Then his eyes twinkled at me in the nicest way, and I twinkled back, and after that I knew the cop hadn't a chance of running me in, which was a big relief, for my hands felt like a couple of clams, about then, I was so scared.

"So you ain't mad?" I says to Mr. Langton.

"Not a bit!" he says. "I think it can all be straightened out. But of course you understand that what you did was a trifle--er--irregular. If you will come down to headquarters to-morrow and meet the members of our board, we will be glad to a.s.sist you in forming a more regular organization."

And I said I would, and then we all said good-by real friendly, even the cop. And I felt awful sort of excited and scared and glad that Ruby had pulled that stuff, for if she hadn't I might actually of gone to jail, I could see that plain enough now! And so, to let off a little steam when they had all gone I sat down to my souvenir and started off "Over There in Four Handed Arrangement." Then just as I had got it going good, Ma, who was reading the Sunday paper, gave a holler. I turned around quick, and there her eyes was popping out of her head and glued to the front page.

"Jim!" she shrieked. "My Gawd!"

Well, how I reached that paper I don't know, but somehow I did and there it was right in the middle column.

"American Dancer Now An Ace. James La Tour Brings Down Three Enemy Planes In One Afternoon."

Oh, my heavens! Didn't I yell, just! And me knocking the newspapers and the censor. And all the time Jim had been merely too busy to write!

III

HOLY SMOKES

I

Palatial Apartments, 0256 Riverside Drive, New York City, U. S. A. America.

(Kindly forward if on tower) Pa.s.sed by censor.

DEAR MARY:

Well say little one, I am certainly glad your health, new contracts and the two fool dogs is both doing so nicely and as for the cigarettes they were O.K. not to say swell. Only dearie, it ain't hardly necessary to have my monogram on the next lot for Fritz has never waited for me to catch up to him so's I could offer him one and he's about the only person would be impressed by the J. La T. because our own boys kid me about any little thing like that on account of their knowing me to be your dancing-partner and not to mention husband and they are still slow to realize that it takes a real he-man to swing you around my neck twenty times like we do in the Tango de Lux, and I have to continually keep showing them.

Then another good reason for no gold monogram is that the price of same would cover quite a bunch of cheap smokes and dearie handing them about is more to me than my own personal vanity and would be the same with my shirts if necessary, while over here in distant Belgium I realise it was also a waste to have them embroidered on the sleeve because the dam chinaman always used to mark them up with monograms of his own anyways.

Speaking of money we used to spend on un-essentials before the war, I tell you dearie we certainly learn in the army, especially since getting into this recaptured territory, that many objects we would have swore could not be done without is laid off like the extra people after the ball-room scene and n.o.body misses them until somebody sends over one of them--like them monogramed smokes of yours. Immediately I got them I commenced to think about little old B'way and dry-martinis and my little old roadster with the purple body and the red wheels, and us dancing at the palatial with the juice full on us, red and green, violet and amber. Oh Kid! it made me home-sick!! But then we got a order to start on cleaning up after them Botches again and so I forgot everything but you and my new step--which was forward, double line!

Well, sweetie, now about this smokes question. Of course your Ma having been with the circus is used to giving up things, as naturally in a trapese-act such as hers used to be she would need all the nerve she had and even eating a welsh rabbit would of been a wild party to her. The center ring is no joke and forty feet above it on a trapese from the center canvas less so. But trapese work has not yet been offered to the Allies except mebbe Itily on them mountains and any lady which starts a society to keep smokes from soldiers may be strong in morals but is surely weak in the head, which I never knew your Ma to be before. She being always not only a lady but a great little picker on contracts and what would we of done without her that time Goldringer tried to slip the "satisfactory to the Goldringer Theatrical Productions Corp." stuff over on us and she spotted it?

But for the love of liberty can this idea of hers about it not being good for the boys to smoke and make her quit worrying about us tearing around France learning no new sins. For sweetie the crimes a man can committ on whats left of his pay after the alotment is took out and the insurance and the liberty bonds instalments would be sanctioned by anybody in the country even if his coller b.u.t.toned up the back. For take it or leave it, liquor, ladies and lyrics is as expensive here as north of 42nd str., and our pay dont go for them even after distracting the above.

Why me and a fellow went off on leave to a general store in a town which I couldn't spell for you much less mention it, even if permitted. But anyways we went to it and Mac bought some winterweights and they was four-fifty a pair and no better than the U.S. seventy-five cent kind, and I got two pair socks a dollar per each and two bananas for 25c, which only goes to show everything here is terrible expensive except nessessaties. So dont let your Ma worry over me spending my remaining nickel on vice.

I note what you say about the way folks at home get your goat by pa.s.sing the buck on war-reliefs--if it's chocolet they say they've just given to tobacco, if it's tobacco they just bought a W.S.S., and if it's W.S.S.

they just got a hatful of bonds, or if it's bonds they just give their last cent to chocolet--pa.s.sing the buck all along the line. Well dearie, I guess mebbe that's their way of getting a little war-relief of their own, but as you say why would they need any relief when the fact that they are for the most part without cooties ought to be relief enough in itself? Let alone having to dodge only taxi cabs and bill-collectors instead of sh.e.l.ls. Only of course we dont have to do that now, only sh.e.l.l-holes, and dodge them in a hurry to get one last look at the German army before it puts on its good old soup and fish--or whatever the German for civilized clothing is, that is if they have any.

But you are right girlie, to boost the smokes. We'll need them for a long while yet. I know you have been obliged to keep your own from your Ma and what with not really caring for peppermints it has been hard all these years. But while her trapeese work stood alone in its day and no one on Broadway is more respected at this writing and as a mother-in-law I have no complaint on her outside of her wearing my dress-pumps, this one time she is dead wrong. Soldiers are not always acrobats and they do need to smoke and your Ma will put herself in the small-time reform cla.s.s if she dont look out. When I think of the stuff I seen up and down Broadway and elsewhere in my days which could be reformed and no one miss it, I get hot when I hear this talk about keeping the army pure. Take it or leave it, but the truth is the Huns has kept us pure alright--they sweat all the wickedness out of us running after them.

But to get back to the tobacco stuff. Dont let nothing hinder you from bothering everybody you see to send smokes. We'll use 'em up never fear!

And if you was to be walking down the Avenue or mebbe Broadway sometime and a box in your hand and asking for Smoke Funds or something whichever way its done--and your Ma was to fight her way through the howling mob which would undoubtedly be surrounding you on account of course the best known parlor-dancing act in America and the world wouldn't walk out looking for funds and not draw a mob which was only too glad to see you for five cents in the smoke-fund-box instead of two dollars in the box office--well, anyways, if your Ma was to force her way through this mob which with her weight she could do easily, why she would forgive you in the end if not right there on the street, and I believe that a hand-organ would start and play hearts and flowers at that.

Anyways, keep up the good work only never mind the monograms as long as they taste like tobacco and can be lit. And if you fall out with Ma just tell her this story which I will tell you and she will see mebbe G.o.d didn't put tobacco in the world merely for little slum children to pluck on their two weeks vacation in all its green beauty.

Well, the story is like this sweetie, and I will write it as good as I can and if it seems comicle go ahead and get a good laugh only take it or leave it, it was no comedy at the time. But if you was to news it around mebbe the folks at home would start dropping something beside coppers in them soda-fountain boxes you was talking about, and commence trying to squeeze a quarter through the slot now and again. Come to think of it, the biggest thing a copper penny can buy is the feeling a person gets from dropping one in a Belgium milk bottle or home for crippled children or Merry Xmas for the Salvation Army. You know the cheap chest it gives you. Many a liberty bond has been left in the Govts. hands by a prospective buyer stumbling on a "drop a penny" box in a cigar store on his way to the cupon-cutters, or I miss my guess. I've done the same in my day and the man who says he aint raised his own stock with himself by giving a nickle to the Newsboys Annual Outing is as big a liar as the guy which says he never loved another girl. And if pennies was to be cut out of the currency a whole lot of cheap philanthropists would have to make their conscience work or fight.

Well, anyways you go right on boosting the smoke-fund and never mind Ma.

She'll learn different some day.

Now about this story I was going to tell you. First off leave me explain that the drinking regulations over here is different to uniforms than on the Rialto and America. I hunch it that the managers and booking agents and so forth in the U. S. Military Amus.e.m.e.nts Co. inc. figure that a few of the rules have to be let down while the big show is on. Same as the stars can lean against a No Smoking sign on the big time and roll a makin's quite openly. So when on leave and even sometimes in the dressing-room or I should say rest-billets a bottle of wine is not out of order. Very different sweetie, from the night Goldringer gave me in my uniform the big send off at the Ritz with all the newspaper bird and the leads and everybody and me and you the only sober person present, do you remember?

Well, its no news to you to say that I havent forgot I am a professional dancer and good condition is my middle name for my future, not to mention my present contract with Uncle Sam and that a sober man is worth more to both--also to you and myself.

But the Allies dont look on liquor like we do. As a matter of fact they seldom look on what we would call liquor at all, hardly ever getting a glympse of anything hard such as rye, scotch or gin, and a c.o.c.ktail being practically a stranger and a repulsive one at that to them. But wine is something different again. Which while with us it is the high sign for a big party and flowing only in extremely good cla.s.ses such as at the lobster layouts--leaving aside dago spaghetti parlors when folks is resting--with them it is a common matter and everybody drinks it and while there aint much kick to it, still it has it all over the water we get and coming under their idea of necessities, is low in price. Of course by wine I do not mean champagne like we used to for publicity purposes order for our dinner in public, but stuff made out of common grapes, I guess, and with the seltzer left out.

Well, dearie, the reason I hand you all this info. is that the story I am going to tell you got started because of this wine. "In Venus Veritas" you know or so they say, and I confess that in trying to get a little kick out of the stuff I got sort of lit and that's what caused me the story.

II

WELL, we was sort of waiting off stage as you might call it, in a little town in Belgium, our act having just been on and a pretty lively one it was and the Captain give us a pretty good hand on it, although as you know the audience didn't wait for the finish but left us their orchestra seats or front line trenches which we moved into and then give up to the next number on the bill and come back to watch from the wings, or would of only we was a little too far off.

Well, the Capt. felt so good and the water was so bad that he sent a delegation back for a little liquid refreshment. They have big jugs over here like the mola.s.ses is kept in at home only here it is frankly boose and no one pretends any different. And the game is this. The one which volunteers for this dangerous work, if broke himself, takes a swig or so out of the jug he is bringing back which it dont show on account of their not being transparent and so the officer dont get any surprise until toward the end of the jug and even so may think he took more than he had thought. The private will take only a little from each but if there is jugs enough many a mickle makes quite a jag.

Well, me and a fellow named McFarland and a French kid called Ceasare was each given two of these mola.s.ses jugs which looked like props, and was sent off to a village some place in congnito for you couldn't p.r.o.nounce it. And we was glad enough to go because among other things we was short of smokes. Some cleaver actor had accidintly lit the last mess fire with a bale of Virginias and there wasnt hardly a smoke among us.

You just figure out how it would feel if you was to have a bath and do your exercise and eat a swell breakfast and then realise there wasnt a pill in the house! Think sweetie, how your brest would swell up with alarm, and the royal fit you would throw while the elevator boy was on his way to the corner drug store! Why figure even the way you feel once you get a cigarette in your face and then cant find a match for two whole minutes. Well, take it or leave it, I tell you that feeling is a whole lot multiplied on the victorious fields of France when little friend cigarette is notable by its absence. A empty house on an opening night is nothing to it. So you can see where me and Ceasare and Mac was glad to get in the neighborhood of one, leaving even all considerations of the wine aside.

Well, we started out carrying each two jugs and as we went the fellow which acts as usher, or sentry on the road hollers at us do we know the way and Ceasare and him jabbered at each other in French in the remarkable fluent way they do over here. And Ceasare laughed and when we asked what it was he said the guy told him to look out Fritz didnt get us on the open road, which was certainly some joke for of course we hadn't been able to get near enough to Fritz to hear him in some time.

So we laughed, too, for if any snipers had managed to stay behind and opened up on us we could of spotted them and wiped them out if they had kept it up.

Well sweetie, there wasnt any road exactly toward the place we was bound for on account of our having done considerable trespa.s.sing on private property and taking little notice of fences whether barbed-wire or civilian or sh.e.l.l-holes or trenches but having went straight ahead. And after the last 5 years on upper Broadway you will realize it comes easy enough to me, I often having come unharmed from the Claridge to the Astor, and the French fields has nothing on that crossing. So to me that first part of the trip was as little or nothing and I was the cheerfulist of the party though we was all pretty cheerful and singing a little song of Ceasare's which I dont know what it means but I guess I'd better not write it in for fear you would.

Well, it was late afternoon and awful cold for the time of year, and I was thinking that at home the frost was on the pumpkin and the pumpkin would soon be in the pie and the turkey was about to get the axe and Halloween was due and a lot of nice things like that. And after a lot of kilomets had been covered, we come to the funny little town which looked like the back-drop to the opening seane in a musical comedy only all shot to pieces like it had been on the road with a No. 2 company for a long and successful tower.

Well, we come to it, anyhow, and being on duty in a way as far as them jugs went--we went with them and took what we could afford our ownselves while we watched papa Ceasare fill 'em up. Then the tobacco dept.

claimed our attention only to find there wasn't any!

Well, sweetie, I have tried to put over the way I felt at these glad tidings and the censor wouldn't of stood for it, so out she goes! But I felt that way all right and so did Mac and Ceasare.

"I'll no beleeve ut!" says Mack which he talks a funny kind of way like Harry Lauder. "I'll no beleeve ut--theer must be some someplace aboot!"

"Say la guyer!" says Ceasare and gives a shrug, although he was a lot more disappointed than Mac on account of Mac's really caring more for liquor than smoke any day. "Say la Guyer!" he says, and asks his pa why it happened and his pa tells him and he translates it to Mac and me.

"He say a young lady have took it all only hour ago for free to soldiers," he explains.

And take it or leave it, but I was certainly a little sore for although I am the first to believe in the other fellow getting it, still this time we all felt like the other fellow was us, and no doubt she had took it to the nearest camp or hut, and so I ast which way was it she went for mebbe we would get some of it. And then come a big surprise.

"No 'ospitil here!" Ceasare explained again. "An no 'ut! It ees too soon after we take it. Then papa says she is first cross red lady we have seen and she speak in French!"