A LITTLE BIT OF SUGAR FOR THE BIRD

Nib

A MORNING room, Mrs. Plaza Park's country house. Miss Malone, Mrs. Park's new secretary, is occupied in telephoning the stage manager of the Winter Garden.

MISS MALONE: —and that goes, too! I'll be in the next review for forty dollars a week, and not a cent less. I'm sick of this thirty a week game. I've played in three choruses for you at thirty—and that's enough. If you want me—good! If you don't—well, I've just got a literary job and I guess I can hold it.

MRS. PLAZA PARK (entering): I don't believe there'll be any dictation today, Miss Malone. Oh, yes, I suppose I should send a line to the papers about the Soul Tea. I loathe publicity but as they will print things they may as well get them right. Just say that Mrs. Plaza Park, wife of the well-known ammunition . . . (flounders)

MISS MALONE: "Magnate" is the word.

MRS. PLAZA PARK: Ammunition magnate is to open the Looie Cans salon of her magnificent town house for a Soul Symphony . . . with tea! . . . by the great mystic, the Mahatma Bombast . . .

MISS MALONE: Baghat.

MRS. PLAZA PARK: Baghat, then. Ah, good-morning, Arthur.

The person who has just entered is the lady's son. He is the sole heir to the ammunition millions.

ARTHUR: H'llo. Would Miss Malone take a few letters for me? Beastly thing about the country . . . letters.

MRS. PLAZA PARK: But Miss Malone is so clever. One need hardlv think.

Au revoir! She sails off. Miss Malone waits, attentive.

ARTHUR: To—ah—Maillard. Dear Sir: Please send five pounds of marrons glaces to Miss Gownsby Sherry, Hotel Flanders.

MISS MALONE (startled): Fi-five pounds of marrons glaces! I'm so sorry, but isn't that a good many?

ARTHUR: Think so? She's awfully fond of 'em.

MISS MALONE: But she might not be after five pounds. A few truffles, now . . . some caviare ...

ARTHUR: All right. Put 'em in. Next, Thorley. Please send four dozen American Beauties, long stems, to Miss Gowns . . .

MISS MALONE (timidly): You won't mind, but that's rather an order, isn't it? It would take so many umbrella stands to hold them. Only the Metropolitan Museum ... or Vantine's,—

ARTHUR: Make it violets then. All they've got. Next, Triflier's. Please send your highestpriced gold mesh bag to Miss Gownsby . . . Look here, the bag's all right, I hope?

MISS MALONE (wistfully ecstatic): Oh, quite!

ARTHUR: Now . . . charged to me, all this, of course ... to Miss Gownsby Sherry. Dear Miss Sherry, will you marry me? I think you are simply immense in " The Girl and the Bird," at the Winter Garden. Your reply to the Brook Club will oblige . . . Why, what's the matter?

The secretary's pencil has dropped from her fingers. She buries her face on the desk.

MISS MALONE: Nothing. Nothing at all. Please g-go away! . . . {Raising a pair of forget-me-not eyes filled with tears.)

Arthur regards her stupefied. Then suspicion seizes him. By Jove I She's in love with him! Of course she's in love with him! And what a remarkably pretty girl she is; so young, so innocent! Not like the stage type of Miss Sherry at all, and his mother and father hate stage girls. But see, she is in tears! This is terrible.

ARTHUR (accusingly): You love me!

MISS MALONE (guiltily, from the jungle of letters): Yes, Arthur, I love you!

ARTHUR: My God! She loves me! {A pause broken by soft sobs from the secretary, and, finally a desperate movement on the part of Arthur.) But look here I've just proposed to somebody else . . . It's too late!

MISS MALONE (muffledecho): Yes, it's too late!

ARTHUR (pulling himself together): Good-by, Miss Malone. Believe me I wouldn't have had this happen for worlds. But I shall always respect you.

He rushes out, clutching his brow. With his exit selfcontrol quickly returns to the amorous Malone. She is wiping her eyes when Arthur suddenly reappears, beaming.

ARTHUR: Hold on, you haven't written that note to Miss Whatshername yet, at the Winter Garden, have you? Well, I've just had a bright idea. Don't write it! And in those other letters instead of the address I gave you, tell 'em to send the things to Miss Moyna Malone ... it is Moyna, isn't it—er—darling? Awfully pretty name!... to Miss Moyna Malone, c/o Mrs. Plaza Park, Great Splurge, Long Island. And let's call up Triffier's on the telephone and tell them to send out some rings . . . the biggest diamond rings in the place.

There is a moment's pause while the innocent Malone struggles with conscience. Can she accept such an offer from the heir to the ammunition millions ? I wonder! She knits her brows and thinks. At last her better nature asserts itself. She speaks.

MOYNA: And will you put the proposal to me in writing?

ARTHUR: Rather!

MOYNA: And sign it?

ARTHUR: Rather!

MOYNA: Oh, Arthur, this is so, so, SO sudden! . . . But (angelic) we might let her have the marrons, mightn't we?

ARTHUR: WHO?

MOYNA: Why, Miss Gownsby Sherry.

ARTHUR (absently): As you like. She's a good sort. But you never can tell about an actress. They're always acting. Now give me a girl ... (Enveloping her). Give me a girl who isn't playing a part when she says she loves you! . . .

Silence! They say nothing! They do not speak! They are happy!

MOYNA: Arthur, dear.

ARTHUR: Yes, my lamb—What is it?

MOYNA: Arthur, I'm so very glad that you really don't care for actresses, because I want you to care for me, and I never act. You do care, don't you?

ARTHUR: Of course.

MOYNA: That's good. By the way, I just happened to remember that Triffier's telephone number is double eight double three, Lenox.

CURTAIN