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him what’s the matter when something goes wrong on the stage. I always tell him something. When there’s a crash I tell him it was a rope broke. You can’t argue with a rope. But a lot of those people in the company don’t understand my work ; they think I’m his spy and don’t trust me. They ought to realize that the fewer tales I tell him the easier it is for me all round. I’d do anything to keep him from worrying. I wouldn’t dress anybody but Jolson, nobody else that lives. I wouldn’t have to. I’d go home to Hohokus, N. J., and be a big fellow. I’ve got a farm there, and sometimes the mayor consults me on important business questions. Here he is.”
Meaning not the mayor of Hohokus, but Mr. Jolson of “Bombo.” And he is laughing.
“It’s funny they should laugh at that!” Jolson laughs.
“At what, Al?”
“At me saying, when they asked what I was doing aboard Columbus’ boat — at me saying I was a compass-reader. It just came to me. And how they laughed! Even my wife laughed. Is there such a thing as a compass-reader?”
“Maybe not, but it is funny.”
“Funny where the funny things come from, isn’t it? Now, my wife says funny things — too damn funny, sometimes. When I wired her that I was having a hard time keeping off the heiresses at Palm Beach, she wired back that it wasn’t any too easy side-stepping the millionaires in Pittsburgh. But thank God she’s no longer an actress! ‘You’ve no right to be on the stage, with your ideas!’ I told her. I’d just bought her two new dresses — oh, the very best — and what does she do but meet two girls she knew and give ’em to ’em.”