Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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He bowed her profoundly into a taxi-cab and got in beside her.

“Isn’t it about time you told me your scheme?” she suggested.

“Well, it’s about these society girls up here.” He waved his hand airily. “I know ’em all.”

“Where are they?”

“Right now they’re with Hugo. You remember—that’s my body-servant.”

“With Hugo!” Her eyes widened. “Why? What’s it all about?”

“Well, I got—I got sort of a school, I guess you’d call it.”

“A school?”

“It’s a sort of academy. And I’m the head of it. I invented it.”

He flipped a card from his case as though he were shaking down a thermometer.

“Look.”

She took the card. In large lettering it bore the legend

JAMES POWELL; J. M.

“Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar”

She stared in amazement.

“Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar?” she repeated in awe.

“Yes mamm.”

“What does it mean? What——do you sell ’em?”

“No mamm, I teach ’em. It’s a profession.”

“Dice, Brassknuckles and Guitar? What’s the J. M.?”

“That stands for Jazz Master.”

“But what is it? What’s it about?”

“Well, you see, it’s like this. One night when I was in New York I got talkin’ to a young fella who’d been drinking some. He was one of my fares. And he’d taken some society girl somewhere and lost her.”