Blue-grass and Broadway
talked the other day," Mr. Height said as he came to the other side of
the wicker retreat of the hunted author. Something in his voice made Mr.
Dennis Farraday put his arm around the lizard's shoulders, a thing he
would not have thought of doing a week ago.
"We are all going to stand by, little girl, and it'll be some play that
we produce at the New Carnival October first," Mr. Farraday put in by
way of his contribution to the wounded young author.
However, it was the crack of Mr. Rooney's whip that brought her to her
feet again.
"Miss Adair, you and Lindsey come back with me to the theater now," he
commanded the shrinking and tragic author. "Somebody get Fido and tell
him to wake up everybody and have 'em all at the theater to rehearse in
a hour; that'll be three o'clock. Mr. Vandeford, you'd better get in a
press story over long distance before Hawtry beats you to it. You may
catch a morning paper or two. Now, everybody get out and work like fun
and we'll show Broadway a sure-fire hit October first."
"Can you do it, Bill?" Mr. Vandeford asked in a quiet voice. It was the
first time he had spoken since he had coolly and silently picked Miss
Adair up off a bench in the little railroad station and put her into the
sympathetic young Dago's one-man-power conveyance.
"I can take ten yards of calico, a pot of red wagon paint, and a pretty
gal and make a show to fill any theater on Broadway for six months--if
I'm let alone," answered Mr. Rooney, with the assurance that moves
mountains. "That Lindsey is one good actor with common horse-sense, and
the little author filly has Blue-grass speed. Watch us!"
"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, and steel sparks struck out in his keen
eyes as he turned and went rapidly to one of the long-distance telephone
booths with which all Atlantic City keeps up its intimate relations with
New York. It was also astonishing how quickly he got his connection with
a great New York morning paper and was put on the desk wire of one of
the junior editors, who was a good friend in need.
. . . . . .
"Hello, Curt. Godfrey Vandeford speaking."
. . . . . .
"With my show in Atlantic City. Can you get a note across in the morning
issue?"
. . . . . .
"Good! Spread it that Hawtry is put out of 'The Purple Slipper' cast to
give place to a new Pacific Coast star, Mildred Lindsey. Hawtry handed
it to Denny and me rotten, but put that under pretty deep, with Lindsey
blazed in top lines. I'll have my publicity man send you a special
Lindsey Sunday story. Hot stuff."
. . . . . .
"Thanks, old man! By!"
* * * * *
Another fifteen minutes was spent in long distance communication with
Mr. Meyers, and it was ten minutes after three o'clock in the morning
when Mr. Vandeford slipped into his chair beside his author in the
little Atlantic City Theater, which Mr. Rooney had induced the old night
watchman door-keeper to open up at the hour when all teeming Atlantic
City is in the depths of repose. Mr. Rooney had with him the entire cast
of "The Purple Slipper," to whom he had just finished explaining the
cause of their extraction from their well-earned repose.
"Most of the Sister Harriet scenes are with me," Miss Bebe Herne was
saying, with efficient energy fairly radiating from her big body,
clothed in a decorous tailor skirt, but with a boudoir jacket serving
for blouse. Also two kid curlers showed at the nape of her neck. "I can
feed Miss Grayson into Miss Lindsey's part enough to get by
to-morrow--to-night I mean. And Wallace can do the same when he's on
with her. That ugly white cat Hawtry to double on Godfrey Vandeford
after he pulled her out of Weehawken!"
"Get on, get on, everybody, and use your brains until they lather,"
commanded Mr. Rooney as he took his stand beside the left stage box.
"Now, Miss, you gimme lines out of your head or your first draft when I
call for 'em, and I'll take 'em or leave 'em as suits me. Then you
smooth the ones I hand you into good talk, and we'll have a show here
by sun-up that you'll be proud to invite your Christian lady friends to
attend. And we'll keep all the 'pep' too, Vandeford, that you paid
Howard to write into it, only we'll take the Hawtry dirt out of it. On,
Betty Carrington, and the curtain's up."
Then from three o'clock in the morning until almost noon the machinery
of "The Purple Slipper" was overhauled and adjusted to the new cog. Mr.
Rooney lashed and rubbed and polished and oiled with never a let-up on
anybody, and beside him sat the author, with her head up and the bit in
her mouth. For every line that rang untrue in the reconstruction she had
a true one or she took a crude bit from Mr. Rooney and polished it into
place. Fido sat crouched in a front seat and transcribed every word into
his prompt copy so as to be a veritable first aid.
And Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, experienced show man that he was, felt as if
he was witnessing a miracle as he beheld Miss Adair's original "Purple
Slipper," with its haphazard amateur charm, again put forth bud and
bloom on the branches of Grant Howard's tight-knit, well-constructed,
and well-rounded drama. The highly-colored flowers of Hawtry personality
Mr. Rooney pruned away and constructed others for Lindsey, and Miss
Adair lent them color and perfume in passing them to the new star, who
was working steadily, slowly, surely, and with great power.
"Don't tell him that his eyes 'burn into yours until your soul is
seared.' That's old. We got to get a kind of smile here where Hawtry
looked like she was going to do the ham sandwich act to Height and his
silk tights." Mr. Rooney stopped the abhorred scene, being acted along
about six o'clock in the morning, to demand that it be played in the
proper key, up to which he had succeeded in wringing lines from Miss
Adair for the first act and most of the second. "What do hearts do to
each other that's hot and decent and funny all at once?" Mr. Rooney
fired this biological question to the author of "The Purple Slipper,"
and looked at her with a demand for an immediate answer in his little,
black, driving eyes.
"She can say 'There's chaff in my heart; guard the fire in yours,'" Miss
Adair supplied offhand.
"That hands it to him, and a good double meaning, too," Mr. Rooney
approved. "Go ahead, Height, but don't get this lady mixed with the
other kind. Remember, she lives at the ladies Christian home." The laugh
that greeted this sally was an uproar that added to the dash and quick
fire of the big scene, which Miss Adair and Mr. Rooney had so quickly
expurgated and reconstructed between them.
At seven o'clock the play had been entirely run through, and Fido had
the result in his prompt copy and was beginning to rapidly write it into
their lines for each of the cast.
"One half hour to get breakfast and Miss Herne's back hair down," Mr.
Rooney said, with the callousness of a slave-driver. "Then if you run
through again fairly well we'll be done by noon, and everybody can hit
the hay for six hours."
Mr. Vandeford watched his author's proud little head droop on the box
rail in front of her, and with his face very white he motioned Mr.
Farraday to come to her. After his degrading the night before at the
hands of Miss Hawtry, he felt that he would be unable to endure the pain
of the repulsion he felt sure he would find in her eyes if she ever
looked at him again.
But his summons of Mr. Farraday failed in peremptoriness, for that big,
bonny gentleman nodded to him, then stood in the wing to catch Miss
Lindsey in his arms and bear her away to immediate nourishment. In the
excitement of the last few hours a domesticity had grown up between Mr.
Farraday and Miss Lindsey that it would have taken months to build in a
world less hectic than that in which they were then living.
Their courtship had been brief, and consisted in one question, asked by
Mr. Farraday while Miss Lindsey stood in the wings waiting for a
moderated, impassioned cue from Mr. Height, and answered by her as she
responded to him and the call of her stage lover at the same moment.
"When will you marry me?"
"When 'The Purple Slipper' goes on Broadway."
In the circumstances it was natural that Mr. Dennis Farraday should take
Miss Lindsey for a reminiscent beefsteak and mushrooms during the only
free half hour she would have for either him or food in the ensuing day,
and to fail to heed Mr. Vandeford's summon.
Thus deserted, Mr. Vandeford was about to steal forth and appeal to some
member of the cast of "The Purple Slipper" to come to his rescue in
providing refreshment to restore the author during the precious half
hour respite when "the chaff in his heart" caught fire and began to burn
away forever. Miss Adair raised her eyes to his, with the faith still
in their wounded depths, and smiled a wan little smile.
"Please get me a glass of milk with an egg in it, and some of that
brown-bread turkey," she demanded. "I'm dead, but I'll come alive again
if I go to sleep a minute. Shake me when you get back with it, but get
something for yourself while you are gone."
"The kiddie, the precious, spunky kiddie," Mr. Vandeford said in his
heart over and over as he and the young Italian rushed to the hotel and
back with a waiter and a tray of the desired refreshment, to which had
been added an iced melon and a couple of bedewed roses.
The shaking had to be literally administered while young Dago Italiana
held the tray, and then had to be repeated several times by Mr.
Vandeford, as he almost as literally fed his exhausted author, up until
the very minute in which Mr. Rooney rang up the curtain and again called
her into action.
Five hours was more than enough for the smooth running of the three-hour
"Purple Slipper" show, and at eleven o'clock Mr. Rooney dismissed his
jaded cast with this strict command delivered in his rich, deep voice,
which held a note of genuine solemnity.
"All of you go to sleep every minute between now and night, and then
come back here and make good--for all of us."
With the assistance of young Dago Italiana, Mr. Vandeford delivered Miss
Adair to a hotel maid, who accepted five dollars from him as a fee for
putting her to bed, and then he plunged into still greater
strenuosities.
He sat for three hours with his skilled young publicity man and
advance-agent, and laid out a discreet, dignified, but very interesting,
publicity campaign for the new star of "The Purple Slipper." Due
importance was to be given in all the notices that "The Purple Slipper"
was to open the New Carnival Theater and in his heart the young
advertiser put away the intention of making the fact that Mr. Vandeford
had sold Hawtry and "The Rosie Posie Girl" for "The Purple Slipper," his
most brilliant reserve story to set all of Broadway, at least, agog for
the opening of the expensive new play.
"It puts 'The Purple Slipper' at the big end of the horn, and it's not
your fault that there is only the little end of the horn left for 'The
Rosie Posie Girl' for the time being," he explained to Mr. Vandeford.
"You see, it is a kind of double-cross that acts both ways. If it goes,
people will think it was worth your paying a big price for, and if it
fails, they'll think the 'Rosie Posie Girl' couldn't have been much if
you traded a chance on such a poor show for it."
"Goes!" said Mr. Vandeford, but he was aware that the smart manoeuver,
which would once have delighted his soul, made him intensely weary.
In fact, so fatigued did he feel when he left this young press schemer,
that he dropped into his bed for an hour, and had a masseur come and
pound him into condition to go to the train with good Dennis Farraday to
meet Mrs. Farraday, Mrs. and Mr. and Miss Van Tyne, who arrived at five