he swelled back 
 into his air of sublimity. Could it be possible 
 that this ghastly wreck thought of himself as 
 a success? 
 
 "I have no doubt/ 
 
 "You should groom that little woman for a 
 career " 
 
 Framm was standing patiently waiting for 
 the pest to finish his glass and go his way. 
 
 His head was beginning to ache ancj. he 
 hoped Flossie wouldn t dance all night. 
 
 "And ah colonel. Before you go would 
 you mind my presenting you to Mrs. Tweed? 
 
A PALE GHOST 279 
 
 Come here, my dear. Mrs. Tweed, Colonel 
 Framm. It is seldom we have an opportunity 
 nowadays 
 
 A faded woman came forward out of the 
 throng. So colorless was she that it was a 
 full minute before Framm got the true sig 
 nificance of the apparition. Tall, thin, her 
 whole look somehow terrible, the woman stood 
 before him and calmly held out her hand. 
 Her hair was iron gray, her eyes deep sunk, 
 and she wore the same professional smirk as 
 did her husband. And yet there was no 
 doubt about it It was Carlotta Beam. 
 
 "How how do you do, Mrs. Tweed ?" His 
 hand was shaking in her cold and skinny 
 clasp. 
 
 She made a stiff, peculiar curtsy. The 
 sight of the dilapidated evening gown over her 
 stringy, rather masculine frame, the glimpse 
 he got of her badly tinted complexion made 
 him want to laugh one of those tragic laughs 
 which, like a consumptive cough, should bring 
 the blood. Should he recognize her? Should 
 he say to her pompous failure of a husband 
 that this was Carlotta Beam, who had all but 
 taken Chester s life into her strong hands to 
 mold into her statue of true greatness? Mrs. 
 
280 THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 Tweed stood smirking, a faded, naughty, old- 
 maidish smirk. 
 
 No sign of recognition. Apparently the cue 
 was for silence. 
 
 "I was telling Colonel Framm that he ought 
 to be proud of that little wife of his/ Tweed 
 was going glibly on. "She has the gift; per 
 haps not the art but the gift." 
 
 "It was very nice/ was Carlotta s cut-and- 
 dried comment. He was shocked to hear her 
 voice, which had grown shrill and cracked. 
 
 "Ah. Just a second only a second." 
 
 It was not made plain where Tweed was 
 going, save toward a quarter of the room 
 where free drinks were easier to obtain. 
 
 Only for a secretive point of time Chester 
 Framm stood beside his early ideal, yet some 
 where in her faded eyes he saw that vision 
 which had glowed so purely in the days when 
 they had sat under a live oak, a book between 
 them. 
 
 "So you have come to this/ she said in a 
 tone which would have seemed patronizing 
 had it not betrayed a strain of curious tender 
 ness. 
 
 Framm merely said "Yes" and smiled. 
 Which was to his credit; this was the woman 
 
A PALE GHOST 281 
 
 who in youth had boasted that she could make 
 statesmen at will. 
 
 "Well, Carlotta this is sudden!" 
 
 The music had stopped, and Flossie, detach 
 ing herself from old Hecor s arm, came smil 
 ing toward her long-lost rival. 
 
 "How do you do?" croaked Carlotta, gaunt 
 and forbidding as some old raven. 
 
 "Of course you know you re talking to Mrs. 
 Tweed?" Chester had put on his most jovial 
 air. 
 
 "Yes, indeed. I saw you at the table of 
 honor. It must be great to be in the public 
 eye like that." 
 
 "Thank you. We were very much amused 
 by your your pretty little speech." 
 
 It was like a compliment delivered from the 
 throne to a deserving milkmaid. 
 
 "I m glad you thought it pretty. That s our 
 business, you know making people pretty." 
 
 Flossie never lost her smile, but she said it 
 as though she would add : "And we could do 
 a thing or two for you, my dear." 
 
 Mrs. Tweed excused herself and walked 
 away toward the table where the Prince of Bo 
 hemia was buried deep in someone else s cham- 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 pagne. Floss had had the last telling word. 
 Your best Prussians, after all, are women. 
 
 "Candy kid," said Col. Chester Framm late 
 that night, addressing the silken bundle he was 
 holding in his arms as their taxicab skidded 
 homeward, "I really believe you requested that 
 Tweed idiot to call on me for a speech." 
 
 "I really believe I did," she recollected, 
 speaking into his fur collar. 
 
 Why?" 
 
 "Old Nuisance! You had to* begin your 
 public career somewhere, now didn t you?" 
 
 "Had to stop it somewhere, you mean." 
 
 "You got so tragic about your blighted 
 genius. So I thought I would lead you to a 
 place where you could just uncork that old 
 speech." 
 
 "I see. How did you know they made 
 speeches at the Bedlam Restaurant?" 
 
 "Saw an ad in the paper. It said, Bedlam 
 Restaurant Night in Loveland Anybody 
 Allowed to Speak Five Minutes Feast of 
 Oratory Amateurs Welcome! 
 
 Chester Framm cringed, but she citing to 
 him f urrily, much as a squirrel clings to a tree 
 in a high wind. 
 
A PALE GHOST 283 
 
 "Are you awful mad, papa?" 
 
 "No, angel cake. But tell me something 
 more how did you know Carlotta Beam had 
 married that bad actor and would be at the 
 party?" 
 
 "I just naturally find things out, Mister 
 Brutal. That s my contribution to the firm." 
 
 And since this is a symphony in which 
 the movements run rapidly over a long theme, 
 let me tell you what happened to the 
 Framms next day just as they were going out 
 to lunch somewhere along the Broadway 
 health resort. Junius McKoncle, president of 
 the Golden Poppy Society, was announced, 
 and when he came up he explained that he 
 was going to California that very afternoon 
 and had come to the Framms in haste and 
 secrecy. 
 
 "To cut it short," said he, "state and na 
 tional politics are in a mess. Last week I had 
 a conference with Senator Wheeden and Gov 
 ernor Wilde, who were passing on toward 
 Washington. Some one must be chosen wKc> 
 will do justice to the state and yet be in a 
 position where he can say that he has made 
 no enemies. We decided that you would be 
 
THE BLOOMING ANGEL 
 
 the man and they asked me to speak to you 
 and coax you to consider the nomination." 
 
 "For what?" Chester s face was grim. 
 
 "Senator from California." 
 
 The silence emanating from the nominee- 
 elect was long and embarrassing. 
 
 "Goob!" cried Floss in a moment of rap 
 ture, "don t you hear what they re offering 
 you? Don t mind him, Mr. McKoncle. He 
 accepts. Go catch your train." 
 
 "I decline." 
 
 It came rumbling like a voice from the 
 tomb. 
 
 "But Colonel Framm!" McKoncle was 
 quite shocked, that was sure. 
 
 "I don t think you realize the situation. If 
 you accept I feel sure the state will be with 
 you. A large majority of the people 
 want - " 
 
 "One thing I do realize," grunted Chester 
 A. Framm, "and that is what a rotten sena 
 tor I would make." 
 
 "Come here and kiss me," commented Floss, 
 which brought a frivolous note into the con 
 vention and caused the California delegate to 
 retire in disgust. 
 
 And when they were alone Chester said: 
 
A PALE GHOST 285 
 
 ^"""^ ~_ ^^m^^^m^i^^amfmm^^mm^mmmm^^f^m^mHmmmmmm^^mm^^ 
 
 "You have to begin early with these things 
 the way you began with your complexion." 
 
 "What won-derful ideas you have, old 
 Goob !" she confessed down his collar. "I be 
 gan with my complexion the day I was born." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 He held her away at arm s length and 
 studied the famous coloring. 
 
 "How about Angel Bloom Cream?" 
 
 "Give it up," she smiled as becomingly as 
 he could have wished. "I never tried it. 
 What s the use of wasting it on me when 
 there are forty squillion homely women will 
 ing to pay a dollar and a half a bottle?" 
 
 Which was a true word out of the mouth 
 of the Framm Complexion Girl. 
 
 THE END 
 


YB 33058