you need. If you’re bashful—and I don’t know why you should be, now that you’re a full-fledged graduate— I’ll do the talking. Besides, I’ve always said it does a singer no harm to be on good terms with the critics. They can make or break you.”
The upshot of which was that Tommy’s letter was presented at the offices of the Champion Piano Company, where Fleming had his headquarters. Several clericai workers took Dorothy and Mrs. Loamford in custody, before a heavily powdered young woman led them to a desk in the centre of a large office which looked like a stenographic ‘bureau.
Fleming proved to be a tall, thin personage, who wore almost black-rimmed glasses which buried their stems in a great quantity of gray-black hair. Fleming’s tonsorial arrangements conveyed the notion that he was his own barber. Although his glasses fitted snugly, he seemed to be looking over them.
“You were sent by—Mr. Burke, is it?” he inquired. “Oh, Mr. Borge. Ah, yes, [remember him. A tall young man. Yes, Mr. Borge. You sing, I believe. Soprano?”
“My daughter,” answered Mrs. Loamford, “graduated from St. Cecilia’s Conservatory. She is a lyric soprano, and her teachers consider her unusually promising . . .”
“I see,” commented Fleming, who would have stroked his beard had that been one of his possessions. “Miss Loamford sings.”
“Perhaps you would like to have her sing for you, Mr. Fleming,” intimated Mrs. Loamford.
She received an ocular kick under the table for this.
“A very good suggestion,” agreed Fleming. “Has she brought some of her music?”
“My daughter has memorized her songs.”
“Very good,” said Fleming, “but I was thinking of an
[86]
