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George's decision was the result of a marching logic. Now, in the blood and character
departments. George was fine. What he lacked was in the success department. So he must
abandon this easygoing life. He must acquire the proof, that is to say, the money- Nothing he
could do in Deeport would lead to the kind of money Mr. Blair probably had in mind. So ...
The boys in the band were disconsolate. The manager of the hotel set up such a pained
and frantic howl that George fled his office, with bitter reproaches of ingratitude, picas for
mercy, predictions of the Casino's ruin, ringing in his ears. George thought this was shock.
He was sorry.
240 Charlotte Armstrong
He arranged to leave the bulk of his earnings in the bank for his mother and the Aunts
where it would, as it always had, take them nicely through the winter. "So you see," George
explained to them hopefully, "it's not going to make any difference to you."
The three ladies tightened their mouths and agreed. Aunt Margaret, although plump, was
the one who tended to fear the worst, but, of course, she didn't weep. Aunt Liz, tiny and
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angular, chose to look on the bright side, and smiled mysteri- ously to herself as if she'd
been tipped off by a private angel. Nellie Hale, a blend of both temperaments, simply
tightened her mouth. "George is grown," she said, and that was all she would say.
So, darned and mended, cleaned and pressed, and fed to me utter limit, George, with $200
in his pocket and his saxophone in his hand, took the train one September evening, without
the faintest conception of the gap his departure tore in the whole fabric of the town's life. All
hints of this he took for kindliness and so he was spared. He suffered only the wrench of his
own homesickness.
New York received George and his saxophone with her cus- tomary indifference. Yet he
was lucky in me first hour, for he walked by Mrs. McGurk's four-story brownstone on West
69th Street just as her hand in me front window hung up the vacancy sign.
George, trained all his life to pretend that only cleanliness mattered, saw that the square
ugly room on the fourth floor was clean and so said he'd take it. Mrs. McGurk sniffed. Take it,
indeed' She said she'd take him. Rent by the month, in advance. That was her rule. George
paid and looked about him. The room had no charm, but George, although he had always
lived in the most charming surroundings, knew not the word or its definition. The place felt
queer. He imagined, however, that it was only strange.
Mrs. McGurk was a widow. 40-odd, toughened by her career. The poor woman had a nose
that took, from head-on, the outline of a thin pear, and was hung, besides, a trifle crookedly
on her face. Her character, though scrupulously
THREE DAY-MAGIC 241
honest, was veiled by no soft graces. Like the room. she was clean but she had no charm.
What other roomers might hole up, two to a floor, below him in this tall narrow house,
George did not know. He tried to say "Good day" to a man who seemed about to emerge
from the other door on his landing, but he got no answer. All he saw was a brown beard, a
narrow eye, and the door, reversing itself, closing softly to wait till he had gone by.
George shrugged. He had other matters on his mind. First, he had to get a job- This was
not very difficult, since he was a member of the union in good standing. Pretty soon George
bad. hired himself and saxophone out to Cannichael's Cats, a small dance band, playing in
a small nightclub. It wasn't such a wonderful job, but George felt that in this great city first one
got a toehold and then one took the time to look around.
His first night off, he called on Kathy. She lived only just across the Park in Bennett Blair's
gray stone house that looked to George exactly like a bank building. He was re- ceived in a
huge parlor, stuffed full of ponderous pieces, dark carving, stifled with damask in malevolent
reds and dusty greens, lit by lamps whose heavy shades were muddy brown.
Kathy was glad to see him. Bennett Blair was not.
George walked home through the Park, and on its margins the tall buildings glittered, high
and incredible in the dark. " Tisn't going to be so darned easy!" George thought to himself.
And he tightened his mouth.
George, from his toehold, had no time to look around because the toehold gave way.
Cannichael's Cats were sorry but they couldn't use him. He wasn't right.
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George had to stir himself and get another job with Bamey and his Bachelors. They played,
as had the Cats, a jagged and stylized kind of music, full of switches and turns. Bamey nked
to ambush himself, to leap on a sweet passage with an odd blue interruption, to fall from a
fast blare to a low whimper with shock tactics. These tricks were no ingredient of George's
bag. it wasn't that he didn't like the effect. He admired it. But he couldn't do it. Bamey could
jerk and shake up the whole band, but not George. George would try, but first thing he knew,
there he'd be, tootling along in his
242 Charlotte Armstrong
own jig time, following one note with the probable next at the probable interval. Being
obvious! Barney was disgusted'
So George left the Bachelors, unhappily, and approached Harry and his Hornets.
Each new month, Mrs. McGurk waited for dawn to crack, but no longer. Pay in advance was
her rule and her system had no flaws. Rarely, indeed, did the sun go down upon a deficit, or
a roomer escape to carry his debt unto the second day.
On the fourth floor, George, occupationally a late riser. was just getting up when she sang
out, "First of the month, Mr. Hale." Her initial assault was always blithe and confident.
"Why, sure," drawled George. "Come in a minute." He fumbled under his handkerchiefs in
me top drawer. "Hey," cried George in honest surprise. "I don't seem to have much money!"
The landlady's nostrils quivered, scenting battle.
"Gosh," said George reasonably, "I can't give you all of this!" in the midst of turmoil,
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