Bambi
he did upon you, at the time of your meeting, and it was as a politeness
to me that he came to look you up. I think an apology to both of us is
rather necessary."
A week elapsed, with no reply. Then came a characteristic answer:
"DEAR BAMBI: Please find enclosed copy of apology sent Strong to-day. I
don't like him, but I have apologized. I also apologize to you. Please
don't omit letters any more. They mean a great deal these days."
She pondered this for some time. That Jarvis was going through new and
trying experiences she realized. But this human appeal for her letters
was so unlike the old Jarvis that she had to read it many times to
believe it was actually there.
She wrote him at once, accepting his apology gracefully.
"Can't you come out for a few days' rest here, and go back in time to
hear Frohman's verdict? We'd love to have you, especially the Professor
and Ardelia."
He answered that it was impossible to get away now. Later, possibly, he
might come. He was grateful for the invitation. He never mentioned how
he lived, and she did not ask him. The Professor's check he returned,
with a note of thanks, saying he did not need it. The summer went by and
fall came to town. Still there was no word of his return.
"My, this is a fat letter from Jarvis! Frohman must have accepted the
play!" exclaimed Bambi one morning in September. She opened out the
thick, folded paper.
"It's poetry," she added. "'Songs of the Street,' If he's gone back to
poetry, I'm afraid he's lost."
She began to glance through them.
"My dear, I've asked you for coffee twice."
"These are powerful and ugly. Think of Jarvis seeing these things."
"Coffee," reiterated the Professor.
"Yes, yes. You must read these. They're upsetting. I wonder what is
happening to Jarvis."
"Is he in trouble?"
"No, he doesn't say so. But there's a new note in these."
"Coffee," repeated the Professor, patiently.
"For goodness' sake, father, stop shouting coffee. You are the epitome
of the irritating this morning."
"I always am until I have my coffee."
All day long Bambi thought about Jarvis's "Street Songs." It was not the
things themselves. They were crude enough, in spots, but it was the new
sense in Jarvis that made him see and understand human suffering. She
felt an irresistible impulse to take the next train and go to him. Would
he be glad to see her? For the first time she wanted him, eagerly. But
the impulse passed, and weeks stretched into months. She worked steadily
at the book, which grew apace. She loved every word of it. Sometimes she
wondered what would become of her without that work, during this waiting
time, while Jarvis was making his career. For, in her mind, she always
thought of herself and her writing as a side issue of no moment.
Jarvis's work was the big, important thing in her life.
He wrote freely about his work on the other plays, asking her judgment
and advice, as he had on "Success." She gave her best thought and
closest attention to the problems he put to her, and he showed the same
respect for her decisions.
The six weeks grew into two months, and no answer from the Frohman
offices. He wrote her that he went in there every other day, but could
get no satisfaction. They always said his play was in the hands of the
readers. It had to take its turn.
He finished "The Vision" and offered it to Winthrop Ames, of the Little
Theatre. "I am hopeful of this man. I have never seen him, but the
theatre is well bred, and, to my surprise, a capable, intelligent
secretary received me courteously in the office and promised a quick
reading. This augurs well for the man at the head of it, I think."
In reply to her insistence that he must come for Thanksgiving, he told
her that he had made a vow that he would never come back to her until he
had absolutely succeeded or hopelessly failed. "If you knew how hard it
is to keep that resolve you would be kind, and not ask me again,"
he added.
A little piqued, and yet proud, Bambi reported his decision to the
Professor, and began to turn over in her busy mind a plan to carry the
mountain to Mohammed, if Christmas found the wanderer still obdurate.
XVIII
Jarvis certainly had matriculated in the school of experience, and he
entered in the freshman class. He first wrote a series of articles
dealing with the historical development of the drama. He took them to
the Munsey offices and offered them to Mr. Davis.
"Did you intend these for _Munsey's_ Magazine?"
"Yes. I thought possibly----"
"Ever read a copy of the _Magazine_?"
"No. I think not."
"Well, if you intend to make a business of selling stuff to magazines,
young man, it would pay you to study the market. What you are trying to
do is to unload coal on a sugar merchant. This stuff belongs in the
_Atlantic Monthly_, or some literary magazine."
"Isn't your magazine literary?"
"Certainly not in that sense. We publish a dozen magazines and this kind
of thing doesn't fit any of them. We entertain the public--we rarely
instruct them."
"I see. I'm obliged to you for your trouble. I'll try the _Atlantic_."
"Bring in some stories, light, entertaining stuff with a snap, and we
will take them."
"Thanks! 'Fraid that isn't in my line."
Jarvis went over to the Public Library and deliberately studied the
style of stuff used by the various monthly publications, making notes.
For the next few days he worked all day and a good part of the night on
things he thought he could sell, according to these notes. Then he began
a campaign to peddle them. The _Atlantic_ refused his drama articles,
and he tried them elsewhere, with no success. The other things were
equally a drug on the market. He saved postage by taking them to the
editors' offices himself, and calling for them in ten days or so. He
always found them ready for him. He took a cheaper room, and got down to
one square meal a day. Finally, an opportunity came for him to review
some books for a literary supplement of a newspaper. Confident that his
luck had changed, he proceeded to demolish three out of the four books
assigned to him in the most scathing reviews, whereupon the editor paid
him half price and dismissed him.
The week when things reached the lowest ebb he was summoned by a postal
from an acquaintance, made during one of his night prowls, an old
English cabman. When he arrived at the address indicated he found the
old man sick in bed with rheumatism. He wanted Jarvis to drive his
hansom for a week, on a percentage, until he could get about again.
There was no choice. It was that or the park benches, so Jarvis
accepted. Old Hicks fitted, or rather misfitted, him in a faded blue
tailed coat and a topper, Jarvis looked like an Otto Gushing cartoon of
Apollo in the attire, but he never once thought of that. He hitched up
the bony old horse, mounted the box, with full instructions as to
traffic rules, and headed for the avenue. He found the new trade
amusing. He drove ladies on shopping tours, took nurses and their
charges around the Park. He did not notice that his face and manners
caused many a customer to stare in astonishment. When one woman said
audibly to her companion, "Good heavens! what a handsome creature!" he
never dreamed she referred to him.
It was the fourth day of his employment as a cabby when a summons came
from the Frohman offices bidding him appear at the theatre at eleven
o'clock on the following day. It was embarrassing. Old Hicks was
entirely dependent on what Jarvis brought in at night, and they could
neither of them afford to have the cab idle a full day. So he decided to
stop at the theatre in the morning, and then deduct his time off duty.
Promptly at eleven the cab arrived at the Empire Theatre and Jarvis
descended from the box. He gave the boy a cent to hold his horse,
although nothing except a bushel of oats could have urged the old
bone-rack into motion. Up to the booth window he marched, and presented
the letter. The boy inspected the old blue coat, the topper, and the
worn gloves.
"Character costume," he grinned: then he opened the letter, and his face
changed.
"Excuse me, sir, I'll see if Mr. Frohman will see you."
He was out and back, almost at once, bowing and holding the door open.
"Right ahead, into the private office," he said, importantly. A clerk
took charge of our hero at the far door, announcing formally, "Mr.
Jarvis Jocelyn, Mr. Frohman."
Jarvis entered the big room and crossed eyes with the man at the far
end. What Mr. Frohman saw was a tall, splendidly set-up youth, with a
head held high, and a fearless, free carriage, attired in the very
strange and battered habiliments of a cabby. What Jarvis saw was a fat
little man, with a round face, sharp, twinkling eyes, and a genial
mouth. The whole face had a humorous cast, a kindly expression.
"You are Jarvis Jocelyn?" said Mr. Frohman, as Jarvis reached him.
"I am."
"You wrote a play called 'Success'?"
"I did."
"I've read your play."
"That's good."
"Well, the play isn't," Frohman interrupted, "It is extremely bad, but
there are some ideas in it, and one good part."
"The woman, you mean?"
"The woman nothing. She's a wooden peg to hang your ideas on. I mean the
man she married."
"But he is so unimportant," Jarvis protested.
"He was important enough to get this interview. I never would have
bothered with you, or with your play, if it hadn't been for that
character. He's new."
"You want me to make him a bigger part in the play?"
"My advice is to throw this play in the wastebasket and write one about
that man."
"Will you produce it if I do?"
"Probably not, but I'll look it over. What else have you done?"
"I have finished two things. One I call 'The Vision'--this is a
Brotherhood of Man play--the other I call 'Peace,' and it's a
dramatization of the Universal Peace idea."
"Why don't you write something human? Nobody wants dramatized movements.
The public wants people, personalities, things we all know and feel. You
can't get much thrill out of Universal Peace."
"But I believe the public should be taught."
"Yes, I know. I get all of you 'uplift boys' sooner or later. Teach them
all you like, but learn your trade so thoroughly that they will have no
idea that they are being taught. That is the function of the
artist-playwright. What do you do besides write plays?"
"Just at present I drive a cab," Jarvis answered simply.
"You don't say? How does that happen?"
"I was up against it for money, and I took this to oblige a friend cabby
who has rheumatism."
"'Pon my word! How long have you been at it?"
"This is my fifth day."
"Business good?" The manager's eyes twinkled. Jarvis smiled gravely.
"I have been wishing it would rain," he confessed.
"When do you write?"
"At night, now. But this is only temporarily."
"What do you think of my idea of another play?"
"The idea is all right, if you will only take it when I've done it."
"How long have you been at this play writing?"
"Three years."
"How long do you suppose it took me to learn to be a manager?"
"I don't know."
"Well, nearer three times ten than three years, and I am still learning.
You writing fellows never want to learn your trade like other people.
You talk about inspiration and uplifting the public, and all that, and
you want to do it in six months. You go to work on this new idea, and
come back here when you've finished it. Then it will be time enough to
talk about my end of it."
Jarvis rose.
"I am obliged to you, sir. I shall do it."
Mr. Frohman held out his hand. "Good luck to you. I shall hope for
rain."
"Thanks! Good morning, sir."