Ray sang when lifting them out of their seats
at Mosenstein's and elsewhere. The fact seemed to give it sacred
associations for him.

You will scarcely believe me, but the management expected Gussie to
show up and start performing at one o'clock in the afternoon. I told
him they couldn't be serious, as they must know that he would be
rolling out for a bit of lunch at that hour, but Gussie said this was
the usual thing in the four-a-day, and he didn't suppose he would ever
get any lunch again until he landed on the big time. I was just
condoling with him, when I found that he was taking it for granted that
I should be there at one o'clock, too. My idea had been that I should
look in at night, when--if he survived--he would be coming up for the
fourth time; but I've never deserted a pal in distress, so I said
good-bye to the little lunch I'd been planning at a rather decent
tavern I'd discovered on Fifth Avenue, and trailed along. They were
showing pictures when I reached my seat. It was one of those Western
films, where the cowboy jumps on his horse and rides across country at
a hundred and fifty miles an hour to escape the sheriff, not knowing,
poor chump! that he might just as well stay where he is, the sheriff
having a horse of his own which can do three hundred miles an hour
without coughing. I was just going to close my eyes and try to forget
till they put Gussie's name up when I discovered that I was sitting
next to a deucedly pretty girl.

No, let me be honest. When I went in I had seen that there was a
deucedly pretty girl sitting in that particular seat, so I had taken
the next one. What happened now was that I began, as it were, to drink
her in. I wished they would turn the lights up so that I could see her
better. She was rather small, with great big eyes and a ripping smile.
It was a shame to let all that run to seed, so to speak, in
semi-darkness.

Suddenly the lights did go up, and the orchestra began to play a tune
which, though I haven't much of an ear for music, seemed somehow
familiar. The next instant out pranced old Gussie from the wings in a
purple frock-coat and a brown top-hat, grinned feebly at the audience,
tripped over his feet blushed, and began to sing the Tennessee song.

It was rotten. The poor nut had got stage fright so badly that it
practically eliminated his voice. He sounded like some far-off echo of
the past 'yodelling' through a woollen blanket.

For the first time since I had