Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

5. CHAPTER FIVE (continued)

"Dear lady, I hope I have not entirely disorganized your shop. I have had a most glorious time. Would you believe it, this jack-in-the-box looks exactly--but exactly-- like my manager, Weber, when the box-office receipts are good. He grins just--"

And then his eye fell on the drawing that Fanny was trying to cover with one brown paw. "Hello! What's this?" Then he looked at Fanny. Then he grasped her wrist in his fingers of steel and looked at the sketch that grinned back at him impishly. "Well, I'm damned!" exploded Schabelitz in amusement, and surprise, and appreciation. And did not apologize. "And who is this young lady with the sense of humor?"

"This is my little girl, Fanny."

He looked down at the rough sketch again, with its clean-cut satire, and up again at the little girl in the school coat and the faded red tam o' shanter, who was looking at him shyly, and defiantly, and provokingly, all at once.

"Your little girl Fanny, h'm? The one who is to give up everything that the boy Theodore may become a great violinist." He bent again over the crude, effective cartoon, then put a forefinger gently under the child's chin and tipped her glowing face up to the light. "I am not so sure now that it will work. As for its being fair! Why, no! No!"

Fanny waited for her mother that evening, and they walked home together. Their step and swing were very much alike, now that Fanny's legs were growing longer. She was at the backfisch age.

"What did he mean, Mother, when he said that about Theodore being a great violinist, and its not being fair? What isn't fair? And how did he happen to be in the store, anyway? He bought a heap of toys, didn't he? I suppose he's awfully rich."

"To-night, when Theodore's at the concert, I'll tell you what he meant, and all about it."

"I'd love to hear him play, wouldn't you? I'd just love to."