Blue-grass and Broadway
and his hands trembled. "Been hitting 'em up?"
"Yes," answered the playwright, laconically.
"Broke?"
"Pretty bad."
"Want to doctor a play for Hawtry for me by Friday next for a thousand
dollars cash?"
"Cash now?"
"Cash Friday."
"Would have to lock myself up in my apartment to do it; but Mazie's been
crying for gold-uns for a week."
"Send Mazie to me, and I'll fix that, and hand you the thousand on
Friday. Here, take this manuscript over in my other office and be ready
to talk it over with me by ten o'clock. I'll see Mazie in the meantime."
Mr. Vandeford placed the precious "Purple Slipper" in the hands of a man
who at that very moment had two successful plays running on Broadway,
his interest in both of which he had sold out for a mess of pottage to
be consumed in the company of Miss Mazie Villines of the "Big Show."
"Dolph had better order me up a little cold wine to start on," said Mr.
Howard, as he rose languidly to incarcerate himself at the bidding of
Mr. Vandeford. The same scene had been enacted between the two bright
lights of American drama several times before with very good results.
Mr. Howard's brain was of that peculiar caliber which does not originate
an idea, but which inserts a solid bone construction as well as keen
little sparklets into the fabric of another's labor, and makes the whole
translucent where before it may have been opaque. On Broadway he was
called a play doctor, and Mr. Vandeford was not the first manager who
had shut him up with quarts of refreshment to tinker on the play of many
a literary, dramatic, bright light.
"Dolph will give you scotch and soda to your limit, no further,"
answered Mr. Vandeford, without graciousness. "I'll be here waiting for
your talk-over at ten-thirty o'clock."
"All right. Have Mazie come for me after her show?"
"Yes."
With which the eminent playwright betook himself to a small private
office which opened into the lair of Mr. Adolph Meyers. After he had
entered that retreat Mr. Meyers softly rose from his typing machine and
as softly locked him in. Then he proceeded to hunt for Miss Mazie
Villines until he got her into conversational connection with Mr.
Vandeford. They conversed in these words with great cordiality:
. . . . . .
"Want to earn a nice little two hundred for keeping Grant Howard working
at doctoring a play by next Friday for me?"
. . . . . .
"I'm giving him a thousand if it's delivered Friday."
. . . . . .
"Two hundred to you."
. . . . . .
"Not three!"
. . . . . .
"There's Claire Furniss. Grant had her at supper last night at Rector's.
She's a beauty, you know."
. . . . . .
"Two fifty."
. . . . . .
"Goes!"
. . . . . .
"Good! Come get him here at my office at eleven-fifteen. Get a taxi by
the hour at your stage-door--on me--and come by for him."
. . . . . .
"Good girl! By!"
* * * * *
"What a life!" Mr. Vandeford muttered to himself, then rang his buzzer
for Mr. Adolph Meyers.
"Pops, it's eight o'clock. Go get us a couple of slabs of pie at the
automat, and then I'll go over to see Breit at the booking office."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Vandeford," Mr. Meyers acquiesced, and departed in search
of provender for the lion and himself. Left to himself, Mr. Vandeford
fell into another trance, from which he was dragged by another tinkle of
his telephone.
"There'll be a wireless to my grave," he muttered as he took down the
receiver and snapped into it:
"This is Mr. Vandeford talking."
. . . . . .
"Oh, Miss Adair. Anything the matter?"
. . . . . .
"Speak a little closer into the phone. Miss Hawtry has asked you to
supper to-night? Mr. Farraday? And myself?"
. . . . . .
"Did she say I was to come for you?"
. . . . . .
"Do you know, I feel like a brute, but I'm going to tell you to go to
bed as per promise. I've got two big guns from Broadway putting licks on
the production of 'The Purple Slipper' until the small hours to-night,
right here in the office. I'll tell Miss Hawtry about it, and you
can--go to bed."
. . . . . .
"Oh, yes, she'll understand. It's her play too, you see."
. . . . . .
"No, you can't help me to-night, thank you just the same. How's Miss
Lindsey? Would you like me to send my car to take you girls for a little
spin in the park to cool off before you go to bed?"
. . . . . .
"Her hair's wet? And so is yours? I didn't know it was raining."
. . . . . .
"Oh, a mutual shampoo? Bless you both!"
. . . . . .
"No, you don't interrupt me when you call me. You are to call me any
time you are willing to do it, if it is every five minutes."
. . . . . .
"No, I mean it."
. . . . . .
"Very well then--good-night and good dreams."
. . . . . .
"Can you beat it?" Mr. Vandeford smiled to himself as he hung up the
receiver. "Those two peachy girls washing each other's hair in the Y. W.
C. A., within ten blocks of the 'Follies' is to laugh--or cry. Good
little Lindsey! I wager she could have got 'em both forty-seven-eleven
dates." Then a thought delivered a blow just above his belt in the
region of his heart. "So it's Violet's game to use her as a decoy-duck
for Denny?" he questioned himself, then gave his own answer in a soft
voice under his breath. "Damn her!"
Furthermore he did not communicate with Miss Hawtry to give her Miss
Adair's answer to her invitation. He answered it in person, but only
after much had happened in the three hours intervening.
The hours from eight to nearly ten Mr. Vandeford spent in slowly
munching the refreshment retrieved from the automat by Mr. Adolph Meyers
and thinking out loud to that dignitary who took down his thoughts on
paper in cabalistic signs of shorthand. They were all notes of what
could and must be done in the next few days in the fight for the good
fate of "The Purple Slipper."
"I want to see that fellow Reid about that new lighting he provided for
the new Sauls show in May. I liked it in some ways and--" Mr. Vandeford
was saying when a banging on the door of the private office in which was
incarcerated the eminent playwright interrupted him.
"Did you give him the right amount of booze, Pops?" Mr. Vandeford asked.
"Entirely right," answered Mr. Meyers, with his pencil still poised over
his pad. The knocking continued.
"See what he wants, Pops, and give him a little more if you have to,"
decided Mr. Vandeford, as he lit a new cigar and turned to the whirlpool
of his desk while he waited for Mr. Meyers's return.
"Say, do you expect me to cast a Sunday School charade into a play in
six days, Vandeford?" was the storm of words hurled at him as the
released and infuriated doctor of plays hurled himself and his sheaf of
manuscript into the door ahead of Mr. Meyers.
"Is that what you think of it?" calmly questioned Mr. Vandeford, as he
swung around in his chair. "Sit down and tell me what you intend to do
for it."
"I'm going to rewrite the whole blamed mess for fifteen hundred dollars,
that's what I'm going to do," announced Mr. Howard with both
belligerence and excitement in his voice and in the flash of his sick
little eyes.
"Is it as good--or as bad--as all that--money?" questioned Mr.
Vandeford. "You'll have to show me," he added calmly, though in the
vitals of his heart he was relieved that Howard still spoke of "The
Purple Slipper" as a carcass on which to operate.
"It's got a perfectly ripping, basic, sex-comedy idea that climaxes the
third act; the rest is piffle."
"I thought some of the character drawing, and one or two of the
sentimental bits were--actable," Mr. Vandeford ventured, determined to
save as much of the hair and hide of Miss Adair's child as possible,
enough at least to help her to recognize and claim it later.
"Oh, we can leave enough bits to anchor the author's name, if that is
what you mean," the playwright admitted impatiently. "How about fifteen
hundred? I won't do it for less."
"Goes," answered Mr. Vandeford, with the greatest ease with which he had
ever dispensed five hundred dollars in all his life. "Now shoot me your
layout of the whole thing before Mazie gets here to take you and lock
you up."
"I'm going to take that dinner scene where the wife holds her husband's
enemies and her lover at bay to see if he gets back home on a
sporting-chance bet with lover, and write Hawtry both back and front of
it; write her in as the virago she is and give her a chance to act
herself for once."
"Good idea," admitted Mr. Vandeford. "But you'll have a hard time
writing a gutter girl into a grand dame, won't you?"
"Women are all alike, and the worst viragos are the grand dames. It
takes a gutter girl to play one let loose, as they do only on rare
occasions. I've got 'em in my own family. That's the reason I'm a black
sheep turned out. Got a sister that's worse than me, only respectable
and fashionable. See?"
"Yes, I see," again admitted Mr. Vandeford. "You'll keep all the
atmosphere and minor stabs in, you say?"
"Sure. They are pretty good staggers, some of the minor stuff. Lots of
it is good talk--only wandering. That woman may write something some day
if she breaks loose and goes to the devil for a while."
"She won't," said Mr. Vandeford, positively.
"Never can tell," answered Mr. Howard, with indifference. "What did
Mazie say?"
"She's due here for you now," answered Mr. Vandeford, looking at his
watch.
"Great girl, Mazie. Cooks me dandy rice and runny eggs, and sits on the
neck of every bottle in New York while I dig. Couldn't do without her.
Say, tell her you are just giving me five hundred, will you?"
"She knows it's a thousand," answered Mr. Vandeford, truthfully. "But
I'll keep the extra five hundred you are extracting dark for you."
"That's good, and I'll tell her that I haven't got any--"
"Tell her that you haven't got any money, as usual," were the words
which Mr. Howard's fair lion-tamer used to finish his sentence of appeal
to Mr. Vandeford for his co-operation in fraud. She had entered past Mr.
Meyers with his full approval, for he felt a great relief at the sight
of her and her guardianship.
"How's Mazie?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he rose and, with all the
ceremony he would have used for a grand duchess--or Miss Patricia
Adair--offered a chair to the pert little person with her funny,
good-humored, rather pretty face and her very smart clothes.
"Kicking along, Mr. Vandeford, thank you," was the answer. "Gee, but I
did kick the limit to-night, that's sure. I put some shady shines over
what Grant wrote into a let-down in my part for me last night in great
shape. They et it up, darling." Her naughty face beamed on Howard.
"Hawtry was in a box, left. Had a gink in soup to fish with her that
looked like real money. Have you rented her out?"
"You folks get along and stop that taxi meter you've got running on me,"
Mr. Vandeford said, answering the sally with a laugh; but it surprised
him that there was a cold space in his vitals at the insult that the
little trollop handed him with such comradery, guiltless of any
knowledge that it was an insult.
"What was that about touching pitch?" he asked himself as he walked
rapidly up four blocks to the theater where Mazie had told him he would
find the Violet with her prey. He was just in time to meet them in the
lobby. Denny was in the gorgeousness of his "soup to fish," Mazie's and
her world's term for evening attire, and the Violet in every way matched
his good looks.
"Why, where is Mademoiselle Innocence?" asked Hawtry, with a little
frown, as she perceived that Mr. Vandeford was alone and not in regalia.
"Asleep at the Y. W. C. A.," he answered shortly.
"Sure?" asked the Violet, with a little laugh for which he could have
killed her.