Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/52

 are in his pockets, and in his eyes, glued on the golden brown wheat cakes, is a look of longing such as probably Cleopatra saw when Mark Antony first gave her the up and down. Just saying it was pathetic is not doing the scene justice. He started, kind of guilty, when he pegged me, but I grabbed his arm.

"Greetings!" I says smilingly. "Speaking of Lake Erie, come on, I'm going to feed you!"

Yes, men can blush.

"Why—I—why—eh—really, I'm not hungry," he stammers, but how his eyes did glint at the mention of food! "I"

But by this time I have crowded him inside and seated him at a table, where his protests got weaker and weaker. One glance at the line of march and he simply ordered everything on it and a pot of coffee. However, he insisted upon paying for his dinner and mine—borrowing ten dollars from me for this worthy purpose. Robert carefully marked down the loan on the back of a letter rejecting one of his plays, with the solemn promise that when his first drama was accepted he would repay me about two thousand percent. Tomato sauce! I waited till he had finished giving his one man banquet a beating and then I took him in hand.

"What's the idea of storing yourself in the best hotel in Gotham when you have no visible and ap