Nothing Sacred Page #3

He's... he's worked up

a nutty demonstration.

New York is going to lay

its heart at your feet

while the whistles blow and the

bands play and the cameras grind.

How about you, sailor? Anything you

care to say as we go into action?

Oh, I'm going to have a marvelous

time. Whatever happens afterwards -

I mean about the convulsions and all that

- I'm going to have fun first I am I am

Well, if that doesn't make

them cry, nothing will.

Cry? Why should they cry?

Because you're the bravest kid that ever

lived. There's no fake about it this time.

Oh, look!

Don't excite yourself too much.

It's just a fake.

What did you say?

I said, don't excite yourself too much.

It's just a fake.

- Who? Who is a fake?

- Those grapplers.

- The only square thing about them is the ring.

- Oh, them!

They're a symbol to the whole town

pretending to fight, love,

weep and laugh all the time...

and they're phonies, all of 'em.

- And I head the list.

- Oh no, you don't. Don't say that.

Using you to get a bonus and

a byline on the front page.

Making good over your poor,

little pain-racked body and all.

I'm worse than those fake wrestlers.

I feel fine tonight, Wally. You and the

Morning Star have been so wonderful to me.

You know, these wonderful gowns and the

banquets and the theater tickets and...

the poetry.

Stop looking so happy

and gallant, will you?

Breaks my heart.

- You all right?

- Oh, yes. I-I feel fine.

Ladies and gentlemen! I have just learned

that Miss Hazel Flagg is in the audience!

I would like to ask this distinguished

audience to observe ten seconds of silence

in respect for Miss Flagg.

Okay, boys.

Would it interfere with your running the

fleet if I ask you something personal?

That's what we're here for,

to get personal. Proceed.

There's a loose halyard fore.

Go and make it fast, will you?

- That thing on the top there?

- Yes, my little mariner, yes.

Try not to go overboard.

I asked several people,

but they didn't know.

- They didn't know what?

- If you were married.

The answer, in capital

letters, is no. N-O.

- N-O?

- Yeah. N-O.

Oh, I see. I don't suppose

newspapermen marry, as a rule.

Not after they're 14 or 15. That's the

dangerous age for the journalist.

His ideals are not yet formed and he

falls easy prey to elderly waitresses.

- Once his finer side is born, he waits.

- For what?

For the sound of the flare alarm, Miss

Flagg. Waits to go rushing off for the fire.

- What fire is that, Mr. Cook?

- Love.

- I used to hear about that in Warsaw.

- Yeah. It's gotten around.

- You're having fun?

- Yes. But you know, I get kinda depressed.

You know, last night when I entered

the theater, everybody moaned. Oh.

You know, I might as well be

a case of walking cholera.

Don't do that!

Now, I used to love New York when

they went gaga over some celebrity.

Danced in the streets with a

neon light around its heart.

I'm getting fed up with its trick tears

and phony lamentations over you.

I'm glad they're phony. It makes

everything all right, in a way.

I mean I wouldn't wanna feel I was

really making all those people suffer.

Wally! Wally, look at

that man with the toupee!

Greetings, greetings, my little folks!

Heh-heh.

Tonight, there is one among us

Who adds a bit of unaccustomed

drama to our little rally.

She sits here, eyes sparkling, her

face wreathed in a lovely smile.

Drinking in the charm, the

glitter, the gay sounds of life.

So drink your wine,

laugh and applaud

while this little doomed child

sits saying goodbye to you.

Her last goodbye, with a

grateful smile on her lips.

So on with the show,

my little actors all.

On with the show, for tonight you're

not the famous folk of Broadway.

Tonight you're just a little chorus

laughing and dancing and pirouetting

To afford a last brief

hour of mirth and jollity

to America's simplest and sweetest

of heroines

Miss Hazel Flagg.

For good, clean fun, there's

nothing like a wake.

Oh please, please,

let's not talk shop.

Our next number tonight, ladies and gentlemen,

is entitled "The Heroines of History".

Catherine the Great who saved Russia.

She could do it, too.

Lady Godiva who saved her virtue.

That's the way those

things go, folks.

Katinka who saved Holland by

putting her finger in the dyke.

Show them the finger, babe.

Pocahontas who saved

Captain John Smith

and later on set him up in

the cough drop business.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to

meet that little girl from Warsaw, Vermont.

That little soldier whose heroic

smile in the face of death

has wrung tears and cheers from

the great stone heart of the city.

I humbly invite her now to take her place

beside all the great Heroines of History.

Our own Miss Hazel Flagg!

Look! Something has

happened to Hazel!

Look out, young fella.

Let me at her.

- Has it... has it come?

- Doctor, I wanna know the worst.

I don't want you to spare our feelings.

We're going to press in 15 minutes.

- Is there a chance, doctor?

- I've been expecting something like this.

Let's get her out of here.

Quick.

Please, everybody. Take your seats.

Quiet, please. Take your seats.

There must be no commotion.

The show must go on. Hazel

would want it that way.

I'm disgusted with you, Hazel. Getting

drunk in the middle of a memorial.

- Now lie down like I tell you.

- I'm not drunk.

I just had a little sip, thassall, and then...

then all of those buffaloes ran over me.

They weren't buffaloes,

they were horses.

- I might've been trampled to death!

- Don't yell, I tell you!

If somebody respectable could see you

now, that would be pretty, wouldn't it?

Shame on you!

Take your stockings off!

You're the doctor,

take 'em off yourself.

Say! What are you doing?

If anything happens,

we have to replate.

That's all that counts to

you, isn't it, you birdbrain

With a headline for a heart?

That poor, gallant little kid standing in

front of that goofy bunch of horses.

And smiling, just smiling.

Don't waste copy on me, Wallace.

Oliver, that's the sweetest, loveliest

kid in there that ever lived.

Yes, you said that

before, Wally.

I'm through. I can't play

pallbearer any longer. I'm resigning.

She's all right, gentlemen.

Sleeping like a little baby.

- No! Are you sure?

- Just as if nothing had happened.

She'll be fitter than a

fiddle in the morning.

In the morning,

ya-da-de-dee, da-daa...

Oh.

Oh.

- Oh my Gosh! Miss Rafferty, Miss Rafferty!

- Yes?

Oh, make them stop ringing that phone.

It'll break my head open.

- Hello?

- I don't wanna talk to anybody.

Just a minute. There are twenty little

schoolchildren downstairs to sing for you.

Mr. Stone arranged for it yesterday.

Oh, it's horrible. I'll go mad!

- Send them up.

- You may bring them up, sir.

Oh my Gosh, there's a

sawmill inside my head.

You may leave the

room, Miss Rafferty.

I brought you something.

Raw eggs.

Just what you need.

Their albumen counteracts

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