Luciano was beaming with that naive, defenceless excitement which is to be found only in the well-lettered and well-bred young European, and he was gratified when Myron drawled, 'No, I guess with those, any hotel could get along fairly well, though I don't believe you should put your ideals too low!'
'Oh yes, that is so very so!'
'Say, Luciano, remember we were talking about central-station power versus the hotel's own plant? Now I've got some really reliable figures on the standard of steam costs per kilowatt. . . .'
'Splendid!'
Mark Elphinstone dropped in to inquire.
Something had happened to the Old Man; he did not chatter now, and he seemed, except for occasional glorious flashes of bad temper, not to care what happened to his hotels. He would come strutting in, bark 'How's the lad, how's the lad--how much longer you going to take a free vacation on me, heh, heh?' and subside in an armchair by the window, looking out up the zigzag of Broadway, and for half an hour the two men would keep each other company in silence. Then he would grunt, 'Wasting time--wasting time--thought you brats were going to teach me this new stunt you call "efficiency". Huh!' And stump out.
Myron believed that, in this dark valley between bright crags of industry, he had found his brother.
He did not expect much of Ora now--though he did keep reminding himself that Ora really had paid back one of the dozen or so loans. When he had his secretary telephone to the press agent's office where Ora worked that 'Mr. Weagle was kind of under the weather' and would be glad if 'your Mr. Weagle could find a moment to drop in', Myron did not expect a response. But Ora came that evening, and when for the first time in his life he saw his older brother inferior to him in energy and determination, he was all friendliness.
'Don't see why you should get run down! Nothing to do but hand out room-keys and collect from the goats!' he jeered, but it was a kindly jeer, and he actually drew up the covers--which Myron had just pushed down because he was too hot. 'Say, old man, why didn't you put me on to this theatrical press-game before? It's the best sport of anything I've ever tackled. Oh God, what we put over! Did you see this morning's papers about Lizette Lilydale's engagement to the Grand Duke of Eisbeintafelberg?'
'Yes, I noticed it.'
'I'll bet you did. Some story! Of course she's never seen His Blooming Highness, but why let little . . .'
'You mean it's a fake? Why, I don't know that I entirely like that, Ora.'
'Now what the hell! Don't be silly! You advertise single rooms with bath in the hotel here for three dollars. Have you got one?'
'Well . . . Yes we have!'
'Who's occupying it?'
'Oh . . . a fellow.'
'By the year?'
'Well, sort of.'
'And haven't you ever served fresh peas out of a can?'
'Not exactly--we call 'em "green peas" then, not "fresh".'
'Oh, how very scrupulous, Mr. Pickwick.'
'Well, I guess maybe you win, Ora.'
'Look here, when the doc lets you out of this, why don't you get away for a while?'
'Oh, I couldn't. I'll have to get right back to work. . . .'
'Why? Do you think the "hotel-world", as you always call it, won't be able to get on without you? Guests just be sleeping in the street?'
'No, but . . .' Proudly: 'They depend on me. I'm going to organize a whole new system of chain purchasing.'
'Isn't that nice! I certainly do love to watch you kid yourself, Myron! You really like to work, and so you do nothing else. You take refuge in it. You're afraid of adventure, you're afraid of facing anything unfamiliar, and so you wall yourself in with a lot of audit-forms and inspection-reports. And yet you get a kick out of feeling superior to us lazy dogs, because you think you're more industrious, when you're simply more timid. Why don't you, for once, let go of the hotel desk and try to swim? Jump on a ship and go to Africa?'
'Oh, that's all nonsense!' Myron said feebly.
He wondered if it was all nonsense.
'Well, it's none of my business. Heaven knows why I should horn in, old man. I'm certainly sorry to see you knocked out. What can I do to cheer you up? Shall I bring in a couple of pretty actresses from our shop? Like me to come and read to you?'
'Oh, thanks, no. Just want to rest.' Myron was so touched that he hinted, 'By the way, kid, how are you off for money?'
'Well, I didn't like to speak of it, but . . . You've been so darn decent to me, and I've been wretchedly slow about paying you back, but . . .'
Jump on a ship and go to Africa? No, that would be too much. But the kid was right. He had stuck too closely to his knitting. He might take a little more time off and go . . . But where? And it wasn't so much fun to travel alone. Now if he were only married. Well. But somehow he never seemed to meet women who were not hotel employees or guests, nor to think of them otherwise than as employees or guests. What had ever become of that lovely Tansy Quill? Ora had told him that when he had left Florida, six years ago, Tansy had been blooming and, Ora understood, engaged to a man with whom she was immediately going out West. Myron hoped she was well. But . . .
Where did he want to go? Why should he go anywhere? What he wanted to do, this minute, was to get back to planning the systematized purchase of knife-cleaning machines, pilot valves, butter-cutters . . .
Butter-cutter, cutter-butter, butter-cutter, with a bath, at lowest rates . . .
Oh, lord, his head! No, he wasn't well yet, not by a long shot. He had to go away. But where?
He knew, suddenly. To Black Thread Centre, to the familiar shops and friendly citizens, to the little American House where he had made his start, to the fields that would be kindly with late May when he came out of the imprisonment of sickness, and most of all to his mother, whom he had not seen since the trip to New York he had given her two years ago. He had seen neither his father nor Black Thread in seven years. It would be, he admitted shyly, sort of fun to show off to the men he had known as kids--to let them know, if they pressed him, that he was making six thousand dollars a year and apartment free!
Oh, that was childish.
Showing off, like a circus ring-master.
But it would be fun!
And so, for that least dignified and best of reasons, he prepared to go to Black Thread for a fortnight's vacation.
On the day he left, Mark Elphinstone called him in to bark that he was to take not a fortnight but two or three months, on pay.
'That's the only way you can get well. If you're here where I can get my hands on you and shove work on you, I'll do it. So you damn well stay away for at least two months!' yelped Elphinstone.
And that, Myron admitted to himself, was perfectly true.
Myron looked over his wardrobe. It was extensive; it had to be, in the hotel business. It was almost too extensive, for he would never dare to appear on the streets of a jeering Yankee village in the voluptuous morning coat and striped wedding-trousers he had worn as a desk-clerk at the Westward. Yet he bought seven new and expensive ties, white flannels and white buckskin shoes, a bathing-suit, very expensive, and a vaguely useful sweater, and it cannot be said that the researcher into Scientific Purchasing According to Standards showed himself any more scientific when he got into the hands of an uppish haberdashery clerk than any other oaf. He stood meekly and held up the tie which the clerk had so deftly twisted and cheeped, 'Yes, I guess that would look nice.'