“Well, the next thing I heard about his love’s young dream is from Gabbo himself in person. He comes back to New York, and comes walking into the office with the information that he is adding a woman to his act; Mile. Rubina. I look at him and say, ‘What for, for the love of Pete? What do you need a jane in the act for, and why Rubina?’
“ ‘For the water,’ he answers. ‘To bring on the glass of water which I drink. And take it off.’ And he scowls at me as if to say, ‘Do you want to make anything out of it?’ And when I nod sort of dumbly, he goes on: ‘She is willing to join me for a hundred dollars per week.’
“Well, this is pretty nuts. Rubina was a bowlegged wench working in a juggling act. Fetched plates and Indian clubs for Allen and Allen. And worth all of fifty cents a year as talent. Not even a looker. But go argue with Gabbo. I tried a little taffy about his going over so much better alone — that is, with his pal Jimmy to help him out. But he waves his hand at me, pulls his mustache, and begins to jump up and down with excitement.
“So I agree, and he then becomes the gentleman. He’ll stand for a fifty dollar cut in his salary — that is twenty-five dollars out of his take and twenty-five out of Jimmy’s. That’s the way he puts it. And I should kick in with the other fifty for Rubina’s graft.
“That’s how this Rubina joined the act.
“I went over to catch it three nights later and see what was going on. I came right in the middle of Gabbo’s turn. There he stood, with Jimmy sitting on the table, and this peroxide Rubina all dressed up in red plush knickerbockers with green bows on the sides of the knees, hovering around and ‘acting’ — registering surprise and delight every time the dummy made a wisecrack. It almost ruined the turn.
“But what I noticed most was that Gabbo was a changed man. His whole attitude was different. He wasn’t making his usual goo-goo eyes at the audience or shooting over personality — which had been his long suit.
“He was all wrapped up in Rubina, staring at her like a sick puppy with the heaves. And calling her over every half-minute, between gags, and demanding another glass of water. And bowing like an idiot whenever she handed it to him. He must have drunk fourteen glasses of water during the act.
“And that, my friend, was just the beginning. The circuit thought it a big joke — Gabbo’s crush on Rubina.
“And what everybody considered the funniest part of the racket was that Rubina was as fond of Gabbo as if he had been a rattlesnake. She never had anything but a sneer and a wisecrack for him, and, when he got too fancy with his bow, just a low-down scowl. She would have none of him. Why, God only knows. Except perhaps that he was a little too nutty even for her. And she was no picker, believe me.
“In about two months things begin to grow serious. It seems, according to reports which come in from every town on the circuit, that Gabbo has carried his anger against Jimmy to such lengths that he’ll hardly talk to him on the stage, mind you. Keeps sneering at his jokes and trying to trip him up, and bawling him out in front of the audience.
“And then, after the act, he sits him up on the table in his dressing room and starts in hurling curses at the dummy and screaming. It scares people out of their wits. The actors backstage, I mean. You know, it’s kind of woozy to pass a room where you know a man is alone and hear him yelling at the top of his voice. And, what’s more, answering himself.
“And all this excitement, it seems, is due to jealousy. That was the whole point. It seems that this Rubina valentine had tumbled to the fact that Gabbo treated Jimmy like a living person. So, out of sheer cussedness, she had taken to patting Jimmy’s wooden cheeks on the stage. Or winking at him during the turn. And the blow-off came, I learned, when she slipped Jimmy a caramel as he was sitting in Gabbo’s lap in the dressing room. This was just downright morbid viciousness on Rubina’s part.
“After that there was nothing could straighten the thing out. As soon as Gabbo lands in town, I go backstage with him. He’s in his dressing room, and he stands there — the turn being over — just motioning me away and raging at this maniac dummy of his.
“ ‘That is the kind of a one you are,’ he screams. ‘That is the way you show your gratitude. After all I’ve done for you. Trying to steal the woman I love from me. The woman I love above everything.’ And then I listen to Jimmy answer, and, so help me, for a minute I thought it was that damned wooden image speaking.
“ ‘My life is my own,’ says Jimmy, squealing wilder than usual. ‘I can do what I want. And I’ll ask you to mind your own business, you big tub of lard.’
“At these words Gabbo jumped into the air and pulled his hair out in handfuls.
“ ‘Viper,’ he howled at the dummy.
“ ‘Idiot,’ Jimmy squeals back at him.
“What could I do? I just sneaked off and left them calling each other names like a pair of fishwives. I crossed my fingers and hoped that the act wouldn’t split up — that’s where I was chiefly concerned, you understand.
“Then came the second stage. I don’t know whatever got into this Rubina dame. She’d never pulled down more than thirty dollars a week in her life. And here she was getting a hundred. For doing nothing. And yet she writes me a long misspelled letter, that she’s quitting the act on Saturday and for me to find someone to take her place.
“I was of course tickled silly. Fifty dollars is fifty dollars. And, besides, I sort of liked Gabbo and I felt this Rubina was dangerous to him. It’s best for lunatics to steer clear of women — or for anybody for that matter.
“But my satisfaction didn’t last long. I get a telephone call the following Monday to hurry over to the Bronx where Gabbo is opening — being starred, mind you. My great ventriloquist, it seems, has gone out of his head.
“I get there just as the bill has started. Gabbo has just told the manager he won’t go on. He won’t act. He knows what he owes to his art and his public, but would rather be torn by wild horses than to step out on the stage alongside of that black imp of hell — Jimmy.
“And as he says these things he walks up and down in his dressing room, cursing Jimmy and glowering at him like a maniac. They’re having an out-and-out bust-up, like a team. Calling each other hams, among other less repeatable things.
“The house manager and all the actors were frightened silly at the noise. But I was used to Gabbo by this time, and began trying to calm him down. But I got no chance to get in a word edgewise — what with the way these two were going after each other. Gabbo thundering in his baritone and that damned dummy squealing back at him in his falsetto.
“I saw at once that Gabbo had really sort of gone over the edge. This time there was a murderous rage in his voice. And in Jimmy’s, too.
“I got so mixed up I began to worry — for Gabbo. Dummy or no dummy, I began to think that...
“Well, anyway, it appears that Rubina, his adored, the light of his life, has flown. And Gabbo’s idea, nutty as it sounds, is that Jimmy knows where she is. That she and Jimmy have framed against him. That Jimmy, the dirty hound, has stolen her love. Can you beat it?
“There’s no use trying to reason under such circumstances. Any more than getting logical with a man who has the D.T.’s. Gabbo won’t go on with the act. And he don’t. He’s through. And I stand still, and say nothing, and watch him hurl Jimmy into his black case, grab it under his arm, and start out with it.
“And I follow him out of the theater. He starts walking peculiarly, like a man half stewed. Then I see that he’s doubling on his tracks, trying to elude somebody. Me, I figured. But I kept on. Finally he goes into a store, and I watch him through the window. It’s a hardware store, and he stays in there for five minutes, and then comes out and makes a beeline for the hotel.