NEXT morning Mr. Wales called Betty into the library to tell her she might do as she liked about the tea-room. His voice broke as he explained that unless things took a sudden turn for the better they should probably have to give up their house, at least for a year or so.
“So your present position is likely to be abolished,” he went on with a rather forlorn attempt at gaiety, “and I heartily sympathize with your wish to be up and doing. I hate to think that a daughter of mine needs to work, but I’m glad she isn’t afraid to. It used to be the fashion for young ladies whose families had lost their money to sit at home, turning and mending their clothes and remembering better days.”
“I know—like Mary Hooper’s great-aunts,” laughed Betty. “That’s so stupid. I’m glad I was born later. But, father, did mother come around to the restaurant idea? Because maybe Nan or Rachel or somebody could get me a place to teach, if mother would be happier about it. But girls who want to work don’t all teach nowadays. Truly they don’t.”
Mr. Wales laughed. “That’s another antiquated notion, is it—that teaching is the only ‘genteel’ calling? Your mother and I about came to that conclusion last night. Anyway we’re quite willing that you should try out this project. I will give you the money that your board here would cost for the rest of the winter. You can use it as capital if you like, but I should strongly advise holding it as an emergency fund for personal expenses. Tea may be sixty cents a pound and ten cents a cup, but I imagine you’ll find that’s only one very small detail in the budget of a tea-room.”
“Of course,” agreed Betty, not daring to avow complete ignorance of the meaning of a budget. “And thank you ever so much, father, for letting me try. If we don’t succeed and my emergency fund gives out, will you send me some beautiful references as a cook?”
“Certainly not, after you’ve basely deserted us with less than a week’s notice,” retorted her father, pulling a yellow curl, and Betty danced off, perfectly delighted at the exciting prospects before her, to look over her clothes and make a list of other things she should need “in her business.” But her ideas of the duties of her position were so vague and businesslike, and clothes so very uninteresting, that she finally decided not to waste her last week at home over them. If Madeline thought her shirt-waists looked too frivolous, she could overwhelm her with the six big aprons and Will’s cook-book.
Betty timed her arrival in New York a day after Madeline’s, but only Babbie Hildreth met her train.
“Madeline’s stuck in the fog down the harbor,” she explained. “So when I came last night I got the key from the tailor and hunted up the cook, all by myself, and she brought the cat just as Madeline said she would. And then that nice Mrs. Bob, the one we met before, helped me give a party.”
“How did you happen to be giving a party?” laughed Betty.
“Because Mrs. Bob was tired of her own apartment. It’s perfectly gorgeous, you know, since they got all that money, but she says it’s so elegant and well-kept that it spoils the informality of things. So the cook swept, and we dusted, and Mr. Bob invited the people and bought the food. It was great.” Babbie gave a comical little skip to emphasize her complete satisfaction with life. Then suddenly her small face took on its most serious expression. “And to think how miserable I’ve been lately. Poor mother was glad enough to let me come down here, I’m afraid, I was so cross. I’m never going to look at a young man again, Betty Wales, as long as I live. So there now!”
Betty patted Babbie’s arm soothingly. “That won’t prevent their looking at you, I’m afraid,” she suggested, “at least not unless you stop buying such becoming hats.”
Babbie frowned. “One can’t turn oneself into a frump, just on their account. Buying becoming hats is one of the chief consolations of life. I didn’t mean that I was going to retire from the world, but I shall never let any one fall in love with me, never. That’s settled!”
“All right,” laughed Betty. “Now let’s settle where we’re going.”
“That’s settled too,” explained Babbie. “Mr. Dick Blake is meeting Madeline, because I had to meet you. Then we are all to meet each other for a grand lunch party, to celebrate Mr. Blake’s getting into his scrumptious new offices,—the ones that your Mr. Morton arranged for, you know. And to-night Mrs. Bob is going to take us all for dinner to a new East Side place that they’ve discovered.” Babbie stopped to survey Betty critically. “You don’t mind wasting to-day, do you, and beginning on tea-rooms the first thing to-morrow? Your letter sounded as solemncholy as Helen Chase Adams when she was a freshman.”
Betty laughed. “How dreadful! Of course I don’t mind. But you see, Babbie, this tea-room business is just fun for you, but for me it’s dead in earnest. If we can’t make it pay pretty well, why, next year I may have to teach.”
Babbie nodded vigorously. “I see. That’s a prospect to make a person solemn, isn’t it? But by next year your father will probably be rich again. And I don’t want you to think I’m not in earnest too, Betty. I’m going into this thing head over heels, just to show a certain person that he doesn’t make one least little speck of difference to me.” Babbie’s big eyes flashed dangerously. “So to-morrow we’ll pursue tea-rooms like anything.”
But ten o’clock the next morning found the three pursuers of tea-rooms gathered rather languidly around Madeline’s dainty breakfast table. Mrs. Bob’s party had been, as usual, a continuous performance, beginning at a very foreign café in Little Italy, going on, because the Italian dessert had proved disappointing, to a glittering hotel on Fifth Avenue, thence back to a Yiddish theatre, whose leading lady was Mr. Bob’s latest enthusiasm, and winding up, very late indeed, at supper near the park, after which it took so long to get home that Mrs. Bob declared she was hungry again and made everybody come up to the apartment for more supper.
“If everybody in New York eats as often as we did last night, there ought to be a good chance for tea-rooms,” said Babbie, sipping her coffee meditatively.
“If it makes them feel so sleepy the next day, they won’t do it very often,” suggested Betty prudently.
“Yes, they will, but they’ll order breakfast at eleven instead of at ten,” amended Madeline. “Well, now,” she went on briskly, “how are we going to work? Having decided to start a tea-room, what does a person do next?”
“We have absolutely decided, haven’t we?” asked Betty, to make sure.
“Of course.” Madeline waved a hand at the huge box of china that an expressman had just delivered. “Coming over in the cab yesterday, Dick read the story I wrote on shipboard—the one I thought was going to make me a name instanter—and he says it’s amateurish. That’s the most hateful adjective in the language of Bohemia, and I’ll make him eat his words. But meanwhile I’ve got to eat something more sustaining than words, and I’ve spent all the money I had to live on this quarter. So I’ve got to get rid of that china. So we’ve got to take it for a tea-room.”
“If you think this tea-room is being started to confirm you in your extravagant habits, Madeline Ayres——” began Babbie, in mock indignation.
“HOW ARE WE GOING TO WORK?”
“Well, the point is that we’ve decided to start it,” pursued Madeline calmly, “and I might add that the china designated as my latest extravagance is likely to be its chief charm, if not exactly its reason for being. Now I should say the next question is where to have it. And as it’s such a glorious day, let’s go out and explore.”
The exploring expedition, being conducted by Madeline in true Bohemian style, bid fair to degenerate into a progressive course luncheon, leading from one of her favorite tea-shops to the next.
“But it’s very instructive,” she declared in answer to Babbie’s protests. “I’ve made a beautiful collection of menu cards for us to consider to-night. I’ll get Bob Enderby to do us a design that will make a regular hit by itself. What’s that, Betty? Of course a menu design isn’t the principal thing. But it will be a beautiful feature, like the china. Well, this is the sixth cup of tea I’ve had, so I don’t mind stopping now. If you girls don’t like my methods, suggest something else. I think we’ve had a most entertaining morning, and garnered in loads of valuable ideas.”
“Well, but what have we actually decided?” demanded Betty, the matter-of-fact.
Madeline told off the points solemnly on her fingers. “To have waitresses with soulful eyes and, if possible, adorable French accents. To remember that it is the special features that people tell their friends to go and see, but the food must be passable too, or they’ll never come twice. To have immaculate linen, and china that matches. To provide dusky corners for romantic couples.”
Babbie sniffed. “I hate romantic couples!”
“They order recklessly,” Madeline argued. “Therefore, for mercenary considerations, they must be encouraged.”
“But aren’t those things we would have done anyway?” pursued Betty. “I think we ought to find a place and get started, and then look out for the features.”
Madeline considered. “That sounds sensible. Well, then, let’s discuss sites.”
“Wouldn’t it be a good plan to know something definite about rents?” suggested Betty, who foresaw that Madeline’s next move would be a leisurely promenade up Fifth Avenue, which would be very pleasant but productive of no tangible results.
“Rents—of course. I’ll tell you what!” Madeline had had another inspiration. “I know a man who is in real estate—the one we rent our place from. I’ll call him up and ask him if he’s too busy to enlighten us this very afternoon.”
Madeline came back from the telephone in high spirits. “He will be dee-lighted to see us. Oh, dee-lighted is out of fashion, isn’t it, since I went away? Well, proud and happy then. Come along. It’s only a little way from here, and we can do up the whole thing before dinner.”
But “the whole thing” proved much more complicated than Madeline had supposed. The agent treated them in a businesslike way, which was really very nice of him, Babbie said afterward, considering their vague and even childlike ideas on the subject of what they wanted. He had half a dozen suites on his books that seemed to Madeline suitable, and she went over them easily, suggesting their respective advantages to the other two girls, who were less familiar than she with the ins and outs of New York life.
“This is really the best, I think,” she decided at last, pointing to a Fifth Avenue address.
“It’s a rather expensive location,” suggested the agent politely. “But perhaps that’s no object”—with a glance at Babbie’s exquisite little figure.
“Oh, yes, it is,” Betty assured him solemnly. “You see we want to make a lot of money. How much is the rent, please?”
The agent’s figures fairly took the girls’ breath away. “And I believe they prefer a seven years’ lease,” he added.
“Seven years!” repeated Babbie incredulously. “Why, we shall all be mar—dead in seven years, probably. A month’s rent at that rate would take up about what I think mother meant to give me. But then she’ll have to give me more. Which is the very cheapest place, please?”
The agent pointed it out, but it was only cheap by comparison. And then, as if matters were not bad enough already, he made a disheartening suggestion. “You ought to have at least capital enough to keep you going for a year,” he said. “You couldn’t hope to make much the first year, you know. That’s usually reckoned a dead loss, in conservative business estimates, I believe.”
The girls exchanged glances of consternation.
“We’re very much obliged,” said Babbie, with a fine combination of dignity and her sweetest smile. “But I’m afraid we can’t decide on anything to-day. We may be back——”
“That’s all right,” the agent cut her short. “Always very glad to be of service. Good-day.”
“He doesn’t want us to come back,” Babbie declared hotly, outside the door. “He’s afraid we wouldn’t pay the rent on time.”
“We probably shouldn’t, any such rents as those,” Madeline assured her. “We acted like babes in the wood, I suppose. Never mind. We’ll ask Bob Enderby and Dick. They’ll know what to do. You were jolly right, Betty, about beginning on the essentials.”
That night Mrs. Bob’s sitting-room was the scene of a solemn council of war. Dick Blake was scribe, Henri, the Enderbys’ cook, who had once conducted what Dick irreverently described as the slowest quick lunch place in town, was called in as an expert, along with the girl in the top flat, because her two cousins had had a tea-room, until one of them discovered that drawing caricatures of the customers paid much better than selling them sandwiches and tea.
“But it was a splendid thing—that tea-room,” explained the girl earnestly, “because Arline never knew she could draw until then. She sat at the desk, you see, and took checks, and there wasn’t much she could do, so she got to sketching and thought it was fun, and went into an evening class, and now she’s got two things in the big autumn exhibit.”
“Listen to that,” cried Mr. Bob with enthusiasm. “Which of you is going to sit at the desk?”
“I suppose I am,” confessed Betty, “and I haven’t the least talent for drawing, so there won’t be any great artist discovered in our tea-room.”
“Well, my other cousin got married through the tea-room,” explained the girl from the top flat, naively. “They sold candy there, and she married the man they bought their candy boxes of. He’s a millionaire.”
“Hear! Hear!” cried Mr. Bob. “Now which of you is going to get the millionaire?”
“Come, Bob, do be serious,” begged Madeline. “We want to get at the facts.”
“A millionaire is a very valuable fact,” objected Mr. Bob flippantly. “That’s all, Henri, except that we shall want an extra fine supper by and by. Now, Miss Andrus, tell us some more about the profits of tea-rooms, the legitimate ones, if Madeline insists upon it.”
But Miss Andrus was vague about “legitimate” profits. She only knew that her cousin had had a darling shop, and had hated to give it up. Then she went over to the piano and played dreamy music, while Richard Blake and Mrs. Bob and the girls struggled with their estimates.
When they had finished, Madeline’s brow puckered. “It’s going to be too big for us to swing, I think. Mrs. Hildreth might give you all that money, Babbie, but I don’t think we ought to take it.” She swept the papers together. “Enjoy our society while you have it, ladies and gentlemen. To-morrow we’re going up to Harding to open a tea-room.”
“But, Madeline,” began Betty, “are you sure——”
“I’m not sure of anything except that rents are lower there, because it would be absurd if they weren’t, and that those college girls eat and eat, and they appreciate stunty features beyond anything. Now Cuyler’s isn’t stunty and Holmes’s isn’t stunty. With that china and the menu card that Bob is going to do for us—I forgot to ask you before, Bob, but of course you will—and all the other features that we can easily think up, why, at Harding our fortune is made. I can’t see how we ever hesitated!”
“But if you go up there we can’t patronize you,” objected Mrs. Bob forlornly.
“Oh, yes, you can,” Madeline assured her promptly, “you can motor up. And Dick can see that your escapade gets into the society columns of all the leading dailies. In a month it will be the fashion to motor up from New York for a cup of tea.”
“Madeline,” said Dick severely, “you’re a persuasive sophist. Who holds the controlling interest in this tea-room, anyhow?”
“Babbie, I suppose,” admitted Madeline cheerfully. “Because she furnishes all the money—or all that’s worth mentioning, at least. But Betty furnishes the sense, and I furnish the inspirations. Now what’s the matter with that combination?”
“Aren’t you about through with your business?” demanded Mr. Bob irrelevantly, from his place by the piano. “Because Miss Andrus is hungry, and I’m starved.”
Betty partook of Henri’s famous club sandwiches and Turkish coffee in forlorn silence. She ought not to have come. She ought to have realized that Madeline’s haphazard methods were splendid for getting up college “shows,” but not to be relied on when one’s bread and butter had to be earned. Madeline was in a corner by the fire talking earnestly with Mrs. Bob, who was saying something that made Madeline hug her and presently rush over to Betty and Babbie to explain.
“The lovely Mrs. Bob wants to invest in our tea-room,” she told them. “You say your mother spoke of four hundred, Babbie. Well, Mrs. Bob says she’ll put in the same, and after Betty’s salary is paid and the other expenses, the profits are to be divided—that’s what you said was right, isn’t it, Dick?”
“But half my profits go to Madeline,” Mrs. Bob took her up, “for the inspirations.”
“Then I know mother will want half hers to go that way, too,” put in Babbie, “and I shall take the other half, to pay her up for being pessimistic about profits. She just laughed when I spoke of them.”
“Well, it will be all kinds of fun, anyway,” said Madeline. “Goodness, but I feel as if the worst was over now! Does any one know about early trains up to Harding? By the way, father hasn’t cabled, so I suppose this domicile is to let. Just spread the report, please, everybody, and I’ll come back in a few days to see about it. It’s just as well, because I suppose I’ve got to live in Harding now. I never could manage long-distance inspirations.”
The three girls departed early to pack and telegraph Mary Brooks Hinsdale that her “standing invitation” to come and visit her should stand no longer unheeded by her little friends of old.
So perhaps it hadn’t been a wasted day after all, Betty thought, falling asleep while Madeline was still busily discussing where they should live in Harding, and how much they ought to pay the tea-shop for their meals, if they ate them there.
