Part 6 (1/2)

”It's different,” he said. ”Entirely different. I have evolved a different form. The trouble with novelists is their form. It's their form, if you see what I mean. In this book, I have taken an entirely different form: It's evolved from the Satyricon of Petronius.”

”Ooh,” she said. ”Ooh. Exciting!”

”A good deal of the scene,” he said, ”is laid in Egypt. I think they're about ready for it.”

”How gorgeous!” she said. ”I simply love anything about Egypt. I'm just crazy to go there. Have you ever been?”

”No,” he said. ”I'm sick of traveling. It's the same thing everywhere. People giving parties. Terrible.”

”Oh, I know,” she said. ”It must be awful. Look, I don't want you to think I'm being awfully personal, but I was just thinking I'd simply love to have you come up to the house for tea some time. I wonder if you would.”

”G.o.d, I'm through for the year,” he said. ”This is the last time they get me out.”

”But just quietly,” she said. ”Just a few people that are crazy about your things, too. Or just n.o.body, if you like.”

”For G.o.d's sake, when would I have any time?” he said.

”Well, just in case you ever do,” she said, ”it's in the telephone book. D. G. Waldron. Do you think you can remember that or shall I write it down?”

”Don't write it,” he said. ”I never carry women's addresses around with me. It's hot as h.e.l.l in here. I'm going to duck. Well, good-bye.”

”Oh, are you going?” she said. ”Well, good-bye, then. I can't tell you how exciting it's been, meeting you and all. I hope to goodness I haven't bored you to death, raving about your books. But if you knew how I read them and read them! I simply can't wait to tell everybody I've really met Freeman Pawling!”

”Not at all,” he said.

”And any time you're not just terribly busy,” she said, ”it's in the telephone book. You know!”

”Well, good-bye,” he said.

He was out the door in eight seconds flat, with no time out for farewells to his hostess.

The great admirer crossed the room to the tea-table, and clutched the hostess by her weary and flaccid hand.

”Oh, my dear,” she said, ”it was just simply too thrilling for anything. Oh, he's charming!”

”Isn't he?” said the hostess. ”I knew you'd think so, too.”

The New Yorker, October 9, 1926.

Travelogue.

The woman in the spangled black dress left the rest of the party, and made room on the sofa for the sunburned young man with the quiet eyes.

”You just sit yourself right down here this minute,” she said. ”And give an account of yourself. The idea! Running away for nearly two years, and not even a post-card out of you! Aren't you ashamed? Answer Muvver. Izzun you tebble shame you'self?”

”I'm rotten about writing letters,” he said. ”I'm sorry. I guess I'm hopeless. I always mean to write, and I never seem to get around to it. It isn't because I don't think of people. It's just I'm terrible about writing letters.”

”Where have you been, anyway?” she said. ”Nearly two years! Where dat bad boy been teepin' himself?”

”Well, I was in Arabia, mostly,” he said.

”You're crazy,” she said. ”Just simply crazy. What on earth did you want to go to a place like that for?”

”I don't know,” he said. ”I just sort of thought I'd like to see it.”

”Oh, I know,” she said. ”You don't have to tell me. I'm just like you. I love traveling. Freddy always says, just give me a couple of trunks and a letter of credit, and I'm all right. Well, you ask Freddy. It's the funniest thing, but I was saying to him only last night at dinner-we were all alone, the Allens were coming, but their baby was sick at the last minute, the poor little thing, it's so delicate it would scare you to death to see it, oh, my G.o.d, I must call up Kate Allen and find out how it is, I told Freddy to remind me-I was telling him, 'One of these fine days,' I said, 'you won't see me sitting here,' I said. 'I'm going to just pack up a toothbrush and an extra pair of stockings,' I said, 'and the next you'll hear of me, I'll be in Egypt or India or somewhere,' I said. Oh, I'm a born traveler!”

”Really?” he said.

”Arabia!” she said. ”Well, just imagine that. Tell me all about it. How did you like it, anyway?”

”Why, I had a good time,” he said.

”Imagine,” she said. ”Way off there. Well, I've often wondered about Arabia. Tell me some more about it. Isn't there an awful lot of sand and everything?”

”Well, there is,” he said. ”But, you see-”

”Sand!” she said. ”Don't sand me! After this summer down at Dune Harbor, I've had enough of sand, thank you. I could write a book about sand. Always in your shoes, no matter what you did, and the children tracking it into the house till I thought I'd go crazy. I did. I thought I'd simply go crazy. Ever been to Dune Harbor?”

”No,” he said. ”No, I haven't.”

”Well, don't,” she said. ”Nothing but sand, sand, sand. You can get all the sand you want right there, without going off to any Arabia.”

”Well, you see,” he said, ”the way it is in Arabia-”

”And Freddy on that beach!” she said. ”You'd have died. The first day he got down there he just lay out there, and lay out there, and the first thing you knew, his shoulders! I thought about you, right away. I said if you could have seen those shoulders of his, you just simply would have died.”

”It must have been awfully funny,” he said. ”You see, what I was going to say, in Arabia-”

”That's right,” she said. ”That's just exactly what I want you to do. Tell me all about your trip. I want to hear every single thing. What was it like? What are the people like? Are they all Arabs and everything?”

”Well, of course,” he said, ”there's a lot of-”

”Imagine!” she said. ”Arabs! Isn't it exactly like something in a book? Oh, it must be just the way I pictured it. Tell me about all these Arabs. What are they like, anyway?”

”Why, they're pretty much like everybody else,” he said. ”Some of them are great, and some of them aren't so good. Most of them are pretty-”

”You know,” she said, ”I've always been sure I could get along with people like that. Arabs and everything. I'm so interested in people, they just seem to know, and they let me see their inside selves. Oh, I'm always making friends with the darndest people! You just ask Freddy. 'Well,' he said to me, 'n.o.body could ever call you a sn.o.b,' he said. And you know, I took it for a compliment. Arabs! Oh, I'd love anything like that. Well, go on, tell me about it. Where did you stay?”

”Why, a lot of the time,” he said, ”I lived right with the natives. You see, I wanted to-”

”Imagine! Right with them!” she said. ”But wasn't it terribly uncomfortable and everything?”

”They were darn decent to me,” he said. ”And as soon as you got used to it, you-”