Blue-grass and Broadway
twinkling of her bright eyes her good-nature had returned. "Say, that is
some play now, and I wish you'd let me play a dance girl at that
dinner-party. I'd do it refined." There was a queer little appeal in the
mobile young face. "I'd like to doll up like a lady."
"I'll think that over, Mazie," answered Mr. Vandeford. "A song and dance
from you might go all right."
"Gimme a call, will you? I'll be on the job with my guzzler for a week
now. I got to get him past, for he's some meal-ticket when times is
dull." As Mazie disposed of the check in her stocking, a degree of
affectionate anxiety for the condition of Mr. Grant Howard showed in her
face for the fraction of a second, then disappeared as she looked at Mr.
Adolph Meyers.
"Come on and get my wad from where I've put it, if you dare, Dolph," she
challenged, then laughed, as the imperturbable Mr. Meyers both ignored
and showed her to the door with all courtesy.
And as he lay on his bed reading over the Howard manuscript of "The
Purple Slipper," which had just returned to him after a twenty-four hour
overhauling and annotation for action by Mr. William Rooney, the stage
director with the top price, Mr. Vandeford said to Mr. Adolph Meyers,
who sat at a table beside the bed, taking down and inserting notes into
the manuscript as they sprang from Mr. Vandeford's brain, almost before
they got past his lips:
"No wonder Mazie could see herself in this show, Pops! Grant has pepped
it up almost to her standard. Whee-ugh!" With this whistle Mr. Vandeford
turned page twenty of the first act and handed it over to Mr. Meyers,
who began to devour it with eyes that took in almost the whole page at a
glance.
"It is a snap-shot of Miss Hawtry he has made, Mr. Vandeford, sir. Mr.
Howard has never done better."
"Yes, that's what he intended to do, but I'm going to clean it out a
bit. Run an insert of the scene on page five to seven and a half out of
Miss Adair's manuscript. It is just as good and a little--little
more--say, Pops, cut out seven lines on page fourteen from the second
down, and take this from me instead." Mr. Vandeford closed his eyes and
dictated a bit of dialogue between two of the minor characters of "The
Purple Slipper," which cleared up a point Mr. Howard and Mr. Rooney and
the original author had all left at loose ends. As he dictated, Mr.
Meyers wrote on the blank page opposite the lines, and made some
cabalistic signs for insertion.
Slowly they progressed through the first act, Mr. Vandeford reading from
two manuscripts and reconciling Mr. Howard's shaky, pen annotations, Mr.
Rooney's blue-pencil, action directions, and Miss Adair's original
wanderings from the point with many brilliant returns in quaint
dialogue.
"That child has got more brains and uses them less than would seem
possible," growled Mr. Vandeford, as he with a few deft lines near the
close of the second act got the heroine off the stage and out of an
impossible situation in which Miss Adair had involved her.
"It is that her characters talk with interest, but act in awkwardness,
Mr. Vandeford, sir. Another good play can be written by Miss Adair,"
Mr. Meyers said as he put in two lines and a cross star sign.
"God forbid!" ejaculated Mr. Vandeford, in all sincerity. "Here, Pops,
get this first act down to those girls waiting in the office. Did you
get two for all night, so one could get out the parts? You know Rooney
will expect a reading to-morrow before he begins rehearsals."
"It is three girls now waiting at the office for the night, and a
messenger in your hall, Mr. Vandeford, sir," answered Mr. Meyers as he
gathered up his annotated pages, put them into a new manila portfolio,
and rose to take them to the A. D. T. boy asleep on the floor in the
hall.
"We haven't rushed in a manuscript like this since 'Dear Geraldine,'
have we, Pops?" asked Mr. Vandeford, as he picked up the second act.
"It's just nine o'clock, and those girls ought to get through by three
A. M. Don't let Steinberg charge up twelve hours on you."
"It will be at eight that they are still working, Mr. Vandeford, sir,
and night type-writing means much money," Mr. Meyers answered, as he
departed with his package.
"At that we'd better get busy to feed it to 'em," Mr. Vandeford said, as
he picked up and began to dig into the pages.
For the three hours ensuing he and his henchman worked with never a
hitch in their growls and scratches and muttered exchanges. Then, as
they came close to the climax of the last act, Mr. Vandeford sat up from
his pillows, which were heated almost beyond endurance with his night
lights and his tousled head, and gave forth a roar.
"I'll be hanged if I'll let that scene between Rosalind and her lover go
with that filthy twist that Howard has given it! The words are almost
the original, but what will Hawtry make of what he's put into it?"
"It will be the worst she makes," answered Mr. Meyers. "But it is for
pep very good, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and can be tried out."
"That's right, Pops. I wonder if I am a Broadway producer or--or the
czar of a young ladies' seminary," Mr. Vandeford growled as he lay down,
and again went to work.
"It is that Miss Adair will not understand it until Miss Hawtry is at
work, and before that all may be dead," Mr. Meyers consoled, as he, too,
fell upon "The Purple Slipper."
At two-thirty the now soggy A. D. T. received the last manila envelope
to deliver to the busy girls down in Mr. Vandeford's office, and that
distinguished producer was stretched out on his bed in cool darkness
while Mr. Meyers was in a subway nodding his way up to his humble room
on One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.
"If I live through seeing her past the reading of the blamed thing
to-morrow, I'll be stronger than I think I am," Mr. Vandeford murmured
as he felt the calmness of sleep fall upon him.
CHAPTER VI
Rehearsals for "The Purple Slipper" had been called positively for
September first, and the response became unanimous at about fifteen
minutes to eleven at the Barrett Theater on West Forty-sixth Street;
that is, it was unanimous except for the presence of the author and the
angel--Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday--and Miss Violet Hawtry, the star,
who never came to first readings until the whole cast was assembled and
could be impressed with the fact that she came and went as she listed.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I take it that you all know one another--and Mr.
William Rooney," said Mr. Vandeford, as he took a seat at the left of a
table placed in the center of the stage just beyond the footlights. Mr.
Rooney marched to a place beside him, and rapped with a large black
pencil for attention from the groups into which the dozen members of the
cast had fallen after mutual introductions and greetings.
"Everybody grab a seat that is good enough to glue to for five hours
while Fido here gives out your parts," commanded Mr. Rooney, without in
any way acknowledging Mr. Vandeford's introduction to the company. Mr.
Rooney's voice was low and rich, and had the precision and decision of a
machine-gun in its utterances. With hurried obedience the entire company
looked about the stage for seats.
Miss Bebe Herne, though having fifty pounds the advantage of any of the
others in avoirdupois, was the first seated. She merely dropped down
upon a stout pine bench, the front of which was stuccoed to represent
antique marble, and peremptorily motioned Mr. Wallace Kent to that
portion of the seat left after she had wedged herself as far to one side
as possible. Mr. Kent obeyed immediately, though he had just placed a
rickety, stuffed chair beside the gold one occupied by Miss Blanche
Grayson, the glowerer. Miss Lindsey sat on the end of an overturned box
hedge before a drop curtain of a twilight night, and Mr. Reginald Leigh
sat in a wicker chair under a brilliant canvas flowering shrub of no
known variety. The rest of the company were soon seated and receiving
the small, blue-backed, manuscript books from the pale young man whom
Mr. Rooney always addressed as Fido.
"Everybody here but Miss Hawtry," said Mr. Rooney, and he glared at Mr.
Vandeford as though that gentleman must be concealing the star in the
pocket of his gray, silk-crash coat.
"And Miss Hawtry is here also," came in a very beautifully modulated
voice from left stage, as the tardy star came down center, and stood
directly in front of the table at which sat the producer and his
stage-manager. Mr. Vandeford rose immediately and said good-morning; Mr.
Rooney kept his seat and looked Miss Hawtry through and through with a
cold reproof.
"Five minutes late," he said with an edge in the words that cut.
"I really beg your pardon, and it shall not happen--" the star was
beginning to say in an apologetic tone, which bent under the cold edge
of the assault, as Mr. Vandeford had hoped it would, when Mr. Rooney cut
it off with a curt command to pale Fido.
"Give out the Hawtry part."
Miss Hawtry accepted the little blue booklet handed her by Fido, and
also Mr. Vandeford's chair, placed carefully in the center of the stage
for her. The first brush between Mr. Rooney and Miss Hawtry had been
pulled off and he had won, much to Mr. Vandeford's delight. For "Miss
Cut-up" he had had to hire, pay for, and fire, three successive
stage-managers, and she had managed all three. Mr. Rooney's boast was
that no star had ever managed him and that he had successfully staged
every play he had undertaken; hence a spectacular salary. Also he felt
that his reputation was at stake in the Hawtry duel, and he was
determined to back his own method.
"Scene first, act first; Betty Carrington is discovered on stage. Go to
it, Betty!" he commanded as Fido took a seat at the end of the table,
opened a copy of the first act, and sat ready for annotations.
"How beautiful the morning is and--" the glowering Miss Blanche Grayson
was beginning to read from her cerulean booklet, when an interruption
occurred.
Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday entered from the stage door.
Mr. Vandeford looked at Mr. Rooney, and muttered under his breath:
"Angel and author, Bill. Easy!"
"Shoot," answered Mr. Rooney, in a mild undertone, though he glared at
the company as though in a cold rage.
"Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Miss Adair, the author of
our play. You have all of you met Mr. Farraday. Mr. Rooney, our
stage-director, Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday." Mr. Vandeford made the
introductions as rapidly as possible and in a voice of such coolness
that Miss Adair looked at him in astonishment and then at the assembled
company with great timidity. With special trepidation did she regard Mr.
Rooney, who had bobbed his scrubby, black-mopped head at her with no
expression at all in his little black eyes, while he refused to see Mr.
Farraday's offered hand.
"Have seats in the left stage-box," he directed them in the same tone of
voice with which he had quelled Miss Hawtry. "Now, get going there,
Betty Carrington, and open again."
Mr. Vandeford led Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday out into the wings in a
roundabout path to the left stage-box, and paused with them out of sight
of Mr. Rooney. Then the humanity came back into his face and voice as he
spoke to his friends in an undertone.
"Rooney is the genius among stage-directors, but he's the original and
genuine Tartar. How are you both?" As he asked the question he held out
a hand to each of them, and his smile held the cordiality to which they
were both accustomed.
"We had a blow-out on Riverside Drive, and that's what makes us late.
Now I've got to take the car around to the garage," Mr. Farraday
apologized, as he rumpled his leonine mane, fanned himself with his hat,
and departed.
Miss Adair fairly clung to the hand of friendship offered her, with