Strictly Business
I suppose you know all about the stage and stage people. You've beentouched with and by actors, and you read the newspaper criticisms andthe jokes in the weeklies about the Rialto and the chorus girls and thelong-haired tragedians. And I suppose that a condensed list of yourideas about the mysterious stageland would boil down to something likethis:
Leading ladies have five husbands, paste diamonds, and figures no betterthan your own (madam) if they weren't padded. Chorus girls areinseparable from peroxide, Panhards and Pittsburg. All shows walk backto New York on tan oxford and railroad ties. Irreproachable actressesreserve the comic-landlady part for their mothers on Broadway and theirstep-aunts on the road. Kyrle Bellew's real name is Boyle O'Kelley. Theravings of John McCullough in the phonograph were stolen from the firstsale of the Ellen Terry memoirs. Joe Weber is funnier than E. H.Sothern; but Henry Miller is getting older than he was.
All theatrical people on leaving the theatre at night drink champagneand eat lobsters until noon the next day. After all, the moving pictureshave got the whole bunch pounded to a pulp.
Now, few of us know the real life of the stage people. If we did, theprofession might be more overcrowded than it is. We look askance at theplayers with an eye full of patronizing superiority--and we go home andpractise all sorts of elocution and gestures in front of our lookingglasses.
Latterly there has been much talk of the actor people in a new light. Itseems to have been divulged that instead of being motoring bacchanaliansand diamond-hungry _loreleis_ they are businesslike folk, students andascetics with childer and homes and libraries, owning real estate, andconducting their private affairs in as orderly and unsensational amanner as any of us good citizens who are bound to the chariot wheels ofthe gas, rent, coal, ice, and wardmen.
Whether the old or the new report of the sock-and-buskiners be the trueone is a surmise that has no place here. I offer you merely this littlestory of two strollers; and for proof of its truth I can show you onlythe dark patch above the cast-iron of the stage-entrance door ofKeetor's old vaudeville theatre made there by the petulant push ofgloved hands too impatient to finger the clumsy thumb-latch--and where Ilast saw Cherry whisking through like a swallow into her nest, on timeto the minute, as usual, to dress for her act.
The vaudeville team of Hart & Cherry was an inspiration. Bob Hart hadbeen roaming through the Eastern and Western circuits for four yearswith a mixed-up act comprising a monologue, three lightning changeswith songs, a couple of imitations of celebrated imitators, and abuck-and-wing dance that had drawn a glance of approval from thebass-viol player in more than one house--than which no performer everreceived more satisfactory evidence of good work.
The greatest treat an actor can have is to witness the pitifulperformance with which all other actors desecrate the stage. In order togive himself this pleasure he will often forsake the sunniest Broadwaycorner between Thirty-fourth and Forty-fourth to attend a matinйeoffering by his less gifted brothers. Once during the lifetime of aminstrel joke one comes to scoff and remains to go through with thatmost difficult exercise of Thespian muscles--the audible contact of thepalm of one hand against the palm of the other.
One afternoon Bob Hart presented his solvent, serious, well-knownvaudevillian face at the box-office window of a rival attraction and gothis d. h. coupon for an orchestra seat.
A, B, C, and D glowed successively on the announcement spaces and passedinto oblivion, each plunging Mr. Hart deeper into gloom. Others of theaudience shrieked, squirmed, whistled, and applauded; but Bob Hart, "Allthe Mustard and a Whole Show in Himself," sat with his face as long andhis hands as far apart as a boy holding a hank of yarn for hisgrandmother to wind into a ball.
But when H came on, "The Mustard" suddenly sat up straight. H was thehappy alphabetical prognosticator of Winona Cherry, in Character Songsand Impersonations. There were scarcely more than two bites to Cherry;but she delivered the merchandise tied with a pink cord and charged tothe old man's account. She first showed you a deliciously dewy andginghamy country girl with a basket of property daisies who informed youingenuously that there were other things to be learned at the old logschool-house besides cipherin' and nouns, especially "When the Teach-erKept Me in." Vanishing, with a quick flirt of gingham apron-strings,she reappeared in considerably less than a "trice" as a fluffy"Parisienne"--so near does Art bring the old red mill to the MoulinRouge. And then--
But you know the rest. And so did Bob Hart; but he saw somebody else. Hethought he saw that Cherry was the only professional on the short orderstage that he had seen who seemed exactly to fit the part of "HelenGrimes" in the sketch he had written and kept tucked away in the trayof his trunk. Of course Bob Hart, as well as every other normal actor,grocer, newspaper man, professor, curb broker, and farmer, has a playtucked away somewhere. They tuck 'em in trays of trunks, trunks oftrees, desks, haymows, pigeonholes, inside pockets, safe-deposit vaults,handboxes, and coal cellars, waiting for Mr. Frohman to call. Theybelong among the fifty-seven different kinds.
But Bob Hart's sketch was not destined to end in a pickle jar. He calledit "Mice Will Play." He had kept it quiet and hidden away ever since hewrote it, waiting to find a partner who fitted his conception of "HelenGrimes." And here was "Helen" herself, with all the innocent abandon,the youth, the sprightliness, and the flawless stage art that hiscritical taste demanded.
After the act was over Hart found the manager in the box office, and gotCherry's address. At five the next afternoon he called at the musty oldhouse in the West Forties and sent up his professional card.
By daylight, in a secular shirtwaist and plain _voile_ skirt, with herhair curbed and her Sister of Charity eyes, Winona Cherry might havebeen playing the part of Prudence Wise, the deacon's daughter, in thegreat (unwritten) New England drama not yet entitled anything.
"I know your act, Mr. Hart," she said after she had looked over his cardcarefully. "What did you wish to see me about?"
"I saw you work last night," said Hart. "I've written a sketch that I'vebeen saving up. It's for two; and I think you can do the other part. Ithought I'd see you about it."
"Come in the parlor," said Miss Cherry. "I've been wishing for somethingof the sort. I think I'd like to act instead of doing turns."
Bob Hart drew his cherished "Mice Will Play" from his pocket, and readit to her.
"Read it again, please," said Miss Cherry.
And then she pointed out to him clearly how it could be improved byintroducing a messenger instead of a telephone call, and cutting thedialogue just before the climax while they were struggling with thepistol, and by completely changing the lines and business of HelenGrimes at the point where her jealousy overcomes her. Hart yielded toall her strictures without argument. She had at once put her finger onthe sketch's weaker points. That was her woman's intuition that he hadlacked. At the end of their talk Hart was willing to stake the judgment,experience, and savings of his four years of vaudeville that "Mice WillPlay" would blossom into a perennial flower in the garden of thecircuits. Miss Cherry was slower to decide. After many puckerings of hersmooth young brow and tappings on her small, white teeth with the end ofa lead pencil she gave out her dictum.
"Mr. Hart," said she, "I believe your sketch is going to win out. ThatGrimes part fits me like a shrinkable flannel after its first trip to ahandless hand laundry. I can make it stand out like the colonel of theForty-fourth Regiment at a Little Mothers' Bazaar. And I've seen youwork. I know what you can do with the other part. But business isbusiness. How much do you get a week for the stunt you do now?"
"Two hundred," answered Hart.
"I get one hundred for mine," said Cherry. "That's about the naturaldiscount for a woman. But I live on it and put a few simoleons everyweek under the loose brick in the old kitchen hearth. The stage is allright. I love it; but there's something else I love better--that's alittle country home, some day, with Plymouth Rock chickens and six duckswandering around the yard.
"Now, let me tell you, Mr. Hart, I am STRICTLY BUSINESS. If you want meto play the opposite part in your sketch, I'll do it. And I believe wecan make it go. And there's something else I want to say: There's nononsense in my make-up; I'm _on the level_, and I'm on the stage forwhat it pays me, just as other girls work in stores and offices. I'mgoing to save my money to keep me when I'm past doing my stunts. No OldLadies' Home or Retreat for Imprudent Actresses for me.
"If you want to make this a business partnership, Mr. Hart, with allnonsense cut out of it, I'm in on it. I know something about vaudevilleteams in general; but this would have to be one in particular. I wantyou to know that I'm on the stage for what I can cart away from it everypay-day in a little manila envelope with nicotine stains on it, wherethe cashier has licked the flap. It's kind of a hobby of mine to want tocravenette myself for plenty of rainy days in the future. I want you toknow just how I am. I don't know what an all-night restaurant lookslike; I drink only weak tea; I never spoke to a man at a stage entrancein my life, and I've got money in five savings banks."
"Miss Cherry," said Bob Hart in his smooth, serious tones, "you're inon your own terms. I've got 'strictly business' pasted in my hat andstenciled on my make-up box. When I dream of nights I always see afive-room bungalow on the north shore of Long Island, with a Jap cookingclam broth and duckling in the kitchen, and me with the title deeds tothe place in my pongee coat pocket, swinging in a hammock on the sideporch, reading Stanley's 'Explorations into Africa.' And nobody elsearound. You never was interested in Africa, was you, Miss Cherry?"
"Not any," said Cherry. "What I'm going to do with my money is to bankit. You can get four per cent. on deposits. Even at the salary I've beenearning, I've figured out that in ten years I'd have an income of about$50 a month just from the interest alone. Well, I might invest some ofthe principal in a little business--say, trimming hats or a beautyparlor, and make more."
"Well," said Hart, "You've got the proper idea all right, all right,anyhow. There are mighty few actors that amount to anything at all whocouldn't fix themselves for the wet days to come if they'd save theirmoney instead of blowing it. I'm glad you've got the correct businessidea of it, Miss Cherry. I think the same way; and I believe this sketchwill more than double what both of us earn now when we get it shapedup."
The subsequent history of "Mice Will Play" is the history of allsuccessful writings for the stage. Hart & Cherry cut it, pieced it,remodeled it, performed surgical operations on the dialogue andbusiness, changed the lines, restored 'em, added more, cut 'em out,renamed it, gave it back the old name, rewrote it, substituted a daggerfor the pistol, restored the pistol--put the sketch through all theknown processes of condensation and improvement.
They rehearsed it by the old-fashioned boardinghouse clock in the rarelyused parlor until its warning click at five minutes to the hour wouldoccur every time exactly half a second before the click of the unloadedrevolver that Helen Grimes used in rehearsing the thrilling climax ofthe sketch.
Yes, that was a thriller and a piece of excellent work. In the act areal 32-caliber revolver was used loaded with a real cartridge. HelenGrimes, who is a Western girl of decidedly Buffalo Billish skill anddaring, is tempestuously in love with Frank Desmond, the privatesecretary and confidential prospective son-in-law of her father,"Arapahoe" Grimes, quarter-million-dollar cattle king, owning a ranchthat, judging by the scenery, is in either the Bad Lands or Amagansett,L. I. Desmond (in private life Mr. Bob Hart) wears puttees and MeadowBrook Hunt riding trousers, and gives his address as New York, leavingyou to wonder why he comes to the Bad Lands or Amagansett (as the casemay be) and at the same time to conjecture mildly why a cattleman shouldwant puttees about his ranch with a secretary in 'em.
Well, anyhow, you know as well as I do that we all like that kind ofplay, whether we admit it or not--something along in between "Bluebeard,Jr.," and "Cymbeline" played in the Russian.
There were only two parts and a half in "Mice Will Play." Hart andCherry were the two, of course; and the half was a minor part alwaysplayed by a stage hand, who merely came in once in a Tuxedo coat and apanic to announce that the house was surrounded by Indians, and to turndown the gas fire in the grate by the manager's orders.
There was another girl in the sketch--a Fifth Avenue societyswelless--who was visiting the ranch and who had sirened Jack Valentinewhen he was a wealthy club-man on lower Third Avenue before he losthis money. This girl appeared on the stage only in the photographicstate--Jack had her Sarony stuck up on the mantel of the Amagan--of theBad Lands droring room. Helen was jealous, of course.
And now for the thriller. Old "Arapahoe" Grimes dies of angina pectorisone night--so Helen informs us in a stage-ferryboat whisper over thefootlights--while only his secretary was present. And that same day hewas known to have had $647,000 in cash in his (ranch) library justreceived for the sale of a drove of beeves in the East (that accountsfor the price we pay for steak!). The cash disappears at the same time.Jack Valentine was the only person with the ranchman when he made his(alleged) croak.
"Gawd knows I love him; but if he has done this deed--" you sabe, don'tyou? And then there are some mean things said about the Fifth AvenueGirl--who doesn't come on the stage--and can we blame her, with thevaudeville trust holding down prices until one actually must be buttonedin the back by a call boy, maids cost so much?
But, wait. Here's the climax. Helen Grimes, chaparralish as she can be,is goaded beyond imprudence. She convinces herself that Jack Valentineis not only a falsetto, but a financier. To lose at one fell swoop$647,000 and a lover in riding trousers with angles in the sides likethe variations on the chart of a typhoid-fever patient is enough to makeany perfect lady mad. So, then!
They stand in the (ranch) library, which is furnished with mounted elkheads (didn't the Elks have a fish fry in Amagensett once?), and thedйnouement begins. I know of no more interesting time in the run of aplay unless it be when the prologue ends.
Helen thinks Jack has taken the money. Who else was there to take it?The box-office manager was at the front on his job; the orchestra hadn'tleft their seats; and no man could get past "Old Jimmy," the stagedoor-man, unless he could show a Skye terrier or an automobile as aguarantee of eligibility.
Goaded beyond imprudence (as before said), Helen says to Jack Valentine:"Robber and thief--and worse yet, stealer of trusting hearts, thisshould be your fate!"
With that out she whips, of course, the trusty 32-caliber.
"But I will be merciful," goes on Helen. "You shall live--that will beyour punishment. I will show you how easily I could have sent you to thedeath that you deserve. There is _her_ picture on the mantel. I willsend through her more beautiful face the bullet that should have piercedyour craven heart."
And she does it. And there's no fake blank cartridges or assistantspulling strings. Helen fires. The bullet--the actual bullet--goesthrough the face of the photograph--and then strikes the hidden springof the sliding panel in the wall--and lo! the panel slides, and there isthe missing $647,000 in convincing stacks of currency and bags of gold.It's great. You know how it is. Cherry practised for two months at atarget on the roof of her boarding house. It took good shooting. In thesketch she had to hit a brass disk only three inches in diameter,covered by wall paper in the panel; and she had to stand in exactly thesame spot every night, and the photo had to be in exactly the same spot,and she had to shoot steady and true every time.
Of course old "Arapahoe" had tucked the funds away there in the secretplace; and, of course, Jack hadn't taken anything except his salary(which really might have come under the head of "obtaining money under";but that is neither here nor there); and, of course, the New York girlwas really engaged to a concrete house contractor in the Bronx; and,necessarily, Jack and Helen ended in a half-Nelson--and there you are.
After Hart and Cherry had gotten "Mice Will Play" flawless, they had atry-out at a vaudeville house that accommodates. The sketch was a housewrecker. It was one of those rare strokes of talent that inundates atheatre from the roof down. The gallery wept; and the orchestra seats,being dressed for it, swam in tears.
After the show the booking agents signed blank checks and pressedfountain pens upon Hart and Cherry. Five hundred dollars a week was whatit panned out.
That night at 11:30 Bob Hart took off his hat and bade Cherry good nightat her boarding-house door.
"Mr. Hart," said she thoughtfully, "come inside just a few minutes.We've got our chance now to make good and make money. What we want to dois to cut expenses every cent we can, and save all we can."
"Right," said Bob. "It's business with me. You've got your scheme forbanking yours; and I dream every night of that bungalow with the Japcook and nobody around to raise trouble. Anything to enlarge the netreceipts will engage my attention."
"Come inside just a few minutes," repeated Cherry, deeply thoughtful."I've got a proposition to make to you that will reduce our expenses alot and help you work out your own future and help me work out mine--andall on business principles."
"Mice Will Play" had a tremendously successful run in New York for tenweeks--rather neat for a vaudeville sketch--and then it started on thecircuits. Without following it, it may be said that it was a soliddrawing card for two years without a sign of abated popularity.
Sam Packard, manager of one of Keetor's New York houses, said of Hart &Cherry:
"As square and high-toned a little team as ever came over the circuit.It's a pleasure to read their names on the booking list. Quiet, hardworkers, no Johnny and Mabel nonsense, on the job to the minute,straight home after their act, and each of 'em as gentlemanlike as alady. I don't expect to handle any attractions that give me less troubleor more respect for the profession."
And now, after so much cracking of a nutshell, here is the kernel of thestory:
At the end of its second season "Mice Will Play" came back to New Yorkfor another run at the roof gardens and summer theatres. There was neverany trouble in booking it at the top-notch price. Bob Hart had hisbungalow nearly paid for, and Cherry had so many savings-deposit bankbooks that she had begun to buy sectional bookcases on the instalmentplan to hold them.
I tell you these things to assure you, even if you can't believe it,that many, very many of the stage people are workers with abidingambitions--just the same as the man who wants to be president, or thegrocery clerk who wants a home in Flatbush, or a lady who is anxiousto flop out of the Count-pan into the Prince-fire. And I hope I may beallowed to say, without chipping into the contribution basket, that theyoften move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform.
But, listen.
At the first performance of "Mice Will Play" in New York at theWestphalia (no hams alluded to) Theatre, Winona Cherry was nervous. Whenshe fired at the photograph of the Eastern beauty on the mantel, thebullet, instead of penetrating the photo and then striking the disk,went into the lower left side of Bob Hart's neck. Not expecting to getit there, Hart collapsed neatly, while Cherry fainted in a most artisticmanner.
The audience, surmising that they viewed a comedy instead of a tragedyin which the principals were married or reconciled, applauded with greatenjoyment. The Cool Head, who always graces such occasions, rang thecurtain down, and two platoons of scene shifters respectively and moreor less respectfully removed Hart & Cherry from the stage. The next turnwent on, and all went as merry as an alimony bell.
The stage hands found a young doctor at the stage entrance who waswaiting for a patient with a decoction of Am. B'ty roses. The doctorexamined Hart carefully and laughed heartily.
"No headlines for you, Old Sport," was his diagnosis. "If it had beentwo inches to the left it would have undermined the carotid artery asfar as the Red Front Drug Store in Flatbush and Back Again. As it is,you just get the property man to bind it up with a flounce torn from anyone of the girls' Valenciennes and go home and get it dressed by theparlor-floor practitioner on your block, and you'll be all right. Excuseme; I've got a serious case outside to look after."
After that, Bob Hart looked up and felt better. And then to where he laycame Vincente, the Tramp Juggler, great in his line. Vincente, a solemnman from Brattleboro, Vt., named Sam Griggs at home, sent toys and maplesugar home to two small daughters from every town he played. Vincentehad moved on the same circuits with Hart & Cherry, and was theirperipatetic friend.
"Bob," said Vincente in his serious way, "I'm glad it's no worse. Thelittle lady is wild about you."
"Who?" asked Hart.
"Cherry," said the juggler. "We didn't know how bad you were hurt; andwe kept her away. It's taking the manager and three girls to hold her."
"It was an accident, of course," said Hart. "Cherry's all right. Shewasn't feeling in good trim or she couldn't have done it. There's nohard feelings. She's strictly business. The doctor says I'll be on thejob again in three days. Don't let her worry."
"Man," said Sam Griggs severely, puckering his old, smooth, lined face,"are you a chess automaton or a human pincushion? Cherry's crying herheart out for you--calling 'Bob, Bob,' every second, with them holdingher hands and keeping her from coming to you."
"What's the matter with her?" asked Hart, with wide-open eyes. "Thesketch'll go on again in three days. I'm not hurt bad, the doctor says.She won't lose out half a week's salary. I know it was an accident.What's the matter with her?"
"You seem to be blind, or a sort of a fool," said Vincente. "The girlloves you and is almost mad about your hurt. What's the matter with_you_? Is she nothing to you? I wish you could hear her call you."
"Loves me?" asked Bob Hart, rising from the stack of scenery on which helay. "Cherry loves me? Why, it's impossible."
"I wish you could see her and hear her," said Griggs.
"But, man," said Bob Hart, sitting up, "it's impossible. It'simpossible, I tell you. I never dreamed of such a thing."
"No human being," said the Tramp Juggler, "could mistake it. She's wildfor love of you. How have you been so blind?"
"But, my God," said Bob Hart, rising to his feet, "it's _too late_. It'stoo late, I tell you, Sam; _it's too late_. It can't be. You must bewrong. It's _impossible_. There's some mistake.
"She's crying for you," said the Tramp Juggler. "For love of you she'sfighting three, and calling your name so loud they don't dare to raisethe curtain. Wake up, man."
"For love of me?" said Bob Hart with staring eyes. "Don't I tell youit's too late? It's too late, man. Why, _Cherry and I have been marriedtwo years!_"
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