Where do you Get that Noise? by Ring Lardner

He done it -- and that night too. I guess you know that, next to winnin', Cap likes his missus better'n anything in the world. She is a nice gal, all right, and as pretty as they make 'em.

Cap's as proud of her as a colleger with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. When the different papers would print Miss So-and-So's pitcher and say she was the handsomest girl in this, that or the other place, Cap'd point it out to us and say: "My gal makes her look like a bad day outdoors."

Cap's wife's a blonde; and -- believe me, boy -- she dresses! She wasn't with us on this trip I'm speakin' of. She hasn't been with us all season, not since the trainin' trip. I think her mother's sick out there in St. Joe. Anyway, Hawley never seen her -- that is, to know who she was.

Well, Carey framed it up so's I and him and Cap went in to supper together. Hawley was settin' all alone. Carey, brushin' by the head waiter, marches us up to Hawley's table and plants us. Carey's smilin' like he didn't have a care in the world. Hawley noticed the smile.

"Yattaboy! " he says. "Forget the base hits and cheer up!"

"I guess you'd cheer up, too, if you'd seen what I seen," says Carey. "Just lookin' at her was enough to drive away them Ockaway Chinese blues."

"That ain't no way for a married man to talk," says Cap.

"Well," says Carey, "gettin' married don't mean gettin' blind."

"What was she like? " ast Cap.

"Like all the prettiest ones," says Carey. "She was a blonde."

"Where do you get that noise? " says Hawley, buttin' in. "I s'pose they ain't no pretty dark girls?"

"Oh, yes," says Carey -- "octoroons and them."

"Well," says Hawley, "I never seen no real pretty blondes. They ain't a blonde livin' that can class up with a pretty brunette."

"Where do you get that noise? " says Carey.

"Where do I get it! " says Hawley. "Say, I guess I've saw my share o' women. When you seen as many as I seen you won't be talkin' blonde."

"I seen one blonde that's the prettiest woman in this country," says Carey.

"The one you seen just now? " says Hawley.

"No, sir; another one," says Carey.

"Where at? " Hawley ast him.

"She's in Missouri, where she first come from," says Carey; "and she's the prettiest girl that was ever in the state."