Page:Minnie Flynn (1925).pdf/58

 I break down and go all to pieces and cry and hit my head against the side of the cell."

"Oh, how wonderful! How wonderful to have all that happen to you! Imagine livin' a different story every day, instead of the same old grind. I get sick of life sometimes, it's so rotten slow."

"Oh, life isn't so slow," replied Al Kessler, which gave him the opening to tell Minnie all about his own life. First of all, he had a family who didn't understand him and a father who made his life hell on earth, trying to force him to study medicine when he had this great talent for the stage. He was a born actor. He could remember back to the days when he had the whole schoolroom in an uproar every time he pulled off one of his stunts. And he wasn't only a comedian. He could bring tears to his mother's eyes with his recitations. Why, there was one little thing, "God wanted a baby in Heaven, so He took my little one there," that made her break down every time he recited it. He intoned two verses of it to Minnie. His voice was low, and the droning monotone went straight to Minnie's heart. When Al's voice died to a tremulous whisper, and the last eloquent gesture had been made, Minnie turned her head away from him, ashamed of the tears that had come so easily to her eyes.

"What's the matter, honey, didn't you like it?" he asked, and his voice was silken. "Come on now, little girl, don't walk out on me. That's no kind of an audience, you know."

His arm circled her shoulders, then he drew her toward him. "Why, honey!" he said, "your eyes are glistening. You"

His eager pride banished all her embarrassment. "Honest, Mr. Kessler"

"Call me Al, honey."

"Honest, Al, if I could recite that dramatic, I'd leave the