The graphite lubricant failed to conceal the scowl on his face as he burst into the office. The proprietor, a keen purveyor of popular excitement, was rubbing his hands in Mephistophelian satisfaction over a new poster.
“Daredevil Ted Rocco,” it said, and “Wild Will Ryan”; and below, in big red type that crowded the rest almost off the sheet, “Miss Sadie Simmons, America’s Queen of the Track.” From which the sagacious reader will infer that Miss Simmons was new and unproved; otherwise Santoni would infallibly have billed her as “Crazy Sadie,” in suggestion of death-defying recklessness.
“Hullo, Teddy!” cried Santoni in his mighty voice. “What you been doing to your face?”
“Greasin’ up,” Teddy answered shortly, and cast a malevolent glance at the bill. “Listen here, San. What’s all this talk about a skirt comin’ on? We don’t run any musical leg-show here, you know. If you let a dame on to this track, it’s going to put the speeds on the blink, and then you’ll need a complete Ziegfeld chorus to hold the crowd. I’ve got a fine motion-picture of myself bein’ paced by something in bag-tights and a picture-hat.”
Santoni frowned warningly, jerked his head toward the half-open door of his sanctum, and passed a large, embarrassed hand over his heavy showman’s jowl.
“I do’ know, Ted,” he growled. “Maybe she ain’t any funeral, either, if you can believe her. But if you fancy your chance, you can argue the point with her yourself, for she’s right here. Miss Simmons!”
From Santoni’s sanctum came the sound of a chair abruptly pushed back, and the click of high heels on the floor. The proprietor turned away under the pretense of affixing the poster to the wall; then the door opened wide and revealed “America’s Queen of the Track.”
For a moment she inspected Teddy Rocco with the interest of a professional rival. He did not look at all like a daredevil just then, but merely a rather astonished little man with a square mechanic’s jaw and a compact, wiry figure, his sleeves rolled up and his arms and face besmeared. There was some reason for his astonishment, too, for in America’s “Queen,” instead of the superannuated, hard-featured circus-performer he had expected, he saw a rather shy, spruce little girl, with bright, black eyes and an absurdly small nose. Her dark hair hung in two thick, glossy ropes over her shoulders, and her skirt was short enough to reveal several inches of well-modeled ankle.