the Arrow-collar man
Meets the D’jer-kiss girl
On the smokeless Sante Fé
Her Pebeco smile
Her Lucile style
De dum da-de-dum one day—
(She changes to a whistle and leans forward to turn on the taps, but is startled by three loud banging noises in the pipes. Silence for a moment—then she puts her mouth down near the spigot as if it were a telephone)
JULIE: Hello! (No answer) Are you a plumber? (No answer) Are you the water department? (One loud, hollow bang) What do you want? (No answer) I believe you’re a ghost. Are you? (No answer) Well, then, stop banging. (She reaches out and turns on the warm tap. No water flows. Again she puts her mouth down close to the spigot) If you’re the plumber that’s a mean trick. Turn it on for a fellow. (Two loud, hollow bangs) Don’t argue! I want water—water! Water!
(A young man’s head appears in the window—a head decorated with a slim mustache and sympathetic eyes. These last stare, and though they can see nothing but many fishermen with nets and much crimson ocean, they decide him to speak)
THE YOUNG MAN: Some one fainted?
JULIE: (Starting up, all ears immediately) Jumping cats!
THE YOUNG MAN: (Helpfully) Water’s no good for fits.
JULIE: Fits! Who said anything about fits!
THE YOUNG MAN: You said something about a cat jumping
JULIE: (Decidedly) I did not!
THE YOUNG MAN: Well, we can talk it over later, Are you ready to go out? Or do you still feel that if you go with me just now everybody will gossip?
JULIE: (Smiling) Gossip! Would they? It’d be more than gossip—it’d be a regular scandal.
THE YOUNG MAN: Here, you’re going it a little strong. Your family might be somewhat disgruntled—but to the pure all things are suggestive. No one else would even give it a thought, except a few old women. Come on.
JULIE: You don’t know what you ask.
THE YOUNG MAN: Do you imagine we’d have a crowd following us?
JULIE: A crowd? There’d be a special, all-steel, buffet train leaving New York hourly.
THE YOUNG MAN: Say, are you house-cleaning?
JULIE: Why?
THE YOUNG MAN: I see all the pictures are off the walls.
JULIE: Why, we never have pictures in this room.
THE YOUNG MAN: Odd, I never heard of a room without pictures or tapestry or panelling or something.
JULIE: There’s not even any furniture in here.
THE YOUNG MAN: What a strange house!
JULIE: It depend on the angle you see it from.
THE YOUNG MAN: (Sentimentally) It’s so nice talking to you like this—when you’re merely a voice. I’m rather glad I can’t see you.
JULIE; (Gratefully) So am I.
THE YOUNG MAN: What color are you wearing?
JULIE: (After a critical survey of her shoulders) Why, I guess it’s a sort of pinkish white.
THE YOUNG MAN: Is it becoming to you?
JULIE: Very. It’s—it’s old. I’ve had it for a long while.
THE YOUNG MAN: I thought you hated old clothes.
JULIE: I do but this was a birthday present and I sort of have to wear it.
THE YOUNG MAN: Pinkish-white. Well I’ll bet it’s divine. Is it in style?
JULIE: Quite. It’s very simple, standard model.
THE YOUNG MAN: What a voice you have! How it echoes! Sometimes I shut my eyes and seem to see you in a far desert island calling for me. And I plunge toward you through the surf, hearing you call as you stand there, water stretching on both sides of you—
(The soap slips from the side of the tub and splashes in. The young man blinks)
YOUNG MAN: What was that? Did I dream it?
JULIE: Yes. You’re—you’re very poetic, aren’t you?
THE YOUNG MAN: (Dreamily) No. I do prose. I do verse only when I am stirred.
JULIE: (Murmuring) Stirred by a spoon—
THE YOUNG MAN: I have always loved poetry. I can remember to this day the first poem I ever learned by heart. It was “Evangeline.”
JULIE: That’s a fib.
THE YOUNG MAN: Did I say “Evangeline”? I meant “The Skeleton in Armor.”
JULIE: I’m a lowbrow. But I can remember my first poem. It had one verse:
Parker and Davis
Sittin’ on a fence
Tryne to make a dollar
Outa fif-teen cents.
THE YOUNG MAN: (Eagerly) Are you growing fond of literature?
JULIE: If it’s not too ancient or complicated or depressing. Same way with people. I usually like ’em not too ancient or complicated or depressing.
THE YOUNG MAN: Of course I’ve read enormously. You told me last night that you were very fond of Walter Scott.
JULIE: (Considering) Scott? Let’s see. Yes, I’ve read Ivanhoe and The Last of the Mohicans.
THE YOUNG MAN: That’s by Cooper.
JULIE: (Angrily) “Ivanhoe” is? You’re crazy! I guess I know. I read it.
THE YOUNG MAN: The Last of the Mohicans is by Cooper.
JULIE: What do I care! I like O. Henry. I don’t see how he ever wrote those stories. Most of them he wrote in prison. The Ballad of Reading Gaol he made up in prison.
THE YOUNG MAN: (Biting his lip) Literature—literature! How much it has meant to me!
JULIE: Well, as Gaby Deslys said to Mr. Bergson, with my looks and your brains there’s nothing we couldn’t do.
THE YOUNG MAN: (Laughing) You certainly are hard to keep up with. One day you’re awfully pleasant and the next you’re in a mood. If I didn’t understand your temperament so well—
JULIE: (Impatiently) Oh, you’re one of these amateur character-readers, are you? Size people up in five minutes and then look wise whenever they’re mentioned.
