“He used to come out in the middle of it, stand at attention till it was finished, and then, in a low, embarrassed voice, announce: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen: I have the honor to present to you tonight the world’s most gifted ventriloquist — Gabbo the Great.’
“And he would take a bow. That’s pretty cuckoo, ain’t it? But it always went big. You’d be surprised at what an audience will swallow and applaud.
“Well, the first time I came to the conclusion that there was something definitely cockeyed about Gabbo was when I called on him one night after his performance at the palace. It was up in his room at the hotel. He’d just got in and was taking his dummy out of its black case. It had velvet lining in it, this case, and was trimmed in black and gold like a magician’s layout.
“Let me tell you about this dummy — if I can. You’ve seen them. One of those red-cheeked, round-headed marionettes with popping, glassy eyes and a wide mouth that opens and shuts.
“Well, Jimmy — that was the name of this wooden-headed thing — was no different from the rest of them. That is, you wouldn’t think so to look at it. That thing haunts me, honest to God. I can still see its dangling legs with the shoes painted on its feet and — let’s forget about it. Where was I?
“Oh, yes. I go up to his room and stand there talking to him, and just as I’m making some remark or other, he sits Jimmy up on the bed, and all of a sudden turns to him — or it or whatever you want to call the thing — and starts holding a conversation.
“ ‘I suppose,’ says Gabbo, angry as blazes and glaring at this dummy, ‘I suppose you’re proud of yourself, eh? After the way you acted tonight?’
“And Jimmy, the dummy, so help me, answers back in a squeaky voice, ‘Aw, go soak your head. Listen to who’s talkin’.’
“Then this nutty ventriloquist speaks up kind of heatedly. ‘I’m talkin’,’ he says. ‘And I’ll ask you to listen to what I have to say. You forgot your jokes tonight, and if it happens again you get no milk.’
“Well, I thought it was a gag. You know, a bit of clowning for my benefit. So I stand by, grinning like an ape, although it don’t look funny at all, while Gabbo pours a glass of milk and, opening Jimmy’s mouth, feeds it to him. Then he turns to me, like I was a friend of the family, and says coolly: ‘This Jimmy is getting worse and worse. What I wanted to see you about, Mr. Ferris, is taking his picture off the billing. I want to teach him a lesson.’
“I’ve had them before — cuckoos, I mean — and it didn’t surprise me. Much. They come pretty queer in vaudeville.
“Remind me to tell you some time about the prima donna I had who used to come on with a dagger and throw it on the stage. If it stuck, landed on its point, she’d go on with the act and sing. If it didn’t she wouldn’t. Walk right off.
“She was pretty expert at tossing the old dagger, so it usually landed right — they ain’t ever too crazy. And on account of the dagger always landing right, I never find out what it’s all about for weeks. Until one night she up cold and walks out on herself. On an opening night at the Palace, too, where she’s being featured. And when I come galloping back, red in the face to ask her what the hell, she answers me very haughty: ‘Go ask the dagger. He tell you.’
“Well, that’s another story, and not so good, either. About this night in Gabbo’s room, as I was saying. I took in Gabbo’s little act with the dummy, and said nothing.
“But I started making a few inquiries the next day, and I find out plenty. I find out that this nutty give-and-take with the dummy is just a regular routine for Gabbo. That he keeps up a more or less steady conversation with the dummy like he was a kid brother. And not only that, but that this idiotic dummy is the only human being — or whatever you call him — that Gabbo ever says more than hello to. Barring me, of course.
“Look” — and Ferris snorted — “can you imagine him sitting at that table now and looking at me and pretending he doesn’t know me? And, what’s more, that I don’t know him? On account he’s got a nine-dollar toupée on. Well, that’s part of the story, and I’ll come to it.
“The way I figured it at the time — and I may be wrong — was that Gabbo was such an egotist that he could only talk to himself. You know, there’s lots of hoofers, for instance, who won’t watch anybody but themselves dance. They stand in front of a mirror — for diversion, mind you — and do their stuff. And applaud it. That’s vaudeville for you.
“So I figured Gabbo that way. That he was so stuck on himself he got a big kick out of talking to himself. That’s what he was doing, of course, when he held these powwows with Jimmy.
“As you can imagine, it kind of interested me. I got so I’d always try to drop around Gabbo’s dressing room whenever I had time, just to catch this loony business with the dummy. I didn’t think it exactly funny, you know, and it never made me laugh. I guess it was just morbid curiosity on my part. Anyway, I sort of become part of the family.
“The fights they used to have — Gabbo and this crazy dummy; fighting all the time. Usually about the act. Gabbo sore as the devil at Jimmy if anything went wrong with the turn — if one of the gags missed fire, for instance, he’d accuse him of stalling, laying down on the job, and honest to God, once he sailed into the damn thing because he was sure it wasn’t getting enough sleep. Believe me or not, they were as quarrelsome as a team of hoofers.
“And after I got used to these spats — you know you can get used to anything — I got to thinking of Jimmy almost the way Gabbo did. I got to imagining it was him answering back — squealing, kidding, and swearing. And not Gabbo talking with his stomach — or whatever it is ventriloquists talk with.
“But with all this fighting between them, you could see that Gabbo had a soft spot for Jimmy. He fed him milk. There was a can or something fitted up inside. That’s where the milk went.
“For instance, just to show you the pretty side of the picture, about three months after I change the billing and take Jimmy’s name off the one-sheets, Gabbo arrives in my office with a demand that I put the picture back and the name too, in twice as big lettering as before.
“And one other time he comes to me, Gabbo does, and says Jimmy isn’t getting enough money. Well, as you can imagine, this sounds a bit phoney. There’s such a thing as carrying a gag too far, is my first reaction. But so help me, he meant it. And he won’t go on with the act unless I come through.
“Well, I learned long before that it don’t pay to win arguments with the talent. It’s worse than winning an argument with your own wife. Costs you more.
“So I finally control my temper and asks, ‘How much of a raise does Jimmy want?’
“ ‘Five dollars a week more,’ says Gabbo. And Gabbo was pulling down four hundred dollars for the act; so you can see the whole thing was on the square — asking a raise for Jimmy, I mean. Then he explains to me that he has been paying Jimmy ninety-five dollars per week right along, and he wants to make it an even hundred because Jimmy has been working very hard and so on.
“So much for that. Here’s where the plot thickens. About three weeks or so after this conference, I get wind of the fact that Gabbo has fallen for a dame; and that the thing has become quite a joke among the talent.
“I can hardly believe my ears. Gabbo never looked at a dame ever since he was on the circuit. The loneliest, stuck-up professor I’d ever known. He used to walk around like Kaiser Wilhelm. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar. And with a mustache. Don’t look now — he’s shaved it off. Part of the disguise. But in those days it was his pride and joy.