"Cut out that stuff, Mary!" says a male voice. "This is Roscoe. I want you to give out a statement about you and Jim splitting up."

"I won't!" says I, very sharp. "Whatter yer think I am?" I says. "That's nobody's business but our own!"

"Oh, ain't it, though?" says Roscoe, very sarcastic. "The biggest parlor-dancing outfit in America busts up and you can't be seen, even, for two whole days! The stage at the Royal ain't notified that your piece is called off; the De-Luxe Hotel don't get no notice that you ain't going to appear; and all the info' I could get when I called up your flat is that you was gone out!"

"And so I was!" says I, indignant.

"Then I call up Jim's hotel and they say he's gone!" shouted Roscoe. "Hell!" says he, forgetting that me and the telephone operator[Pg 13] both was ladies. "Hell! What kind of way is that to treat a guy you're paying three thou. a year to for getting your picture in the paper every time you sneeze?"

[Pg 13]

I didn't have any comeback about that, for there was certainly some truth in what he says. But I wasn't to be put down so easy.

"I guess I know my business, Ros," I says, sharp, "or I wouldn't be living in a swell flat on the Drive, all fixed up like a furniture shop, with a limousine and two fool dogs, and earned every cent of it myself, and no one can say a word against me, if I didn't know my own business. So there!"

"Looka here, Mary," says Roscoe. "There's going to be a lot of talk up and down the Rialto if you don't come across with some explanation. I'm comin' right up to get it."

"No, you don't," I says, for I hadn't had my facial massage in three days, and, after all, Roscoe is a man, even if press agents ain't exactly human. "No, you don't, Ros!" I says. "If I gotter make some statement, I'll write the dope myself and you can fix it up after—see? It's a big story, but delicate, and I'm going to have no misunderstanding over it."

"All right, Mary," says Ros. "But you get[Pg 14] the stuff ready for the morning papers. I'll be up for it."

[Pg 14]

Then he hung up and I knew I had to come across. Besides, Ma come in just then; and while I may boss my press agent, and even sometimes my partner and Musette and the two dogs, Ma sorter gets my goat. Ma had on a 

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