“That is what seems strangest of all to me,”
said the other, thoughtfully. “You like
mobs so well that you make imitation ones!”
“Vell, de people, dey like to see crowds in
a picture, and dey like to see action. If you
gonna have a big picture, you gotta spend de money.”
“Why not take this real mob that is outside
the door?”
“Ha, ha, ha! Ve couldn’t verk dat
very good, Mr. Carpenter. Ve gotta have it in
de right set; and ven you git a real mob, it don’t
alvays do vot you vant exactly! Besides, you
can’t take night pictures unless you got your
lights and everyting. No, ve gotta make our mobs
to order; we got two tousand fellers hired—”
“What Mr. Rosythe called ‘studio bums’?
You have that many?”
“Sure, we could git ten tousand if de set vould
hold ’em. Dis picture is called ‘De
Tale o’ Two Cities,’ and it’s de
French revolution. It’s about a feller
vot takes anodder feller’s place and gits his
head cut off; and say, dere’s a sob story in
it vot’s a vunder. Ven dey brought me de
scenario, I says, ‘Who’s de author?’
Dey says, ‘It’s a guy named Charles Dickens.’
‘Dickens?’ says I. ‘Vell, I
like his verk. Vot’s his address?’
And Lipsky, he says, says he, ’Dey tell me he
stays in a place called Vestminster Abbey, in England.’
‘Vell,’ says I, ’send him a cablegram
and find out vot he’ll take fer an exclusive
contract.’ So we sent a cablegram to Charles
Dickens, Vestminster Abbey, England, and we didn’t
git no answer, and come to find out, de boys in de
studios vas havin’ a laugh on old Abey, because
dis guy Dickens is some old time feller, and de Abbey
is vere dey got his bones. Vell, dey can have
deir fun—how de hell’s a feller like
me gonna git time to know about writers? Vy,
only twelve years ago, Maw here and me vas carryin’
pants in a push-cart fer a livin’, and we didn’t
know if a book vas top-side up or bottom—ain’t
it, Maw?”
Maw certified that it was—though I thought
not quite so eagerly as her husband. There were
five little T-S’s growing up, and bringing pressure
to let the dead past stay buried, in Vestminster Abbey
or wherever it might be.
The waiter brought the dinner, and spread it before
us. And T-S tucked his napkin under both ears,
and grabbed his knife in one hand and his fork in
the other, and took a long breath, and said:
“Good-bye, folks. See you later!”
And he went to work.
For five minutes or so there was no sound but that
of one man’s food going in and going down.
Then suddenly the man stopped, with his knife and
fork upright on the table in each hand, and cried:
“Mr. Carpenter, you ain’t eatin’
nuttin’!”
The stranger, who had apparently been in a daydream,
came suddenly back to Prince’s. He looked
at the quantities of food spread about him. “If
you’d only let me take a little to those men
outside!” He said it pleadingly.
