, ain't it, though?" says Roscoe, very sarcastic. "The biggest
parlor-dancing outfit in America busts up and you can't be seen, even,
for two whole days! The stage at the Royal ain't notified that your
piece is called off; the De-Luxe Hotel don't get no notice that you
ain't going to appear; and all the info' I could get when I called up
your flat is that you was gone out!"

"And so I was!" says I, indignant.

"Then I call up Jim's hotel and they say he's gone!" shouted Roscoe.
"Hell!" says he, forgetting that me and the telephone operator both was
ladies. "Hell! What kind of way is that to treat a guy you're paying
three thou. a year to for getting your picture in the paper every time
you sneeze?"

I didn't have any comeback about that, for there was certainly some
truth in what he says. But I wasn't to be put down so easy.

"I guess I know my business, Ros," I says, sharp, "or I wouldn't be
living in a swell flat on the Drive, all fixed up like a furniture shop,
with a limousine and two fool dogs, and earned every cent of it myself,
and no one can say a word against me, if I didn't know my own business.
So there!"

"Looka here, Mary," says Roscoe. "There's going to be a lot of talk up
and down the Rialto if you don't come across with some explanation. I'm
comin' right up to get it."

"No, you don't," I says, for I hadn't had my facial massage in three
days, and, after all, Roscoe is a man, even if press agents ain't
exactly human. "No, you don't, Ros!" I says. "If I gotter make some
statement, I'll write the dope myself and you can fix it up after--see?
It's a big story, but delicate, and I'm going to have no
misunderstanding over it."

"All right, Mary," says Ros. "But you get the stuff ready for the
morning papers. I'll be up for it."

Then he hung up and I knew I had to come across. Besides, Ma come in
just then; and while I may boss my press agent, and even sometimes my
partner and Musette and the two dogs, Ma sorter gets my goat. Ma had on
a elegant rose-silk negligee I give her; and as usual, she had it ruined
by tying a big gingham apron over it, which made her look the size of a
house, but sort of comforting. She stopped by the bed and set both her
hands on her lips--the way she does when she don't mean to be answered
back.

"Now, Mary Gilligan, you get right up and wash your teeth!" says Ma,
"and do your three handsprings and other exercises, decent and proper;
and then eat the breakfast I got coo