Pat’s psychology was, oddly, that of the masters and for the most part he was unworried even though he was off salary. But there was one large fly in the ointment — for the first time in his life he began to feel a loss of identity. Due to reasons that he did not quite understand, though it might have been traced to his conversation, a number of people began to address him as ‘Orson’.
Now to lose one’s identity is a careless thing in any case. But to lose it to an enemy, or at least to one who has become scapegoat for our misfortunes — that is a hardship. Pat was not Orson. Any resemblance must be faint and far-fetched and he was aware of the fact. The final effect was to make him, in that regard, something of an eccentric.
‘Pat,’ said Joe the barber, ‘Orson was in here today and asked me to trim his beard.’
‘I hope you set fire to it,’ said Pat.
‘I did,’ Joe winked at waiting customers over a hot towel. ‘He asked for a singe so I took it all off. Now his face is as bald as yours. In fact you look a bit alike.’
This was the morning the kidding was so ubiquitous that, to avoid it, Pat lingered in Mario’s bar across the street. He was not drinking — at the bar, that is, for he was down to his last thirty cents, but he refreshed himself frequently from a half-pint in his back pocket. He needed the stimulus for he had to make a touch presently and he knew that money was easier to borrow when one didn’t have an air of urgent need.
His quarry, Jeff Boldini, was in an unsympathetic state of mind. He too was an artist, albeit a successful one, and a certain great lady of the screen had just burned him up by criticizing a wig he had made for her. He told the story to Pat at length and the latter waited until it was all out before broaching his request.
‘No soap,’ said Jeff. ‘Hell, you never paid me back what you borrowed last month.’
‘But I got a job now,’ lied Pat. ‘This is just to tide me over. I start tomorrow.’
‘If they don’t give the job to Orson Welles,’ said Jeff humorously.
Pat’s eyes narrowed but he managed to utter a polite, borrower’s laugh.
‘Hold it,’ said Jeff. ‘You know I think you look like him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Honest. Anyhow I could make you look like him. I could make you a beard that would be his double.’
‘I wouldn’t be his double for fifty grand.’
With his head on one side Jeff regarded Pat.
‘I could,’ he said. ‘Come on in to my chair and let me see.’
‘Like hell.’
‘Come on. I’d like to try it. You haven’t got anything to do. You don’t work till tomorrow.’
‘I don’t want a beard.’
‘It’ll come off.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘It won’t cost you anything. In fact I’ll be paying you — I’ll loan you the ten smackers if you’ll let me make you a beard.’
Half an hour later Jeff looked at his completed work.
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