Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/232

230 "I think Rosebud is dear. How does it hit you?" Jules mocked. "I can easily popularize it if it suits."

"In Chicago, a swell guy called me the Butterfly Man."

"Too precious, dear, too precious. The Flame for you."

"Not today—I'm burning low, nearly gutted, you might say. And no Rosebud—that is, until I wear a rose in my—hair."

"You have changed for the better. What say to a tasty tid-bit to whet the appetite? Jackie tells me he has a little pal, Gregory Whoosit or what have you. What is his name, Jackie?"

"Gregory Jones," said the boy.

"Gregory Jones—and he wants to get into show business. Now I think, Buddy, we ought to call Gregory and then we'll all go over to my flat where you can show him how a great dancer dances; and I'll teach Jackie the technique of being a chorus boy. Elegant idea, don't you think?"

"Elegant," said Ken.

"Leave it to old devil Monroe to think of elegant ideas." He looked squarely into Ken's eyes. "Like me now?"

"Julie, you are—the last word—the last, last word in what I needed to kick off the blues. Come, let's get started."

"You were very drunk when you drove over the bridge," Grant Beckett said. He was smoking a pipe and the deep orange of the log flames flickered against his nose glasses. Very British looking, Ken thought. His rounded head, now somewhat bald, was symmetrically framed in silhouette by a window. Beyond, in the dusk, was the late spring evening of Cape Cod, sombre, chill, a study in tones of gray.