Mac came out, apologetic, carrying letters.
"Sorry, miss. By an oversight I put you among the G's."
"All's well that ends well. 'Put me among the G's.' There's a good
title for a song for you, George. Excuse me while I grapple with
the correspondence. I'll bet half of these are mash notes. I got
three between the first and second acts last night. Why the
nobility and gentry of this burg should think that I'm their
affinity just because I've got golden hair--which is perfectly
genuine, Mac; I can show you the pedigree--and because I earn an
honest living singing off the key, is more than I can understand."
Mac leaned his massive shoulders comfortably against the building,
and resumed his chat.
"I expect you're feeling very 'appy today, sir?"
George pondered. He was certainly feeling better since he had seen
Billie Dore, but he was far from being himself.
"I ought to be, I suppose. But I'm not."
"Ah, you're getting blarzy, sir, that's what it is. You've 'ad too
much of the fat, you 'ave. This piece was a big 'it in America,
wasn't it?"
"Yes. It ran over a year in New York, and there are three companies
of it out now."
"That's 'ow it is, you see. You've gone and got blarzy. Too big a
'elping of success, you've 'ad." Mac wagged a head like a harvest
moon. "You aren't a married man, are you, sir?"
Billie Dore finished skimming through her mail, and crumpled the
letters up into a large ball, which she handed to Mac.
"Here's something for you to read in your spare moments, Mac.
Glance through them any time you have a suspicion you may be a
chump, and you'll have the comfort of knowing that there are
others. What were you saying about being married?"
"Mr. Bevan and I was 'aving a talk about 'im being blarzy, miss."
"Are you blarzy, George?"
"So Mac says."
"And why is he blarzy, miss?" demanded Mac rhetorically.
"Don't ask me," said Billie. "It's not my fault."
"It's because, as I was saying, 'e's 'ad too big a 'elping of
success, and because 'e ain't a married man. You did say you wasn't
a married man, didn't you, sir?"
"I didn't. But I'm not."
"That's 'ow it is, you see. You pretty soon gets sick of pulling
off good things, if you ain't got nobody to pat you on the back for
doing of it. Why, when I was single, if I got 'old of a sure thing
for the three o'clock race and picked up a couple of quid, the
thrill of it didn't seem to linger somehow. But now, if some of the
gentlemen that come 'ere put me on to something safe and I make a
bit, 'arf the fascination of it is taking the stuff 'ome and
rolling it on to the kitchen table and 'aving 'er pat me on the
back."