jerome made off as soon as he could—or rather as soon as the intense delight of this new type of excitement permitted him to think of it—and sent a cable to his family. mr. curry paid him a month’s salary in advance, so that he wasn’t quite penniless. indeed, he felt himself rolling in riches. he supplied himself with a small trunk and considerable necessary apparel. in a shop window where he saw them displayed jerome hesitated over the necessity of a new clip; but he astutely argued that since lili had snatched off his old clip and flung it to sea, evidently there was something about clips—or at any rate as associated with himself—which made sophisticated people laugh; the temptation was stoutly resisted. he purchased a haircut, too, which helped enormously; and went about smoking his short-stemmed pipe—not exactly jauntily, as in the old days when he thought he knew so much and really knew so little, but rather in a resolute, sober manner, which seemed proclaiming at least one highly important milestone passed.
everybody was furiously busy, getting settled and trying to see the sights and do the required rehearsing and necessary shopping all at the same time. as for the sight-seeing, that could no doubt have waited; but in the case of most of mr. curry’s songbirds, temperament dictated otherwise. and it frequently happened, during the first days in honolulu, that members of the troupe would bow to each other, sometimes a shade haughtily but usually with whole-hearted zest, from carriages in which they were being driven everywhere.
jerome and lili did a little sight-seeing together, though (being not, as one has already seen, quite a type) she very sensibly wouldn’t hear of his hiring a carriage, but insisted that “gawd knows i’m not too elegant to ride on a street car yet!”