George had no notion, but he nodded his head wisely.
“Well, that’s what happens,” said the waiter. “The first thing you know the guy ups and leaves the dame and takes with him a lot of her dough and joolry…He just disappears—just like the earth had opened and swallowed him up!” the waiter declared, evidently pleased with his poetic simile. “He leaves her cold, and the poor dame’s almost out of her head. She does everything—she hires detectives—she offers rewards—she puts ads in the paper begging him to come back…But it’s no use—she can’t find him—the guy’s lost…Well, then,” the waiter continued, “three years go by while the poor dame sits and eats her heart out about this guy…And then”—here he paused impressively, and it was evident that he was now approaching the crisis—“then she has an idea!” He paused again, briefly, to allow this extraordinary accomplishment on the part of his heroine to be given due consideration, and in a moment, very simply and quietly, he concluded: “She opens up a night club.”
The waiter fell silent now, and stood at ease with his hands clasped quietly before him, with the modest air of a man who has given his all and is reasonably assured it is enough. It now became compellingly apparent that his listener was supposed to make some appropriate comment, and that the narrator could not continue with his tale until this word had been given. So George mustered his failing strength, moistened his dry lips with the end of his tongue, and finally said in a halting voice:
“In—in Armenia?”
The waiter now took the question, and the manner of its utterance, as signs of his listener’s paralyzed surprise. He nodded his head victoriously and cried:
“Sure! You see, the dame’s idea is this—she knows the guy’s a booze hound and that sooner or later he’ll come to a place where there’s lots of bar-flies and fast women. That kind always hang together—sure they do!...So she opens up this joint—she sinks a lot of dough in it—it’s the swellest joint they got over there. And then she puts this ad in the paper.”
George was not sure that he had heard aright, but the waiter was looking at him with an expression of such exuberant elation that he took a chance and said:
“What ad?”
“Why,” said the waiter, “this come-on ad that I was telling you about. You see, that’s the big idea—that’s the plan the dame dopes out to get him back. So she puts this ad in the paper saying that any man who comes to her joint the next day will be given a ten-dollar gold piece and all the liquor he can drink. She figures that will bring him. She knows the guy is probably down and out by this time and when he reads this ad he’ll show up…And that’s just what happens. When she comes down next morning she finds a line twelve blocks long outside, and sure enough, here’s this guy the first one in the line. Well, she pulls him out of the line and tells the cashier to give all the rest of ‘em their booze and their ten bucks, but she tells this guy he ain’t gonna get nothing. ‘What’s the reason I ain’t?’ he says—you see, the dame is wearing a heavy veil so he don’t recognise her. Well, she tells him she thinks there’s something phoney about him—gives him the old line, you know—tells him to come upstairs with her so she can talk to him and find out if he’s O.K…Do you get it?”
George nodded vaguely. “And then what?” he said.
“Why,” the waiter cried, “she gets him up there—and then”—he leaned forward again with fingers resting on the table, and his voice sank to an awed whisper—”she—takes—off—her—veil!”
There was a reverential silence as the waiter, still leaning forward with his fingers arched upon the table, regarded his listener with bright eyes and a strange little smile. Then he straightened up slowly, stood erect, still smiling quietly, and a long, low sigh like the coming on of evening came from his lips, and he was still. The silence drew itself out until it became painful, and at length George squirmed wretchedly in his chair and asked:
“And then—then what?”
The waiter was plainly taken aback. He stared in frank astonishment, stunned speechless by the realisation that anybody could be stupid.
“Why”—he finally managed to say with an expression of utter disillusion—“that’s all! Don’t you see? That’s all there is! The dame takes off her veil—he recognises her—and there you are!...She’s found him!...She’s got him back!...They’re together again!...That’s the story!” He was hurt, impatient, almost angry as he went on: “Why, anybody ought to be able to see----”