For weeks after that, though, I carried four hundred on the books with a minus sign in front. Then I crossed it off altogether. Not a word from the Morans. Nothing doing in the way of buying booms around Sucker Brook. But you got to stand some losses now and then if you're goin' to keep in line for an occasional big cleanup. And, anyway, it was worth while to head Elisha P. Bayne's boob list. You ought to see the sarcastic smiles he used to shoot over when we'd meet and he'd ask if I'd heard from, my dancing friends yet. Say, I expect I furnished the one joke of his life.
I did bank on gettin' back something from Millie, though, if only a money order for ten on account. But all through June and July, clear into August, not a whisper. Whatever her scheme had been, it must have gone wrong.
And then here one mornin' last week as I'm gazin' idle out the front window onto 42d-st., up rolls a taxi, and out climbs a couple that you might have said had been shot over by aëroplane from the Rue de Rivoli. Couldn't tell that so much from her getup as from the Frenchy hat and boulevard whiskers he's sportin'. First brick red imperial I ever remember seein' too. It ain't until they've climbed the stairs and walked in the studio door, though, that I even had a glimmer as to who they was. But one glance at them black eyes of the lady's was enough.
"Well, I'll be singed!" says I. "The Morans!"
"Show him, Tim," says she. At which Timothy extracts from the inside of his silk tile a billboard poster announcing the comin', for a limited engagement only, of those European tango wizards, Mons. and Mlle. Moran.
"I cabled our agents we wouldn't sail until we'd seen a sample of the paper," says Millie.
"Did we?" says Millie. "My word! Why, when we hit London the craze was just striking in over there. We was among the advance guard. Say, we hadn't been over ten days before we headed the bill at the Alcazar as the famous New York tango artists. Inside of two weeks more we were doing three turns a night, with all kinds of private dates on the side. Say, would you believe it? I've danced with a real Duke! And Tim--why if it hadn't been for me on the spot there'd been no telling what would have happened. Those English society women are the limit. Then Paris. Ah, _ma chère Paris_! Say, I'm a bear for Paris. Didn't we soak the price on when that Moulin Rouge guy came after us, though? _Ma foi!_ Say, he used to weep when be paid me the money. '_Mon Dieu!_ Five hundred francs for so small a _danse_!' But he paid. Trust Millie Moran! Say, I collected a few glad rags over there too. What about this one?"