"Indubitably," said Archie, politely. "Carry on, old bird!"
"I wrote the lyric as well as the melody," said Wilson Hymack, who had already seated himself at the piano. "It's got the greatest title you ever heard. It's a lallapaloosa! It's called 'It's a Long Way Back to Mother's Knee.' How's that? Poor, eh?"
Archie expelled a smoke-ring doubtfully.
"Isn't it a little stale?"
"Stale? What do you mean, stale? There's always room for another song boosting Mother."
"Oh, is it boosting Mother?" Archie's face cleared. "I thought it was a hit at the short skirts. Why, of course, that makes all the difference. In that case, I see no reason why it should not be ripe, fruity, and pretty well all to the mustard. Let's have it."
Wilson Hymack pushed as much of his hair out of his eyes as he could reach with one hand, cleared his throat, looked dreamily over the top of the piano at a photograph of Archie's father-in-law, Mr. Daniel Brewster, played a prelude, and began to sing in a weak, high, composer's voice. All composers sing exactly alike, and they have to be heard to be believed.
"One night a young man wandered through the glitter of Broadway: His money he had squandered. For a meal he couldn't pay."
"Tough luck!" murmured Archie, sympathetically.
"He thought about the village where his boyhood he had spent, And yearned for all the simple joys with which he'd been content."
"The right spirit!" said Archie, with approval. "I'm beginning to like this chappie!"
"Don't interrupt!"
"Oh, right-o! Carried away and all that!"
"He looked upon the city, so frivolous and gay; And, as he heaved a weary sigh, these words he then did say: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Mother's knee, Mother's knee: It's a long way back to Mother's knee, Where I used to stand and prattle With my teddy-bear and rattle: Oh, those childhood days in Tennessee, They sure look good to me! It's a long, long way, but I'm gonna start to-day! I'm going back, Believe me, oh! I'm going back (I want to go!) I'm going back--back--on the seven-three To the dear old shack where I used to be! I'm going back to Mother's knee!"
Wilson Hymack's voice cracked on the final high note, which was of an altitude beyond his powers. He turned with a modest cough.
"That'll give you an idea of it!"
"It has, old thing, it has!"
"Is it or is it not a ball of fire?"
"It has many of the earmarks of a sound egg," admitted Archie. "Of course--"
"Of course, it wants singing."
"Just what I was going to suggest."
"It wants a woman to sing it. A woman who could reach out for that last high note and teach it to take a joke. The whole refrain is working up to that. You need Tetrazzini or someone who would just pick that note off the roof and hold it till the janitor came round to lock up the building for the night."
"I must buy a copy for my wife. Where can I get it?"
"You can't get it! It isn't published. Writing music's the darndest job!" Wilson Hymack snorted fiercely. It was plain that the man was pouring out the pent-up emotion of many days. "You write the biggest thing in years and you go round trying to get someone to sing it, and they say you're a genius and then shove the song away in a drawer and forget about it."
Archie lit another cigarette.
"I'm a jolly old child in these matters, old lad," he said, "but why don't you take it direct to a publisher? As a matter of fact, if it would be any use to you, I was foregathering with a music-publisher only the other day. A bird of the name of Blumenthal. He was lunching in here with a pal of mine, and we got tolerably matey. Why not let me tool you round to the office to-morrow and play it to him?"
"No, thanks. Much obliged, but I'm not going to play that melody in any publisher's office with his hired gang of Tin-Pan Alley composers listening at the keyhole and taking notes. I'll have to wait till I can find somebody to sing it. Well, I must be going along. Glad to have seen you again. Sooner or later I'll take you to hear that high note sung by someone in a way that'll make your spine tie itself in knots round the back of your neck."
"I'll count the days," said Archie, courteously. "Pip-pip!"
Hardly had the door closed behind the composer when it opened again to admit Lucille.
"Hallo, light of my soul!" said Archie, rising and embracing his wife. "Where have you been all the afternoon? I was expecting you this many an hour past. I wanted you to meet--"
"I've been having tea with a girl down in Greenwich Village. I couldn't get away before. Who was that who went out just as I came along the passage?"
"Chappie of the name of Hymack. I met him in France. A composer and what not."
"We seem to have been moving in artistic circles this afternoon. The girl I went to see is a singer. At least, she wants to sing, but gets no encouragement."
"Precisely the same with my bird. He wants to get his music sung but nobody'll sing it. But I didn't know you knew any Greenwich Village warblers, sunshine of my home. How did you meet this female?"
Lucille sat down and gazed forlornly at him with her big grey eyes. She was registering something, but Archie could not gather what it was.
"Archie, darling, when you married me you undertook to share my sorrows, didn't you?"
"Absolutely! It's all in the book of words. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, all-down-set-'em-up-in-the-other-alley. Regular iron-clad contract!"
"Then share 'em!" said Lucille. "Bill's in love again!"
Archie blinked.
"Bill? When you say Bill, do you mean Bill? Your brother Bill? My brother-in-law Bill? Jolly old William, the son and heir of the Brewsters?"
"I do."
"You say he's in love? Cupid's dart?"
"Even so!"
"But, I say! Isn't this rather--What I mean to say is, the lad's an absolute scourge! The Great Lover, what! Also ran, Brigham Young, and all that sort of thing! Why, it's only a few weeks ago that he was moaning brokenly about that vermilion-haired female who subsequently hooked on to old Reggie van Tuyl!"
"She's a little better than that girl, thank goodness. All the same, I don't think Father will approve."
"Of what calibre is the latest exhibit?"
"Well, she comes from the Middle West, and seems to be trying to be twice as Bohemian as the rest of the girls down in Greenwich Village. She wears her hair bobbed and goes about in a kimono. She's probably read magazine stories about Greenwich Village, and has modelled herself on them. It's so silly, when you can see Hicks Corners sticking out of her all the time."
"That one got past me before I could grab it. What did you say she had sticking out of her?"
"I meant that anybody could see that she came from somewhere out in the wilds. As a matter of fact, Bill tells me that she was brought up in Snake Bite, Michigan."
"Snake Bite? What rummy names you have in America! Still, I'll admit there's a village in England called Nether Wallop, so who am I to cast the first stone? How is old Bill? Pretty feverish?"
"He says this time it is the real thing."
"That's what they all say! I wish I had a dollar for every time-- Forgotten what I was going to say!" broke off Archie, prudently. "So you think," he went on, after a pause, "that William's latest is going to be one more shock for the old dad?"
"I can't imagine Father approving of her."
"I've studied your merry old progenitor pretty closely," said Archie, "and, between you and me, I can't imagine him approving of anybody!"
"I can't understand why it is that Bill goes out of his way to pick these horrors. I know at least twenty delightful girls, all pretty and with lots of money, who would be just the thing for him; but he sneaks away and goes falling in love with someone impossible. And the worst of it is that one always feels one's got to do one's best to see him through."
"Absolutely! One doesn't want to throw a spanner into the works of Love's young dream. It behoves us to rally round. Have you heard this girl sing?"
"Yes. She sang this afternoon."