I am an actor out of employment, forty-one years of
age, short, stout, and bald, married to a woman I would like to be
quit of, and I am writing myself a play in which the Shuberts intend
to star me, or in which I intend the Shuberts to star me."
"Very well, Mr. Ladley," I said, trying to enter into the spirit of
the thing, and, God knows, seeing no humor in it. "Then you'll like
your soda from the ice-box?"
"Soda? For what?"
"For your whisky and soda, before you go to bed, sir."
"Oh, certainly, yes. Bring the soda. And--just a moment, Mrs. Pitman:
Mr. Holcombe is a total abstainer, and has always been so. It is
Ladley, not Holcombe, who takes this abominable stuff."
I said I quite understood, but that Mr. Ladley could skip a night, if
he so wished. But the little gentleman would not hear to it, and when
I brought the soda, poured himself a double portion. He stood looking
at it, with his face screwed up, as if the very odor revolted him.
"The chances are," he said, "that Ladley--that I--having a nasty piece
of work to do during the night, would--will take a larger drink than
usual.
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