U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [484]
"Oh, I guess you think we're very unrefined," said
-329-Margo. "If I only 'ad some capital," groaned Piquot, shaking his head as he went back to his office on the mez-zanine that was al glass and eggshel white with aluminum fittings. "I could make New York te most stylish city in te vorld." Margo liked it parading around in the Paris models and in Piquot's own slinky contraptions over the deep putty-colored rugs. It was better than shaking her fanny in the chorus al right. She didn't have to get down to the show-rooms til late. The showrooms were warm and spotless, with a faint bitter smel on the air of new materials and dyes and mothbal s, shot through with a whiff of scented Egyptian cigarettes.The models had a little room in the back where they could sit and read magazines and talk about beauty treatments and the theaters and the footbal season, when there were no customers. There were only two other girls who came regularly and there weren't too many customers either. The girls said that Piquot was going broke.
When he had his sale after Christmas Margo got Agnes to go down one Monday morning and buy her three stun-ning gowns for thirty dol ars each; she tipped Agnes off on just what to buy and made out not to know her when she pranced out to show the new spring models off.
There wasn't any doubt any more that Piquot was going broke. Bil col ectors stormed in the little office on the mez-zanine and everybody's pay was three weeks in arrears, and Piquot's moonshaped face drooped in tiny sagging
wrinkles. Margo decided she'd better start looking around for another job, especial y as Mr. A's drinking was getting harder and harder to handle. Every morning she studied the stockmarket reports. She didn't have the faith she had at first in Mr. A's tips after she'd bought Sinclair one day and had had to cover her margin and had come out three hundred dol ars in the hole.
One Saturday there was a great stir around Piquot's.
-330-Piquot himself kept charging out of his office waving his short arms, sometimes peevish and sometimes cackling and giggling, driving the salesladies and models before him like a new rooster in a henyard. Somebody was coming to take photographs for Vogue. The photographer when he final y came was a thinfaced young Jewish boy with a pasty skin and dark circles under his eyes. He had a regular big photographer's camera and a great many flashlight bulbs al silvercrinkly inside that Piquot kept picking up and handling in a gingerly kind of way and exclaiming over. "A vonderful invention. . . . I vould never 'ave photographs taken before because I detest explosions and ten te I vould never 'ave photographs taken before because I detest explosions and ten te danger of fire."
It was a warm day in February and the steamheated
showrooms were stifling hot. The young man who came to take the pictures was drenched in sweat when he came out from under the black cloth. Piquot wouldn't leave him alone for a second. He had to take Piquot in his office, Piquot at the draftingboard, Piquot among the models. The girls thought their turn would never come. The photographer kept saying, "You let me alone, Mr. Piquot.
. . . I want to plan something artistic." The girls al got to giggling. At last Piquot went off and locked himself in his office in a pet. They could see him in there through the glass partition, sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. After that things quieted down. Margo and the photographer got along very wel . He kept whispering to her to see what she could do to keep the old gent out of the pictures. When he left to go up to the loft upstairs where the dresses were made, the photographer handed her his card and asked her if she wouldn't let him take her picture at his studio some Sunday. It would mean a great deal to him and it wouldn't