“Honest, Mr. Webber—if I could get somebody like you to help me with this story—to write it down for me the way it ought to be-I’d—I’d”—for a moment the waiter struggled with his lower nature, then magnanimity got the better of him and he cried out with t he decided air of a man who is willing to make a generous bargain and stick to it—“I’d go fifty-fifty with him! I’d—I’d be willing to give him half!...And there’s a fortune in it!” he cried. “I go to the movies and I read True Story Magazine—and I never seen a story like it! It’s got ‘em all beat! I’ve thought about it for years, ever since the guy told it to me—and I know I’ve got a gold mine here if I could only write it down!...It’s—it’s----”
Now, indeed, the waiter’s struggle with his sense of caution became painful to watch. He was evidently burning with a passionate desire to reveal his secret, but he was also obviously tormented by doubts and misgivings lest he should recklessly give away to a comparative stranger a treasure which the other might appropriate to his own use. I I is manner was very much that of a man who has sailed strange seas and seen, in some unknown coral island, the fabulous buried cache of forgotten pirates’ plundering, and who is now being torn between two desperate needs—his need of partnership, of outward help, and his imperative need of secrecy and caution. The fierce interplay of these two powers discrete was waged there on the open battlefield of the waiter’s countenance. And in the end he took the obvious way out. Like an explorer who will take from his pocket an uncut gem of tremendous size and value and cunningly hint that in a certain place he knows of there are many more like it, the waiter decided to tell a little part of his story without revealing it.
“I—I can’t tell you the whole thing tonight,” he said apologetically. “Some other night, maybe, when you’ve got more time. But just to give you an idea of what’s in it”—he looked round stealthily to make sure he was in no danger of being overheard, then bent over and lowered his voice to an impressive whisper—“just to give you an idea, now—there’s one scene in the story where a woman puts an advertisement in the paper that she will give a ten-dollar gold piece and as much liquor as he can drink to any man who comes round to see her the next day!” After imparting this sensational bit of information, the waiter regarded his patron with glittering eyes. “Now!” said the waiter, straightening up with a gesture of finality. “You never heard of anything like that, did you? You ain’t never seen that in a story!”
George, after a baffled pause, admitted feebly that he had not. Then, when the waiter continued to regard him feverishly, with a look that made it plain that he was supposed to say something more, he inquired doubtfully whether this interesting event had really happened in Armenia.
“Sure!” cried the waiter, nodding vigorously. “That’s what I’m telling you! The whole thing happens in Armenia!” He paused again, torn fiercely between his caution and his desire to go on, his feverish eyes almost burning holes through his questioner. “It’s—it’s—” he struggled for a moment more, then surrendered; abjectly—“well, I’ll tell you,” he said quietly, leaning forward, with his hands resting on the table in an attitude of confidential intimacy. “The idea of the story runs like this. You got this rich dame to begin with, see?”
He paused and looked at George inquiringly. George did not: know what was expected of him, so he nodded to show that his min had grasped this important fact, and said hesitatingly:
“In Armenia?”
“Sure! Sure!” The waiter nodded. “This dame comes from over there—she’s got a big pile of dough—I guess she’s the richest dame in Armenia. And then she falls for this guy, see?” he went on. “He’s nuts about her, and he comes to see her every night. The way the guy told it to me, she lives up at the top of this big house—so every night the guy comes and climbs up there to see her—oh, a hell of a long ways up”—the waiter said—“thirty floors or more!”
“In Armenia?” George asked feebly.
“Sure!” cried the waiter, a little irritably. “That’s where it all takes place! That’s what I’m telling you!”
He paused and looked searchingly at George, who finally asked, with just the proper note of hesitant thoughtfulness, why the lover had had to climb up so far.
“Why,” said the waiter impatiently, “because the dame’s old man wouldn’t let him in! That was the only way the guy could get to her! The old man shut her up way up there at the top of the house because he didn’t want the dame to get married!...But then,” he went on triumphantly, “the old man dies, see? He dies and leaves all his dough to this dame—and then she ups and marries this guy!”
Dramatically, with triumph written in his face, the waiter paused to let this startling news soak into the consciousness of his listener. Then he continued:
“They lived together for a while—the dame’s in love with him—and for a year or two they’re sitting pretty. But then the guy begins to drink—he’s a booze hound, see?—only she don’t know it—she’s been able to hold him down for a year or two after they get married…Then he begins to step out again…The first thing you know he’s staying out all night and running round with a lot of hot blondes, see?...Well, then, you see what’s coming now, don’t you?” said the waiter quickly and eagerly.