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 COLLECTED BY 
 
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 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
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 .By the stage door, 
 
 3 1924 021 657 097 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021657097 
 
BY THE 
 STAGE DOOR 
 
BY THE 
 STAGE DOOR 
 
 ADA PATTERSON 
 VICTORY BATEMAN 
 
 The Grafton Press 
 NEW YORK 
 

 «&- 
 
 /\ Sf^ S^o 
 
 Copyright, 190S, by The Qrafton Press 
 First Impression, September, 1902 
 
TO 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Story of a Friendship .... 1 
 Autobiography of an Actress ... 23 
 The Passing of the Leading Lady . 51 
 
 Her One Superstition 81 
 
 Grimston's School of Acting .... 101 
 A Triumph of Temperament . . . .123 
 
 He Married an Actress 141 
 
 Three Friends 151 
 
 The Understudy 165 
 
 Heard at the Managers' Club . . .179 
 An Early Jump 201 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THESE stories of the stage are strong 
 and true. Not once are they over- 
 drawn. Not once is their realism 
 sacrificed to the straining after effect too 
 common in literature. The book is a faithful 
 portraiture of the lights and shades of life 
 as we players know it. As fiction it would 
 be superior to most of the output of the day, 
 but it is not fiction ; it is fact. Every char- 
 acter has lived. Every incident has hap- 
 pened. I know some of the heroes and hero- 
 ines in the flesh, and I have been present when 
 some of the events herein set down have oc- 
 curred. I commend this book to every seeker 
 after knowledge of the stage and to every 
 student of character, be he such a seeker or 
 not. 
 
 ANNIE A. ADAMS. 
 
LIFE 
 
 Life is too short to quarrel; 
 
 Life is too brief to sigh — 
 Too sweet to be always moral. 
 
 Too pleasant to daily decry; 
 Too surmy to always be grieving. 
 
 Too precious to fling it away — 
 Too sad to laugh from the leaving 
 
 The crib to the bed in clay. 
 
 Life is too strange for any 
 
 To fathom, to comprehend; 
 Life is so gloomy that many 
 
 Hope and look for the end. 
 Life is too fleeting to worry. 
 
 Too solemn to joke by the way. 
 Too joyously dreaming to hurry 
 
 To-day into yesterday. 
 [ix] 
 
Life 
 
 Life is so full of laughter. 
 
 Of joy and sorrow amd tears — 
 Of meetings and partings — that after 
 
 All, a play it appears — 
 Tragedy — comedy — pathos. 
 
 Entrances, exits and strife; 
 Charity, sentiment, pathos. 
 
 Shifting scenes — quick curiam — life. 
 
 ^VlCTOEY BaTEMAN. 
 
 [x] 
 
The Story of a Friendship 
 
The Story of a Friendship 
 
 HE stage, which knows more 
 and deeper friendships than 
 any other profession, has 
 known but one such friend- 
 ship as this. 
 
 It began in a curious 
 fashion, even for the profession of surprises. 
 Miss Grenville's sister, who had stage ambi- 
 tions, without stage aptitude, was looking for 
 an engagement. Miss Grenville, who had no 
 such ambitions, was calling on the managers 
 with her sister to give her countenance and 
 moral support. It was at noon, after they had 
 made their pilgrimage to sixteen offices of 
 agents and managers and had heard as many 
 times the decisive " Nothing," that they made 
 a final, weary call upon John Bailey, and the 
 friendship, of which this is a history, began, 
 
 [1] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 John Bailey's office was dark and dreary. 
 His personality might have been described in 
 the same way. His face was pale, brooding, 
 and impassive. Some non-admirer had added 
 the adjective " damp." He forgot to take off 
 his hat while he was talking with them. It 
 was a villanous old hat, lowering, weather- 
 beaten, sinister, like some faces she had seen, 
 an unusual, absurd hat, and Miss Grenville, 
 while the manager was saying the usual 
 " Nothing " to her sister, studied it and 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 It was rude, but she was seventeen. 
 
 John Bailey looked up from a letter he was 
 opening. 
 
 " Do you want to go on the stage? " he 
 asked, brusquely. 
 
 " No, thank you." He looked at her more 
 sharply. TTiere was a slight drawl in the low- 
 pitched voice, a dragging upon the vowels, 
 that was individual and charming. She had 
 fine eyes, too, gray, like still pools, with a sly 
 roguery in their depths, and with a sudden 
 light in them that brightened irregular feat- 
 [2] 
 
The Stout of a Feiendship 
 
 ures. She was ungainly and tall, an over- 
 grown child, but his quick managerial eye told 
 him she was different from anyone he had ever 
 seen, and he was looking for the " different " 
 people for his stage. 
 
 " Why not? " 
 
 " I have never thought of such a thing." 
 
 " That is no reason why you should not 
 think of it." 
 
 " My sister here " 
 
 " I have nothing for your sister. Why 
 don't you think of it? " 
 
 " I shouldn't like to be anything else than 
 a great actress." 
 
 " Perhaps you might be. Strange things 
 happen," dryly. 
 
 " Laugh again ! I would give $100 a week 
 for that laugh." 
 
 " Thank you ! " still with that sudden light- 
 ing of the eyes and that delicious drawl. " If 
 I ever wish to I will let you know." 
 
 As they went out of the room, her sister 
 crestfallen, Anna Grenville puzzled and a bit 
 pleased, the girl looked back for a moment. 
 [3] 
 
By the Stage Dooa 
 
 Dark, earnest eyes were peering at her from 
 beneath the absurd hat, eyes so earnest, so 
 frankly and not unkindly taking account of 
 her, that she forgot to laugh at the hat. And 
 he saw more than the awkward girl with fine 
 eyes and dragging speech. He saw the bud 
 unfold, the woman that was to be, the actress 
 that might be. In a dimly pleasant way they 
 understood each other. The girls went down 
 the dark stairs. 
 
 The manager went back to his letter. And 
 so the friendship began, a friendship of 
 thought, for is not friendship the essence of 
 kindly thought? And is not the difference 
 between happiness and unhappiness only a 
 difference in quantity of that essence.? 
 
 He remembered her as a laughing, awk- 
 ward slant of sunshine that had fallen athwart 
 the dimness of his office a moment and disap- 
 peared. She remembered the hat with a 
 laugh, and the brooding, not unkindly, eyes 
 beneath them, with a smile of childish soft- 
 ness. 
 
 It was six months afterward that they met 
 [4] 
 
The Story or a Friendship 
 
 again. He had gone to Philadelphia to see 
 the opening of " By Land and Sea." Was 
 it possible that that tall, rather awkward 
 " walking lady " or " extra woman " was she? 
 And the voice! It was not long afterward 
 that an Oriental said of it : " It is far reach- 
 ing as the temple gong at midnight, rich, 
 meUow, and of inexpressible sweetness." The 
 listening manager could not mistake it. She, 
 looking into the dim space marked by sheeted 
 undulations that would resolve themselves into 
 chairs at the evening performance, saw the 
 grotesque hat and smiled with the gratification 
 of a child. 
 
 Meeting her in the wings afterward, he 
 lifted the hat gravely. " So you have con- 
 cluded to go on the stage .'' " 
 
 " Only for to-night. Mr. Downs, the man- 
 ager, is my brother-in-law. One of his ' walk- 
 ing ladies ' was iU and he asked me to take 
 her place." 
 
 He watched her from the front that night. 
 Her walk, her gestures, her smile, all but the 
 last faulty, yet distinguished her from the 
 
 [5] 
 
By the Stage Dooa 
 
 rest. She was taller than the others. She was 
 one of the fourteen walking ladies at whom 
 the audience continued to look after a cursory 
 glance at the rest, though no one could have 
 told why. 
 
 John Bailey met her in the wings again. 
 " I want you to join my company," he said. 
 " I think I could make an actress of you." 
 
 " If my family are wOling I will." 
 
 The next week she was rehearsing a tiny 
 part in the twilight of the theatre in whose 
 gloomy office she had met John Bailey. Sitting 
 on a lounge near the right entrance, as was 
 his custom, he watched her without seeming 
 to look at her. She was intelligent. She 
 caught suggestions eagerly and improved 
 upon them. She did more instead of less than 
 she was asked to do with a line or a bit of 
 business. If " let alone " he found her acting 
 naturally and with taste. She never " saved 
 herself." A rehearsal was a stem reality, into 
 which she threw all her young strength. 
 
 " I haven't made a mistake," the manager 
 said to himself after the third rehearsal. " She 
 
 [6] 
 
The Story of a Fkiendship 
 
 is outward. Nothing inward or repressed 
 about her. I can make her," and with a grim 
 earnestness he added, " and she may do a good 
 deal toward making me." 
 
 It was the night of the full-dress rehearsal 
 that John Bailey noticed a thoughtful look 
 on the girl's face while she glanced about the 
 stage, set for the first act. It expressed dis- 
 satisfaction. He, too, felt that there was some 
 spot of inharmony in the scene. 
 
 "You don't like it.?" he asked, from the 
 shabby lounge which the company called his 
 " throne." 
 
 She started, but he saw with pleasure that 
 it was the start of surprise, not of fear. 
 
 " There is one thing I don't like," she said, 
 calmly. 
 
 " What is it.? " 
 
 " I think the window should be left centre, 
 giving a view of the lane." 
 
 " M — ^m — m ! " was his comment. But on 
 the opening night of the performance the 
 window had been moved " left centre." 
 
 From that time " stage hints " were a part 
 
By the Stage Doou 
 
 of Miss Grenville's duties. She never volun- 
 teered them. The " Governor " had only to 
 watch her expressively irregular features to 
 know whether he had missed the note of dra- 
 matic justice. 
 
 " The girl has become my sixth sense," he 
 said, but not shamefacedly, to himself. The 
 " Governor " was never ashamed to receive or 
 act upon suggestions. 
 
 After six months with the John Bailey Re- 
 fined Comedy Company, Miss Grenville de- 
 cided that she liked being an actress. She 
 had forgotten that she wanted to be a great 
 actress. She was content to be a good one. 
 
 A visiting manager spoke to John Bailey 
 about her. 
 
 " Not pretty, not graceful," he said, " but 
 a ' find.' Will you loan her to me for ' A 
 Tragedy of the Sea,' Bailey.? " 
 
 " Not for any consideration." 
 
 " Why ? You have given her a small 
 part." 
 
 " Yes, but I'll give her bigger ones." 
 
 The visiting manager was not content with 
 
 [8] 
 
The Stoky of a Friendship 
 
 that. The next morning Miss Grenville re- 
 ceived a note asking her to come to his office. 
 Her card was sent in and she was bidden to 
 pass the long line of waiting players. Of 
 what occurred in the manager's office she made 
 a vivid story for John Bailey's ears at the 
 matinee. 
 
 " And you told him you wouldn't go at 
 double the salary? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Why.?" 
 
 The girl was silent. She was searching her 
 heart for a reason. 
 
 " I don't believe I know," she said, looking 
 at him with confiding frankness, " but it did 
 not seem possible that I should ever leave 
 your company unless you wished it." 
 
 He was rarely non-committal, even for a 
 manager. He said nothing. But he smiled 
 with a beautifying flash of the grave face, 
 and the next week the treasurer handed her 
 an envelope of astonishing contents. John 
 Bailey had reached the rival bidder's figure. 
 Anna GrenviUe's salary had been doubled. 
 
 [9] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 She was appointed understudy for the leading 
 woman. 
 
 It was at the close of her first season with 
 the Refined Comedy Company that Miss Gren- 
 ville was invited to dine with Mr. and Mrs. 
 John Bailey at their home on Forty-third 
 Street, just off the Avenue. Several mana- 
 gers and their families and some famous actors 
 were guests. The habitual look of surprise 
 deepened in Anna Grenville's girlish eyes. 
 Why had so signal an honor been done her, 
 and why did they look at her with oddly mixed 
 curiosity and respect? 
 
 It was after the women had left the table 
 that she might have been enlightened had she 
 been permitted to stay behind. It was in an- 
 swer to a Boston manager's question that John 
 Bailey gave the enlightenment. 
 
 " I expect much from her because she is 
 bigger than her work. She has a genius for 
 interest and enjoyment. She is bigger than 
 any role she will ever play. She has brains 
 and heart, sentiment and temperament. Gen- 
 tlemen, here's to the greatest of my discov- 
 [10] 
 
The Stoey of a Fkiendship 
 
 eries ! " The sages of the footlights clinked 
 and drained their glasses, while Anna Gren- 
 ville was looking at the splendid raiment of 
 the women with keen enjoyment. 
 
 The least favored of his guests having 
 gone, John Bailey asked the half dozen who 
 remained to go to his library. Anna GrenviUe 
 followed them with awe. Few had entered 
 John Bailey's library. It was known that he 
 had said none but those he loved and trusted 
 might enter there. His reception-room for the 
 many, his drawing-room for the fewer, his 
 dining-room even for some whom he merely 
 wished to please. But the room of his 
 thoughts, the spot where he dreamed before 
 he did, where he marshalled in the air the 
 casts, the settings, the lines, the very voices 
 for every production long before he read the 
 play to his company, or the newspapers had 
 announced the possibility of such a produc- 
 tion! No one should pass its door who by 
 any possibility could profane it by a hostile 
 thought. 
 
 Anna GrenviUe drew in her breath with de- 
 [11] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 light as she made a quick survey of the four 
 walls of books, the master's great oaken desk 
 and leathern chair, a statue of " Art " — the 
 bas-relief in the corner caught her fancy. She 
 wandered from the others for a nearer view. 
 It was a roughly carved group of infinite 
 strength, a man and a woman who seemed try- 
 ing to break from the stone that held them. 
 They had been groping their way blindly, im- 
 pelled by they knew not what, and now they 
 were reaching across the impassable space and 
 looking at each other with the dawn of a 
 wonderful understanding. The sculptor, 
 George Grey Barnard, had named it " Friend- 
 ship." The girl's eyes went wide with delight. 
 Then they softened with tears. John Bailey 
 looked at her with a half -smile in his eyes. 
 
 " You like it.? " he said. She nodded be- 
 cause she could not answer otherwise, but he 
 saw in her eyes the marvel and delight in the 
 eyes of that woman who lived in stone. And 
 she saw in his the fierce desire, tempered with 
 the sublimity and tenderness of that man of 
 marble. John Bailey went back to his guests. 
 [12] 
 
The Stoky of a Friendship 
 
 Anna Grenville turned to a woman who asked 
 if she might take her home in her carriage. 
 But in both a delightful sense of nearness was 
 stirring. So was their friendship cemented 
 by understanding. 
 
 Thereafter their lives were a beautiful 
 unity, for they knew the delight of one aim. 
 She lent herself to the classic because he be- 
 lieved it was his mission to produce old plays 
 as their masters would have had them pro- 
 duced, in the exact spirit and aroma of their 
 time. Her art became her religion. He said 
 of her: " She approaches a new role rever- 
 ently as though she were going to prayer." 
 She travelled with his family in their between- 
 season pilgrimages, and saw new lands, new 
 peoples, and new plays through his eyes. 
 After she became the star of his principal 
 company, he was the first of two competitors 
 to bring a famous poetic drama to this coun- 
 try. The critics from a dozen cities journeyed 
 to the quiet one where the play opened. They 
 were unanimous in their condemnation. " Mr. 
 Bailey had sacrificed the great poem to make 
 
 [13] 
 
By the Stage Dook 
 
 a great part of the one which the poet had 
 made insignificant, the leading female role, 
 played by Miss Grenville," they agreed. Mr. 
 Bailey's version failed; that of his rival, in 
 which the sense of proportion had been pre- 
 served, succeeded. But the sacrifices of this 
 friendship were not one-sided. As the star of 
 the actress neared the zenith, manager after 
 manager led her to the mountain-top and 
 bade her look upon the fortune that would 
 follow her did she join their forces. But the 
 prospect held no temptations. 
 
 She looked at the managers in wonder and 
 said merely " No." 
 
 It was not strange that at the meeting of 
 two such strong personalities a few sparks of 
 dissension should be struck off. It was during 
 their first London season that they had a 
 short, hot quarrel. It was coincident with the 
 appearance and disappearance of the Duke. 
 
 The Duke would have placed his estates 
 beneath the feet of this new American ec- 
 centric comedienne, his NeU Gwyn re-bom. 
 Perhaps she was a bit dazed by the splen- 
 
 [14] 
 
The Stoky of a FaiENDSHip 
 
 dor of it. No woman but has a thrill of 
 delight at fancying herself a Duchess. She 
 dallies joyously with the may-be, even though 
 she knows it will depart into the might-have- 
 been. It was at this feminine mental stage 
 that there was a fierce half-hour in the man- 
 ager's office. Thereafter the ducal carriage 
 disappeared from before the stage door and 
 the ducal cards no longer accompanied a rain 
 of flowers. The episode was one agreed to 
 be forgotten. 
 
 All good as well as evil things have their 
 attendant shadows. The penalty of absorb- 
 ing friendships is that they set their possess- 
 ors apart from all others. They have some- 
 thing of the isolation of genius. Octopus- 
 like, they absorb thought and time. There 
 are times when the sense of this is poignant. 
 
 Such a night was that on which Anna Gren- 
 ville believed she had failed as Viola. In 
 vain did the principals of the company follow 
 her to her dressing-room and praise her from 
 their hearts. She threw herself upon her 
 lounge and refused to be comforted. When 
 [15] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 the rest had gone she crept to a carriage and 
 said : " To the Park ! " For hours the cab- 
 man drove, waiting for the signal " Home " 
 from his fare. It came not, and just as the 
 gray of mist and lake were mingling at dawn 
 he left his box and peered into the carriage. 
 Anna Grenville had cried herself to sleep. 
 
 But the friendship never faltered. When 
 the public taste ebbed away from the classic 
 to the modern it carried manager and star 
 from the handsome uptown to a tawdry down- 
 town theatre ; but they went out with the tide 
 together. When the revulsion of feeling came 
 and swept them into a splendid new playhouse, 
 finer than the one they had lost, they were 
 still swimming abreast. The public taste was 
 fickle, and with it their fortunes soared or 
 grovelled. 
 
 So twenty years passed, and' to round off 
 well the cycle of achievement the scholars and 
 artists of his city gave John Bailey a ban- 
 quet. They called him many things, which 
 in their sum meant " master of his art." And 
 he, replying, said : 
 
 [16] 
 
The Stoey of a Friendship 
 
 " What a debt does the manager owe the 
 actor ! Managers have not the reputation of 
 recognizing this obligation. It would be en- 
 tirely unjust to complain of the want of it in 
 the janitor-manager, for he is not expected to 
 know what an actor is. He deals with combi- 
 nations only, and may know as little of their 
 component parts as he does of the parts of his 
 watch. It is sufficient for him that they go. 
 I speak of the manager who has trained men 
 and women to the higher walks of the drama, 
 who have been more pleased to see the first 
 dawn of promise in a beginner than to see 
 growing houses, who had exulted to see his 
 company play to great audiences, not because 
 it means so much profit, but because it was the 
 highest public appreciation of his creation, 
 and the creation of the manager is the per- 
 fectly acted performance. 
 
 " For the men and women who have fulfilled 
 his expectations in their allotted parts, nay, 
 who have carried his idea farther than his own 
 dream of his possibilities, and made his plays, 
 his productions, and his theatre loved and fa- 
 [17] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 vored — for them the manager has only testi- 
 mony of praiise. And on this theme one might 
 be pardoned for dwelling, since it is the one 
 which the public has most at heart. And it is 
 the merest justice for me to name one who is 
 inseparably associated with the fame of my 
 theatre — ^with whose bright and gracious per- 
 sonality the charm of the performance seems 
 inseparably linked, who began with the 
 smallest parts in that company which you have ' 
 been pleased to call famous, and who has en- 
 chanted two continents; who in her twenty 
 years of arduous work has never disappointed 
 her public, has never been but the kind com- 
 rade to her fellow-players, has ever been the 
 pattern of loyalty to the theatre in which she 
 served, and who in the midst of her greatest 
 triumphs has forgotten self; this occasion, in 
 which you in so signal a way honor her mana- 
 ger, should also be one of especial honor to 
 Miss Grenville." 
 
 At the close of that season the manager and 
 his family sailed for Europe. Miss Grenville, 
 as usual, went with them. 
 [18] 
 
The Stoby of a Friendship 
 
 " This is rest," he sighed, as he drew his 
 dark steamer rug about him and looked out at 
 the gray waters. Was it the gray of the 
 waters or the deep brown of the rug that gave 
 him the pallor, those shadows under his eyes? 
 
 The actress's eyes threw that question 
 across him at his wife. Mrs. Bailey's lips 
 formed the words " Only tired." And the two 
 women watched beside him as he slept the day 
 away in the deck-chair. The next day he did 
 not leave his stateroom, and the ship surgeon 
 hovered about it anxiously for the rest of the- 
 voyage. In London, though, he grew steadily 
 weaker and begged that he be taken out of the 
 British fogs into the sunshine of Paris. With 
 the babble of the cheerful city in his ears he 
 still lay seemingly sleeping. 
 
 " 111.'' No, just tired," he said to visitorSy 
 and sank again into the strange drowsiness. 
 
 Looking up from his pillow he saw two 
 watching women. On one side his wife, on 
 the other his friend. He tried to raise his 
 hand from the cover. He would have grasped 
 the hand of one, they did not know which, for 
 
 [19] 
 
By the Stage Doob, 
 
 he looked from one to the other dully and back 
 again. Then his eyes closed. 
 
 " If I fall asleep, don't wake me," he said. 
 There was no need. 
 
 His will was accurate, painstaking, and 
 conscientious as his productions. He was gen- 
 erous to his widow, kind to his relatives, not 
 forgetful of those charities which had had his 
 ear. To Miss Anna Grenville he left a large 
 percentage of the profits of his plays and his 
 theatre. He added a further bequest: 
 
 " The furniture of my office I leave to Miss 
 Anna Grenville in remembrance of many years 
 in which I have been benefited by her un- 
 selfish interest in my concerns." 
 
 Miss Grenville first retired to the quiet of 
 Kensington. She said she would never again 
 act. But quiet without may only fan the 
 storm within. 
 
 " I will play," she said. " I must play." 
 
 John Bailey's chief rival, a man who pro- 
 duced " shows " rather than plays, came into 
 the quiet of the Kensington garden one day 
 and begged her to head one of his companies. 
 
 [20] 
 
The Story or a Friendship 
 
 " At your own terms," he added. 
 
 But she, drawing her gaze from the dis- 
 tance into which she had been looking while 
 he talked, answered, as she had answered him 
 years before, merely " No." 
 
 To a lesser manager, whose ideals were 
 those and whose friendship had been that of 
 the dead manager, she said " Yes." 
 
 Those who saw her the next season were 
 amazed, pained, wondering. Her acting was 
 a travesty of her playing of the past. 
 
 What had gone out of that beautiful soul, 
 leaving a shell behind.'' She played as though 
 half aroused from a dream. The manager, 
 perplexed, apologized for the plays, condemn- 
 ing his own choice. 
 
 Anna Grenville permanently retired. She 
 is living, I had almost said waiting, in the 
 quiet house at Kensington. There is an in- 
 ward peace now like that outer. So ended 
 this friendship, if such a friendship ever ends. 
 
 [21] 
 
Autobiography of an Actress 
 
Autobiography of an Actress 
 
 ORN on the stage " would 
 apply to the manner of my 
 coming into the world. As 
 nearly, at least, as it would 
 to anyone, for that is a fig- 
 urative phrase more particu- 
 larly descriptive of our parents than of us. 
 
 My father was a non-professional. My 
 mother an actress. Six months before I was 
 born they separated, for reasons that did not 
 reflect upon my mother. She applied for a 
 divorce, and worked harder than ever, so that 
 she might not only earn her living, but pay 
 the lawyer for her freedom. She did the 
 hard work of a stock actress in the bad old 
 days when they put on four Shakespearian 
 productions a week, with an occasional melo- 
 drama thrown in, and she hadn't much time 
 
 [25] 
 
By the Stage Doou 
 
 or money to waste on ruffled, lacy things for 
 me, good old mumsey! 
 
 But she cried when the nurse laid me, a red 
 lump of appetite and clamor, in her arms, 
 and said : " You'll help me to live, won't 
 you, little one? " 
 
 And that was the beginning of a loyal 
 comradeship that lasted thirty years. With- 
 out an interruption, too, although there 
 might have been one once, and it came about 
 in a strange way. It was when I was seven- 
 teen. 
 
 Mamma was playing character parts in 
 Pittsburg, and I had just left Cincinnati, 
 after a riffle with the manager. There was a 
 photograph of a very handsome man in her 
 dressing-room. 
 
 " Who is that.? " I said. 
 
 " John Harmon, a friend of mine in New 
 York. He is Rosa Elton's manager." 
 
 I was leaving for New York the next day 
 and the man in the picture made me resource- 
 ful. 
 
 " I will tell you what to do if you are wor- 
 [26] 
 
Autobiography of an Actress 
 
 ried about my being in New York alone," I 
 suggested. " Telegraph that man to meet 
 me." And so she did. 
 
 He met me at the station. I thought he 
 was the handsomest and most agreeable man 
 I had ever known. He was very nice to 
 me. 
 
 " What are you going to do to-morrow? " 
 he asked me, after we had reached my board- 
 ing-house. 
 
 " I think I will shop in the afternoon." 
 " Then I'll take you to the shops." 
 We saw each other every day after that 
 until Mumsey came back, and when I told her 
 about it she cried and wouldn't tell me why. 
 Then he didn't come for nearly a week, al- 
 though some letters arrived for her addressed 
 in his handwriting. And she was mopey and 
 locked herself in a great deal, complaining 
 of headache. Dear Mumsey ! I did not know 
 until years after we went to the Little Church 
 Around the Corner and were married that 
 she and John Harmon were as good as en- 
 gaged when I met him. John told me in one 
 [27] 
 
By the Stage Dook 
 
 of those conjugal confidences that have such 
 harrowing results, and I never liked him quite 
 so well afterward. 
 
 But this is a long way from where I set 
 out. I was telling about Mumsey's welcom- 
 ing me in that queer way. When I was three 
 weeks old she had to begin playing again, 
 and when I was two months old she used to 
 take me to the theatre when they played 
 matinees. The women in the company took 
 turns at taking care of me while she was on. 
 I liked it from the first and never cried once. 
 So, from playing around the dressing-rooms, 
 and even pulling the manager's whiskers, it 
 came about very naturally that I should 
 make an early debut. 
 
 It happened when I was four years old. 
 I was the child of the heroine, and was told 
 to " just play around the room as if you 
 were at home." When I was at home I al- 
 ways " played around " my mother, cHmbing 
 about her dress and swinging from the arms 
 of her chair and trying to reach and play 
 with her hair. I followed the stage man- 
 [28] 
 
AUTOBIOGKAPHY 0¥ AN AcTKESS 
 
 ager's instructions and tried to " play 
 around " as I was used to doing. When 
 Miss Edith Linton, the leading woman, made 
 her exit she caught me in the wings and 
 shook me. " Don't ever spoil my scene again, 
 you Uttle beast ! " 
 
 A Uttle thing, do you think.'' If it hadn't 
 been for a big-hearted actor, as broad as she 
 was petty, it would have ruined me as an 
 actress. 
 
 Dear old Pop Cranston ! My next attempt 
 was with him in " Blue Jeans." You know 
 the scene in which he bids everybody " good- 
 by " .'' I had seen my mother play a part 
 the night before, in which she cried a regular 
 gale, and I felt a consuming ambition to do 
 the same. That same ambition held me on 
 the stage after he had bade us good-by, and 
 I should have exited with the rest. I ran 
 back to where he stood and clutched the seam 
 of his trousers and screamed and sobbed more 
 good-byes. It stopped the action of the 
 piece, but the audience, seeing real tears in 
 my eyes, cried too, and the scene " went." 
 [29] 
 
By the Stage Dooa 
 
 The stage manager liked the " new business," 
 and kept it in as long as we played " Blue 
 Jeans." Pop Cranston called at the theatre 
 two blocks away, where my mother was play- 
 ing, and told her I had made a " hit." 
 
 Dear old man! Thus he restored my lost 
 confidence and spontaneity, and, I say it in 
 genuine seriousness, saved me as an actress. 
 
 I never forgot Edith Linton's harshness. 
 Years afterward she wanted to join the com- 
 pany in which I was leading woman. Hear- 
 ing of it, I told the manager it must be she 
 or I, not she and I. She did not join the 
 company. Wrong, now, wasn't it, but 
 human ? 
 
 When I have played with children myself 
 I have tried to be most careful of their feel- 
 ings, and to encourage them to be natural. 
 It is a crime against art to snuff out a child's 
 individuality as that woman would have de- 
 stroyed mine. , 
 
 For three years I played only special en- 
 gagements in Philadelphia, where I was born 
 and where I lived at a convent when I was 
 [SO] 
 
Autobiography op an Acteess 
 
 not playing. My mother could not always 
 stay in PhUadelphia. Her companies were 
 usually " on the road," so that nearly a year 
 passed sometimes when she could not come to 
 see me. It would have been a lonely life 
 without the good, black-robed sisters. When 
 I was eight years old I went " on the road " 
 in my mother's company, playing a boy's 
 part, and that was practically the end of my 
 school life. The members of the company 
 helped my mother to teach me such things as 
 I needed to know, and probably some that I 
 could have gotten on very weU without. For 
 instance, in that haphazard education of 
 mine there was something mightily needful 
 left out. Every one of my well-meaning pre- 
 ceptors left it to the others to teach me that 
 self-control is the corner-stone of character, 
 and that without it no structure will stand. 
 What I did learn while I was not learning 
 this potent thing was that if I was stormy 
 enough and persistent enough everyone would 
 yield to my wish — for a time. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest fun I had during 
 
 [31] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 that Bedouin life was when I was ten years 
 old and a little friend of the same age in 
 the company and I played the part of two 
 old gypsy crones and our mothers were gay 
 young girls, who giggled and danced about 
 us and whose fortunes we told. 
 
 I learned to travel all day without food on 
 the " big jumps " out West. 
 
 I learned that it was a not unusual thing 
 to arrive in one town at three in the morning 
 and leave at six. 
 
 I learned the disciplinary value of cold 
 rooms and cheap food in bad hotels. 
 
 I learned that " the carriage into which the 
 actress stepped and ordered the coachman to 
 drive her down the avenue to her hotel " was 
 a golden myth confined to dime novels. Be- 
 fore I was twelve I had learned the grim 
 prose of plodding through snowdrifts as 
 high as my waist to and from play-houses 
 because the storm had stopped the street-car 
 service and mamma and I could not afford a 
 carriage. 
 
 And I had learned the loneliness of the 
 
 [32] 
 
AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF AN AcTEESS 
 
 actor's life and the craving to put out one's 
 hands to whomever might grasp them to spare 
 one's self the horrors of loneliness. 
 
 And I had learned that multiplied stage 
 motto, " Work ! work ! work ! " 
 
 I learned my own method of studying a 
 part. Everyone has a different one. Mine 
 was to be entirely alone, except for the tables 
 and chairs in my room, and even their com- 
 pany I found inconvenient sometimes, because 
 I fell over them in the heat of my acting. 
 I studied my part and acted it the same time, 
 addressing the chairs and tables as my friends 
 and enemies, as the part required. Of course 
 they had sharp edges, instead of the presum- 
 able curves of the real people, and I was 
 sometimes bruised by contact with them, but 
 the black-and-blue spots were among the sac- 
 rifices laid upon the altar of art, and I never 
 rued them. 
 
 To regard a manager in the same light as 
 
 a landlady, as a suppressor of individuality 
 
 and a restricter of liberty, was one of the 
 
 things I learned which I should never have 
 
 [33 ] 
 
By the Stage Dooe, 
 
 learned, for what begins as mere opinion 
 often eventuates as fact. 
 
 And so, after eight years of life " on the 
 road," with occasional intervals in stock com- 
 panies in the West and South, and playing 
 children and old women, and all the grades 
 of age and emotion between, the supreme 
 hour had come. It was the opening night of 
 my first New York engagement. 
 
 My part was a sympathetic one, and I 
 never played better, in spite of " first-night " 
 nervousness. I am not sure that I was ner- 
 vous. There was much more of the spirit of 
 the queen coming to her throne. I had so 
 many sweetly prophetic friends who had said, 
 " Once get a hearing in New York, and you 
 will make the greatest hit ever made on 
 Broadway," that I thoroughly believed it. 
 My serene self-confidence could not be shaken 
 after the fourteen curtain calls I received 
 that night. 
 
 As we walked home from the theatre the 
 man whom I afterward married said : " Lucy, 
 you're made. You'll have off'ers from twen- 
 [34J 
 
AUTOBIOGEAPHY OP AN AcTBESS 
 
 ty managers by every mail." Again I be- 
 lieved. I always was so trusting. And I 
 believed the more when I read the papers 
 next morning. Everyone praised my work 
 and talked about my " intelligence," my 
 " beauty," and my " magnetic charm." One 
 snarling old sheet the other papers called 
 " Grandma " said : " She will be a Broadway 
 star within two years." 
 
 What followed.'' Nothing. We went on 
 the road in the play, and so far as I could 
 learn were forgotten in New York. We 
 seemed to have been lost in the South. When 
 our season closed I came back to look for that 
 permanent place in the fixed affections of 
 Broadway. I didn't find it waiting for me, 
 and I had to make the rounds of managers 
 and agents as though I had never had those 
 fourteen curtain calls and all those notices. 
 
 Being ambitious and believing I was 
 " made," I went first to see the manager who 
 stood for the classic, often at a heavy loss to 
 all concerned, though there was prestige in 
 his name. I found him a dark man in the 
 [35] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 dark office of a dark theatre. He hardly 
 looked at me. 
 
 " You might do for the juvenile of the new 
 production," he said, while he read a letter. 
 " I'll give you $25 a week." 
 
 " Did you say $125.? " A thrill of hope 
 fought with a frightful sinking in my heart. 
 
 " I said $25." 
 
 " But I get $100 on the road, and am 
 offered $110 in the Indianapolis stock. My 
 mother is an invalid and I am sending her to 
 Europe next week. I can't manage on less 
 than " 
 
 " Your private afiFairs don't interest me, 
 young woman. I can get plenty of society 
 girls at that figure. Good-niorning ! " 
 
 From the temple of the classic I went to a 
 then famous producer who would give me a 
 splendid part in what promised to be a big 
 metropolitan success. He offered me $30 a 
 week. I had visions of pawning some old 
 stage dresses and my few jewels and getting 
 on with the $30 for a while. Mr. Mackay 
 promised that if I " made good " he would 
 
 [36] 
 
AUTOBIOGUAPHY OP AN ACTBESS 
 
 increase the salary " as much as was consist- 
 ent." For a moment hope danced dazzlingly 
 before me; then I'll have to admit, leading 
 lady or no leading lady, I cried in the man- 
 ager's office, for I had forgotten mumsey. 
 She must go to that specialist in Berlin. 
 The manager had unfolded the blank con- 
 tract and was filHng it out while I cried there 
 miserably behind my veil. He waited for me 
 to sign it. 
 
 " Make it fifty." 
 
 I might live in a cheap boarding-house and 
 sell my sealskin that I had bought to impress 
 managers with my prosperity, for managers 
 do measure you by your clothes. 
 
 " Thirty or nothing." 
 
 " Good-morning, then ! " 
 
 What was the use of telling him about 
 mamma? The sunny offices were just as in- 
 different as the dark ones to suffering, sad 
 mammas. 
 
 A third manager admitted me so promptly 
 and greeted me so kindly, that I was sure the 
 fourteen curtain calls had had their influence. 
 
 [37] 
 
Bt the Stage Door 
 
 He offered me a better salary than the 
 others and was just unrolling the contract 
 when the leading man came in. He looked 
 uncomfortable when he saw me, although I 
 nodded pleasantly, and would have shaken 
 hands if he had come near enough. 
 
 He went around the other side of the desk, 
 and, leaning over, whispered to Mr. Elkins. 
 
 The manager said, " Excuse me one mo- 
 ment," and they went into another room and 
 talked in a low tone. Mr. Elkins came back 
 and rolled up the blank contract again. 
 
 " I am sorry," he said, " but Mr. Palmer- 
 ton has personal reasons for not wanting to 
 engage you. As he is financially interested 
 in the production I must respect his ob- 
 jections." 
 
 It was not until I had told the strange 
 story to one of the know-alls of the Rialto 
 that the light came. Palmerton, I knew, had 
 called often at a theatrical boarding-house 
 where I had stayed last season. Everyone 
 knew he was enslaved by a devil-may-care 
 dancing girl, who was one of the boarders. 
 
 [38] 
 
Autobiography of an Actress 
 
 That was dangerous knowledge for one who 
 was to play in the same company with his 
 wife. So it was that I lost my most promis- 
 ing New York engagement. The girl who 
 proved that " ignorance is bliss " " made 
 good " in the part and has since become a 
 Broadway star. I sent mumsey to Europe 
 and joined the IndianapoHs stock. 
 
 From that time I date my " theatrical 
 ruin," for I am convinced that anyone who 
 does stock company work for more than five 
 3'ears is ruined, so far as high-class work goes. 
 Her methods must become crude and sloppy. 
 For a few years I played six evenings and 
 two matinee performances a week. Then 
 the demand came for two performances a day. 
 It was an economic measure. The managers 
 of the houses reduced their rates of admission 
 by half and had to double their performances 
 to make the same profit as before. The bill 
 was changed every week. We played on 
 Sundays in the Western cities. That made 
 fourteen performances each week. We re- 
 hearsed all morning for the next week's 
 
 [39] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 production. There was no other time to 
 study my part for the following week than 
 at midnight after the performance. Often 
 it was hard to rid my mind of the heavy, emo- 
 tional parts I had played that night and get 
 down to studying the new part. By the 
 time I have cleared my mind of the part of 
 the present week and the part we were re- 
 hearsing for the next, and actually gotten 
 into the study of the part for the next but 
 one, daylight would be creeping in past the 
 window-shades and mocking my flickering 
 gas-jets. My sleep would be short and dis- 
 turbed by the three combating parts. I 
 would awake depressed from exhaustion and 
 oppressed by the terrible foreboding of every 
 leading man or woman in stock, the fear that 
 our memories would be paralyzed by over- 
 work. I have seen that direful thing happen 
 to a score of my associates in a few years. 
 Sometimes a few weeks' rest restored their 
 memories and made them over. But the 
 warning frightened them, and whenever it 
 was possible those who had the warning got 
 
 [40] 
 
AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF AN AcTKESS 
 
 out of stock or out of the profession. Many 
 I have seen go to the insane asylum, where, 
 dazed, unseeing what is going on about them, 
 they are still searching for the lost thread. 
 
 Do you know how many words a leading 
 woman in a stock company has to memorize 
 in a season? Take a season of twenty weeks. 
 I have saved the memoranda of one average 
 season. Here are the parts I played and the 
 number of words in each : 
 
 Mrs. Winthrop in " Young Mrs. 
 
 Winthrop " 7,000 
 
 Floradilla in " A Fool's Revenge " . . 6,750 
 
 Louise in " The Two Orphans " 7,250 
 
 Cecile in " David Laroque " 6,500 
 
 Adrienne in " A Celebrated Case " . . 7,000 
 
 CamiUe in " CamiUe " 7,300 
 
 Carmen in " Carmen " 7,200 
 
 Portia in " Julius Cassar " 6,500 
 
 Eliza in " Uncle Tom's Cabin " 7,500 
 
 Ruth in " The Wages of Sin " 6,000 
 
 Juliet in " Romeo and Juliet " 7,500 
 
 Dora in " Diplomacy " 6,900 
 
 [41] 
 
= 
 
 By the Stage Dooa 
 
 Portia in " The Merchant of Venice " 7,600 
 
 Ophelia in " Hamlet " 7,000 
 
 Mrs. Gregory Graxin in " The Trag- 
 edy" 6,500 
 
 Desdemona in " Othello " 7,000 
 
 Alice in " Spite of All " 7,500 
 
 Frou-Frou in " Frou-Frou " 7,000 
 
 Vera in " Moths " 6,000 
 
 Roxane in " Cyrano " 8,000 
 
 Total 140,000 
 
 But figures are not always convincing. 
 You are not sure what 140,000 words mean 
 to you, are you? Let me make it clearer. 
 The average number of words in a novel is 
 60,000. There are 120,000 in " Les Misera- 
 bles," and about the same munber in " Quo 
 Vadis." That would make 166 3-4 feet of 
 solid type and 100 columns, or 14 pages of 
 a large newspaper. This in five months, be- 
 sides the wear and tear of two performances 
 a day, the weariness of daily rehearsals, the 
 worry of new parts, and the unescapable fric- 
 [42] 
 
AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF AN ACTRESS 
 
 tion with the manager and company in pro- 
 ducing new pieces. And the collisions with 
 the ignorant dressmakers and careless ward- 
 robe women, for the costuming may make or 
 ruin a part. Add to this the family cares 
 that are intensified by a neurotic's point of 
 view. I am yet to be convinced that there is 
 any punishment reserved for our sins here- 
 after. 
 
 Perhaps I should have explained before 
 that I had long ago become a widow. My 
 husband, like other humans, had his good and 
 bad points. " God rest his shade ! " You 
 would have to know much that I cannot in 
 mercy say of the dead to understand and not 
 blame when I say that there was a sense of 
 relief mingled with my natural tears at his 
 funeral. Enough to know that the deepest 
 hurts this world has given me came from my 
 husband's hand. Mamma, though a con- 
 firmed invalid, was left to me for five years 
 after, and how glad I was to work hard for 
 her, remembering that fretful, red baby that 
 she had welcomed so tenderly in Philadelphia, 
 
 [43] 
 
By the Stage Doob, 
 
 now a good many years ago. At last this 
 faithful friend was taken, too. 
 
 I was free to go to New York and work for 
 a small salary, if need be, and be that late-in- 
 arrival but still predicted Broadway star. I 
 had not saved any money. The home drains 
 had been heavy. ■ Besides, I never knew a 
 stock actress, no matter what her salary, who 
 saved money. Her new stage clothes every 
 week cost from a third to a half of her salary. 
 If she accepts any social attentions she must 
 return them. The luncheons- and dinners she 
 gives to admiring and troublesome society 
 women cost a good part of her salary. She 
 ought to forego all these unprofitable func- 
 tions, but she doesn't, because she considers 
 them a " business investment." Huge mis- 
 take! The illusion of mystery is a thousand 
 times more profitable than romance-dispell- 
 ing knowledge about you by the public. 
 
 So my capital was my experience. It was 
 
 a telling one. I was much older than the 
 
 one-part-a-year actress at thirty. A nerve 
 
 speciahst had told me that the strain of stock 
 
 [44] 
 
Autobiography of an Acteess 
 
 work would ruin my health and steal my 
 beauty. But what could I do? There was 
 mumsey until last season. 
 
 Agents and managers cared nothing about 
 my experience in the West and South. 
 " You'U have to demonstrate your ability all 
 over again in New York," they said, with an 
 unpleasant smile. " Very few memories go 
 back twelve years." 
 
 O, those thrilling, forgotten fourteen cur- 
 tain calls! 
 
 The managers and agents made a good 
 many references to " young girls." Wasn't 
 a woman a girl now at thirty.'' I glanced at 
 a shop window one morning. A pale, anx- 
 ious-faced woman was looking frowningly at 
 me. She looked as if she had dressed hur- 
 riedly. She walked nervously, yet as though 
 she was tired. With a shock I recognized 
 my own gown, finally my own face. How 
 long since the papers had called me a beauty .'' 
 The ner"e specialist was right. 
 
 Yet I had to go back to another year of 
 Stock. There was nothing else " open." The 
 
 [45] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 next season it was the same. That was the 
 season that I had my warning. 
 
 I had become irritable without just cause. 
 
 I had no longer any interest in my friends. 
 
 I was always " too tired to go any- 
 where." 
 
 I had sudden attacks of blindness and diz- 
 ziness. 
 
 I had sharp pains in the back of my head. 
 
 My work, that I had always loved, had 
 grown hateful to me. 
 
 I slept little and I had strange, wild 
 dreams. 
 
 My lines came haltingly. 
 
 Until then I had always scorned stimulants, 
 but now I reminded myself of a lame beggar 
 who needed a crutch. When the men in the 
 company talked about " bracers " and " pick- 
 me-ups " I had a wild craving for them. I 
 must have something to carry me through to 
 the end — what end? 
 
 It was then I read about MoUie Shannon's 
 death in San Francisco; such a sad death. 
 I can't bear to write about it. Only the de- 
 [46] 
 
AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF AN ACTEESS 
 
 spatches told how she had tired of the stock 
 companies in which she had been leading 
 woman for twenty years and joined any fly- 
 by-night company that would take her. The 
 companies had stranded again and again. 
 She was sick and despondent and had taken 
 to stimulants. 
 
 I wired an order for some flowers for Mol- 
 lie's funeral. " A broken column of the larg- 
 est white roses " the order read. Then I went 
 to the manager and told him that the doctor 
 had ordered a rest. 
 
 " When.? " He was surprised, for he had 
 been asking me to call a physician. 
 
 " Five years ago, only I couldn't obey him 
 then." 
 
 So I packed my things and went down to 
 visit some old friends in Virginia. I lived 
 outdoors in the wonderful sunshine and rode 
 and drove over those splendid clay roads. I 
 played with my friend's children and helped 
 her entertain her visitors. I went to bed at 
 nine and slept until seven. And in a little 
 while I could laugh naturally again, and 
 
 [47] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 the wine of Kfe again flowed in my veins, 
 and 
 
 I came back to work? Not I. I married 
 a neighbor of my friend's and lived a quiet, 
 wholesome life on one of the dear, old, historic 
 " places " on the James River, and I haven't 
 a nerve left. 
 
 We go to New York once or twice a year. 
 I drop in at the Professional Woman's 
 League, just to be reminded of what I have 
 escaped. They talk to me about " hits " and 
 failures, principally failures. Once the sec- 
 retary said : " O, Miss Standard ! If you 
 had only held on a little longer ! Mr. Bore- 
 man didn't know you had left the stage. He 
 sent for your address the other day. He 
 wanted you for the lead in a New York piece, 
 just the part to fit your personality. It will 
 be a big success." 
 
 " Tell him I've made a big success." 
 
 A messenger arrived with a note for me. 
 " From the gentleman waiting downstairs." 
 
 He explained, " I dare not venture into the 
 sacred, manless precincts," it said, " but I 
 
 [48] 
 
Autobiography of an Actress 
 
 haven't seen my wife for an hour, and I'm 
 jealous of those ambitious women. Shall we 
 have a drive in the park? " 
 
 " I've made my big success," I repeated. 
 " I've married the best man in the world, and 
 that is the greatest of all ' hits.' " 
 
 [49] 
 
■'ij* 
 
The Passing of the Leading 
 Lady 
 
The Passing of the Leading 
 Lady 
 
 IRSTcaU!" 
 
 Margaret Graham was 
 looking over the day's mail 
 while her maid dressed and 
 powdered her hair for " The 
 Cliftons." 
 
 The " Twelfth Night " asked her to assist 
 in receiving Harvey Manners, the English 
 actor, who was to be its next solitary male 
 guest of honor. The Professional Woman's 
 League reminded her of " dues " overdue. 
 One or two unknowns there were who sent 
 her their written admirations. And there 
 was a letter from home, the village up in the 
 Maine woods. She thought she caught the 
 fragrance of balsam as she opened it, and 
 smiled whimsically as she began to read. 
 [53] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 " The babies and I are thinking of you 
 to-day," it said, " and are making a common- 
 place enough group as I write. Toddles is 
 going to sleep on his rocking-horse, and I am 
 keeping one wary eye on him. Minnie is sit- 
 ting on my knee, waiting for me to finish, so 
 that she may scrawl her name below mine. 
 Writing is a new accomplishment of hers, so 
 be sure to praise it when you write. We are 
 very commonplace and very happy. And 
 how is it with you, my Serene Lady.'' We 
 read of your success after success and your 
 tremendous popularity, and it adds to our 
 happiness. We believe you are happy, for a 
 woman must be happy, or at least at peace 
 with herself, to be successful. But we want 
 to know how it is with your soul, dear, the 
 part of you that really weeps and laughs, the 
 part that the public doesn't know anything 
 about. I told Tom this morning that you were 
 like a deep, deep lake, and that there were few 
 who even guessed what depths there were be- 
 neath that calm surface. Dear Margaret, no 
 one knows what there is in a woman until love 
 [54] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 comes and lashes her into a storm that wrecks 
 and ruins, or soothes her into an infinite rest." 
 
 " Fifteen minutes ! " shouted the call-boy. 
 
 The dressing over, Margaret Graham, the 
 leading woman of the Lyceum Stock Com- 
 pany, communed with her twin in the mirror. 
 
 " Phyllis's letter is a touchstone of memo- 
 ries," she said to the reflection. " It makes 
 you remember days you had nearly forgotten. 
 Days in the cotton mills, when you recited 
 ' The Speech of Regulus ' and ' Aux Ital- 
 iens ' to the girls at the noon hour, and for- 
 got the lunch in your tin pail, until the gong 
 sounded to go back to work. Days when you 
 looked out over the river and tangled your 
 threads hopelessly while you built your castles 
 in Spain. 
 
 " I must be frank with you," she said. 
 " I don't want to wound you, but you 
 must admit there was no beauty to aid you. 
 You deserve credit that you got on without it. 
 The teacher of elocution gave you free lessons 
 and you read at one of his ' evenings,' and 
 the manager of an entertainment bureau was 
 [55] 
 
By the Stage Dook, 
 
 there and offered you a ' route.' And a 
 theatrical manager came to one of your 
 ' readings,' and engaged you for his com- 
 pany. You then joined the stock company 
 here, and you were made the leading woman, 
 and this " 
 
 She looked about the large dressing-room. 
 
 Its walls were covered with the pictured 
 faces of her player friends; faces and names 
 that the world knew well and admired. The 
 long, narrow dressing-table was covered with 
 lace, through which pink silk peeped. Toilet- 
 bottles of cut-glass and silver, a silver alcohol- 
 lamp with silver curling-irons, a French 
 opera-cloak thrown across the chair, and her- 
 self in a gown of pale blue silk and old lace. 
 
 The sparkle of diamonds at her throat and 
 on her hands and in her hair. 
 
 " How different from the factory days ! " 
 she smiled. 
 
 She looked at the pink roses in a bowl and 
 at a dark, predatory-looking face from a 
 
 frame near the mirror. 
 
 » 
 
 It was one of her moments unaware. She 
 [56] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 leaned forward quickly and touched the roses 
 with her lips. Then she kissed the picture. 
 
 "Last call!" 
 
 Margaret Graham walked gracefully for- 
 ward to her place at the centre of the stage. 
 The maid heard the soft fall of the velvet cur- 
 tains as they were drawn apart. She heard 
 the soft patting of gloved hands in greeting 
 to the favorite leading woman " discovered 
 alone," awaiting the arrival of her lover. 
 
 " I'd rather be hur nor any lady in the 
 wurld," remarked Annie, whose fingers were 
 defter than her tongue. 
 
 " Right you are," said Joe, the property- 
 man, and the loyal pair watched her as she 
 waited for the applause to end. 
 
 She stood straight and tall, dignified, and 
 steady-eyed, as her company and her admir- 
 ing pubhc had always seen her, and as be- 
 fitted the leading woman and long-time favor- 
 ite of the best theatre in the metropolis. 
 
 To the fashionables, who flocked there and 
 regarded the Lyceum as their own, Margaret 
 Graham was a familiar goddess. They 
 [671 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 flocked to first-nights to see, not the stock 
 company, but Miss Graham, in the new part. 
 Over breakfast coflFee and afternoon tea and 
 evening champagne they compared it with the 
 last and the " one before that," and the ver- 
 dict was nearly always favorable and always 
 loving. 
 
 The soft patting of gloved hands was 
 heard. again when the curtain fell upon the 
 first act. Margaret Graham walked slowly 
 to her dressing-room. With her was the man 
 with the predatory-looking face, the original 
 of the picture at the right of the mirror. A 
 small, handsome man, with the keen, dark 
 eyes and the ready smile of his race. 
 
 " Here's the pigmy comin' with her," said 
 Annie, who had no reverence even for a man- 
 ager. 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! " said slow-moving Joe, fold- 
 ing a cloud away in the wings. " Mr. Bore- 
 man's all right." 
 
 " No, he ain't. I never seen a man yet I 
 just couldn't abide that was all right. He 
 pizens the air I breathe, and she so fine and 
 [58] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 high-like, an' just worships the toad. I 
 hate little men, anyway. They're never just 
 square." 
 
 Margaret Graham swept into the dress- 
 ing-room, the small man following her. She 
 stood in the middle of the room and looked 
 down at him as he sat at the edge of the big, 
 leather-covered divan. 
 
 " How do you like Miss Winston's under- 
 study ? " he asked. 
 
 " She does weU enough. She's crude, of 
 course. Will Miss Winston be back to-mor- 
 row?" 
 
 " Hardly ! The doctor says she is going 
 from one convulsion into another. He thinks 
 she won't live through the night." 
 
 " Poor Jennie ! " Those who thought the 
 leading woman cold would have been sur- 
 prised at the mist that rose to her eyes and at 
 the sympathetic quiver of her firm lips. 
 
 " Will you keep her understudy in the 
 part.? " 
 
 " I think she will do when she is ' limbered ' 
 up. She is pretty, don't you think so.? " 
 [69J 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 The leading woman looked straight ahead 
 and did not answer. 
 
 The manager bit his cigar and smiled. 
 " Don't you think so.-" " he repeated. 
 
 " In an evil way, yes. I think," she said, 
 looking at him reflectively, " we are mistaken 
 about the sex of the devil. The chief of evil 
 spirits is a woman." 
 
 The manager laughed. 
 
 " Second act." 
 
 The soubrette tapped timidly at the door 
 and drew back when she saw the manager. 
 
 " Come in," he said. " I was just going. 
 By the way, Margaret, is Miss Raglan's com- 
 ing apropos of what you just said.'' " 
 
 The leading woman bent and kissed the 
 brown-eyed, rotund little woman in her fan- 
 tastic makeup as " slavery." 
 
 " No," she said, smiling. " MolUe is my 
 good angel." 
 
 As the manager disappeared, the leading 
 woman drew about her shoulders the lace 
 scarf that was to take the place of the opera- 
 cloak in the second act. 
 [60] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 " You and the comedian seem to enjoy 
 playing opposite," she observed, tentatively. 
 
 Someone had remarked that Mollie's con- 
 versation reminded him of the bursting of a 
 cork from an over-full bottle. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she bubbled, frankly, " he is the 
 male creature that I am draping my fancies 
 about at present. I've a vague recollection 
 that I thought he had one eyelid that needed 
 propping, and that his hair was distastefully 
 red, and that he had a crooked little body 
 when he joined the company. But that is all 
 changed. He has a handsome, manly figure, 
 and chestnut hair, and lovely eyes. What an 
 artist I am at transformation ! " 
 
 When Miss Graham and her maid stepped 
 into the carriage that night they waited for 
 a scarcely perceptible time. 
 
 During that moment the stage-door opened 
 and a shrill, girlish laugh pierced the wintry 
 night. Following the laugh came the new 
 juvenile, and just beyond was Fred Boreman, 
 the manager. 
 
 " Home ! " called Miss Graham. 
 [61] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 " There's Mr. Boreman, ma'am," said An- 
 nie, dismayed. 
 
 Miss Graham drew her furs about her and 
 answered, cahnly : 
 
 " He doesn't come with us this evening. 
 He is detained." 
 
 Manager Boreman did not drive home with 
 Miss Graham and her maid, for one of Annie's 
 unequalled chafing-dish suppers, so often 
 after that. He had to consult men on busi- 
 ness at the club. Their drives in the park 
 were rarer. And one evening he forgot to 
 send the roses for the bowl under the leading 
 woman's mirror. He came in after the first 
 act and apologized for the omission, and she 
 answered amiably, but Maggie noticed how 
 often she dropped the " make-up things " be- 
 cause her hands trembled. 
 
 Sometimes when he had called, or when they 
 had returned from their drives, the maid saw 
 that look on her face she had seen when she 
 played " Fedora," and " felt it so that she 
 just couldn't get herself together after the 
 third act," as Annie explained. 
 [62] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 Those who gave Miss Graham more than 
 the casual attention due an artist began to 
 see the traces of some inward storm upon her 
 face. It was paler. The lips were drawn 
 into the unbecoming hne of resolve. There 
 were instants when her eyes looked frightened. 
 Her voice was weaker, and there was a new 
 note of half -appeal in it. 
 
 One afternoon they were rehearsing a scene 
 in the " Fancy Ball." They were about to 
 dance the minuet. The manager gave in- 
 structions to the assembled company. He 
 showed each dancer what position to take. 
 He lingered a shade longer when he spoke to 
 the new juvenile. Her eyes and teeth flashed 
 a laughing answer. The company looked 
 curiously at the two. Then by a common 
 impulse they looked at Miss Graham, who was 
 near enough to hear. Her eyes wandered 
 from the pair to the gray outlines of the 
 sheeted orchestra. She toyed aimlessly with 
 her chatelaine. 
 
 "Ready!" 
 
 They took their places. They saluted each 
 
 [63] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 other with deep, court bows. They began 
 the dainty, mincing steps of the period into 
 which they had been translated by the play. 
 
 " Slower ! " commanded Boreman. 
 
 The measure slackened. It was that figure 
 in which each woman clasped the hands of the 
 other women. Miss Graham and Miss Rag- 
 lan clasped hands. The ." funny woman" 
 looked apprehensive. 
 
 " How cold your hands are ! What is the 
 ' matter, Margaret ? " she whispered. 
 
 Miss Graham did not hear. Her fine head 
 was high and well back. There was a small 
 tempest in the laces at her bosom. Her 
 pupils dilated. 
 
 The company stared. Was that " busi- 
 ness " of the part ? 
 
 Away back under the gallery, a man, a 
 manager friend of Fred Boreman's, admitted 
 to the rehearsal by courtesy, was lounging 
 upon one of the sheeted chairs. 
 
 " A devilish fine figure she cuts at such mo- 
 ments," he confided to himself. " I won- 
 der » 
 
 [64] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 The movement of the dance stopped. The 
 players, sheep-like, looked at their leader. 
 Miss Graham had stopped opposite the juve- 
 nile woman. They looked into each other's 
 eyes. Swift, silent messages were telegraphed 
 in that instant. The juvenile offered her 
 hand. The leading woman hesitated. She 
 turned slowly to Boreman, her back to the 
 girl. 
 
 " I never saw such a look," Annie shiver- 
 ingly confided to Tony. " It was like a call 
 from the very bottom of a soul. That was 
 the woman of it. But there was the look, too, 
 of a child that was frightened at something 
 it felt in the dark. 
 
 " Oh, Tony ! it was awful, awful, and that 
 brute Boreman never answered it, just pre- 
 tended not to see and looked past her at that 
 nasty little juvenile and smiled." 
 
 Margaret Graham knew, too, that that cry 
 was not answered. She turned dumbly and 
 tried to go on with the dance. Again the girl 
 with the laughter in her eyes, and on her lips, 
 held out her hand. The leading woman 
 [65] 
 
By the Stage Dooa 
 
 stared at her with dull eyes. She stood irres- 
 olute, her breath coming quickly. 
 
 "Oh, God! I cannot; I will not!" she 
 moaned. 
 
 " Come, Miss Margaret," pleaded Annie, 
 in tearful tones, from the wings. 
 
 Miss Graham stared duUy at the maid. 
 She ran to her. 
 
 "Oh, Annie! I can't — I can't!" she 
 gasped. The maid led her slowly to the 
 dressing-room. 
 
 Manager Boreman tapped at the door un- 
 certainly a moment later. There was no an- 
 swer and he went away frowning. 
 
 " Rehearsal same hour to-morrow," he 
 called over his shoulder. 
 
 Miss Graham was lifted into her carriage 
 and driven to her home. The next morning 
 the paper's headlines told the story of the 
 actress's unaccountable nervous collapse and 
 her retirement from the Lyceum, No visitors 
 were admitted to her home. 
 
 Two weeks later she had so far recovered 
 as to sign a contract for a starring tour with 
 [66] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 the manager who had been lounging far back 
 under the gallery at the rehearsal. 
 
 There were plays to read and choose. 
 There was a company to make up. There 
 was scenery to be ordered and inspected. 
 And there were costumes. 
 
 " There is so much to do. New produc- 
 tions don't give one an appetite," she would 
 say when her dinner was sent back un- 
 touched. 
 
 " Yes," she answered when she was remind- 
 ed that she had walked her bedroom floor all 
 night, " I am too busy to sleep." 
 
 It was at the time that the fringe of the 
 theatres, those persons who are thrown into 
 a deliciously palpitant state by a fleeting 
 glimpse of players out of make-up hours, be- 
 gan to say : 
 
 " I saw Margaret Graham at Mme. Bovee's 
 to-day. She isn't at all like she is on the 
 stage. She is one of those women that are 
 made by gaslight. Why, she has skin that 
 is positively gray. Her mouth droops, and 
 there are two deep Hnes between her eyes." 
 [67] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 The cruel glitter of Broadway and the 
 afternoon sunshine were traitors. They made 
 James Ferguson, the comedian just returned 
 from a year's tour, bar her hurried exit from 
 a shop and made him say, " Been ill, Mar- 
 garet? " 
 
 She colored. " No, I'm busy getting ready 
 to star. That's hard work, you know, Jim." 
 
 Ferguson made a rapid calculation as she 
 left him. " Not more than twenty-nine, hard- 
 ly that. Jove, how she's gone off ! What is 
 it?" 
 
 The company opened at Elizabeth, N. J. 
 From thence it went to Connecticut. The 
 criticisms were polite. They gave three non- 
 committal lines to the new production and 
 thirty to Miss Graham's " previous career." 
 
 The company continued throughout New 
 England. 
 
 " We must cancel Boston," the manager 
 said one night. 
 
 The star lifted questioning eyes to his. 
 
 " We are not quite ready for it," he said, 
 uneasily. She was really a " devilish fine 
 [68] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 woman," and he couldn't be brutal, just yet. 
 " We'll have to have the second act rewritten. 
 And that comedian won't do; he's about as 
 funny as an undertaker. I'm going to give 
 him two weeks' notice. We've got to liven 
 
 the piece, or . We'll start West Thurs- 
 
 day." 
 
 " I am glad," she said. " I like the West- 
 ern people, and they used to like me." 
 
 In the first Western city of importance the 
 critics, who were ever fond of Miss Graham, 
 described the production as a " personal 
 triumph of Miss Graham's." They scored 
 the play and the company and the manager. 
 This was repeated in several cities, where the 
 star was the centre of pleasant theatrical 
 memories. At last they " played " a town 
 where all were equally unknown. The " no- 
 tices " were heartbreaking. 
 
 " There are too many claimants to starship, 
 and they should be put down," said one. 
 " Miss Graham is not a star. If she were not 
 so announced, she might easily be taken for 
 a rushlight. We are obliged to the manager 
 
 [69] 
 
By the Stage Doob 
 
 for informing us that she is a star. She 
 walked through the part as though she were 
 not of this earth, but had her mind on things 
 above, even in heaven. We are told that 
 Miss Graham has had better days. We offer 
 the lady our condolences that they are over." 
 
 Soon afterward they played in a capital 
 city, where a large audience of Graham ad- 
 mirers greeted them. It was a serious — it 
 might be said to be sad — ^audience. There 
 were one or two perfunctory curtain calls in 
 contrast with the storm of first applause at 
 the star's entrance. The criticisms were 
 again " polite." 
 
 The second night was one of half -filled 
 seats. 
 
 A stout, homely little woman, who " had 
 loved Margaret Graham from the first time 
 she saw her," snubbed the stage-doorkeeper 
 and ordered him to " take that card back or 
 there'll be trouble." 
 
 Miss Graham received her in her dressing- 
 room. " Why, Margaret ! " said the fussy lit- 
 tle woman, taking her in her arms. " What's 
 [70] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 the matter, dear? You are not yourself; you 
 are some other woman." 
 
 The star rested her forehead upon the 
 low, broad shoulder. " Do you see it, too, 
 Janet?" she sobbed. " 1 am a failure. I 
 knew it, A woman must be happy to be 
 successful." 
 
 She offered her visitor a chair and sat op- 
 posite her. But she looked beyond her and 
 past her even while she talked of the weather, 
 of their friends, of anything and everything 
 but the performance and herself. 
 
 The little woman's prune-like face grew 
 more weazened. She looked searchingly at 
 the drawn mouth and the wavering eyes. She 
 knew that Margaret Graham was not a woman 
 to question. Instead she leaned forward and 
 patted the star's bediamonded hand with her 
 stubby one. 
 
 " Listen, dear," she said ; " I don't want to 
 know what has made you so nervous. It's 
 enough for me that you are in trouble. Now, 
 I'm a lot older than you, and I've learned 
 some things that are hard to learn. One is 
 [71] 
 
By the Stage Dooa 
 
 that there's no failure so great as that suc- 
 cess can't follow it. And another is," — ^and 
 she spoke very slowly, for emphasis — " that 
 we must never let any man spoil our 
 life." 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 " There's a time that comes to all of us — 
 I've never known a woman who has escaped it 
 — ^when she has to face about and readjust 
 her ideas, and make everything over new. 
 Were you ever poor enough to have to turn 
 your dresses, Margaret? That's what we 
 have to do with our lives when they get faded 
 or worn or shiny. If they're ' good goods,' 
 as the dressmakers say, we can make them look 
 as good as new, and nobody but ourselves 
 knows the difference; and after a while we 
 can make ourselves forget it. And there's an- 
 other thing we must never lose sight of, for 
 our welfare's sake — we must not think that 
 since there was someone whose deformities we 
 didn't see at first, beca,use we didn't look at 
 him with clear eyes, that there are none but 
 deformed men and women ; that is fatal, child. 
 [72] 
 
The Passing or the Leading Lady 
 
 We can survive one mistake, but we can't live 
 in a world full of mistakes." 
 
 Miss Graham's hand shook under the de- 
 taining one on her knee. 
 
 " Third Act ! " sang the call-boy. 
 
 The star looked at the door with terror in 
 her eyes. " Oh, Janet ! " she cried, " how can 
 I face those dreadful empty benches? " She 
 summoned her strength by a great effort.. 
 " Good-by, Janet," she said, almost stiffly, 
 " You are very good." 
 
 Soon the newspapers ceased to be poHte.. 
 The manager took their cue. It was an- 
 nounced that Miss Graham's season had been 
 shortened because of her illness. 
 
 She returned to New York and the house- 
 on Nineteenth Street, near the park. The- 
 neighbors noticed that she climbed the steps' 
 falteringly, as an old woman. Then the 
 doors swung fast against most of Margaret 
 Graham's old world. 
 
 MolUe Raglan, now Mollie Evans, pene- 
 trated once. It was after she met Jim Fer- 
 guson, who said : " Go up to see Margaret. 
 [73] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 They may tell you she's out, or ill, but insist 
 upon seeing her. There's something wrong 
 up there," and the comedian shook a melan- 
 choly head. " It's too deep for me ; but you 
 go and find out. You would nose out the 
 secret of the Sphinx." 
 
 Mollie tossed her head saucily and boarded 
 a car. But when Ferguson's round, red face 
 was lost to sight her own grew grave, and she 
 sighed. 
 
 Annie met her at the door and led her into 
 the little reception-room, so like and yet so 
 changed. 
 
 She had lost her " heart " for work, she 
 said, and the " down-stairs " had degener- 
 ated. The small white and gold reception- 
 room had lost its brilliancy. The personal 
 aroma of the mistress was gone. The hang- 
 ings and carpet were faded.. Dust covered 
 the few books on the table and the empty sil- 
 Ter card-receiver. 
 
 " Better go right up and surprise her," 
 Annie suggested, nervously. 
 
 Vital MoUie Evans shivered slightly and 
 [74] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 tears gathered in her round eyes. They fell 
 in showers when Miss Graham looked up in- 
 differently as she entered. 
 
 Margaret Graham sat in her bedroom, 
 doing what she always did now — nothing. 
 Devoted Annie kept this room as cheerful 
 as possible, but her efforts were regarded 
 with a faint " Thank you," or a blank 
 stare. 
 
 The room looked bare. She had ordered 
 every chair taken out of the room, except the 
 low rocking-chair in which she sat and rocked 
 incessantly. Two deep-worn ruts, making 
 pale lines in the vivid blue of the carpet, 
 marked her path of travel diagonally across 
 the room. The lace curtains were gone and 
 only stout shades remained at the windows. 
 But one bit of furniture remained — ^the bed 
 in the corner, a narrow iron one that sug- 
 gested a cell. 
 
 The wall-paper was rent in ragged lines, 
 as though violent fingers had torn their way 
 through it in impotent fury. 
 
 " How do you do, MoUie? " said the actress, 
 [75] 
 
By the Stage Doob, 
 
 slowly, while she kept on rocking. " Why 
 are you crying ? " 
 
 " I am so glad to see you again, dear," 
 faltered the visitor. " Are you well.'' " 
 
 " Yes, thank you," with an eiFort. " Are 
 you.? " 
 
 " I'm married, you know. I decided to 
 marry Tony Evans. The creature would 
 never take care of himself. He was always 
 catching a cold, and I was afraid he might 
 have pneumonia, and he annoyed me, so I 
 married him." 
 
 Miss Graham's wandering attention was 
 fixed. "I'm glad, MoUie. That is what 
 every woman should do; marry a good man, 
 who truly loves her." 
 
 Mollie's bubbling words failed her. The 
 pathos of the figure opposite silenced her. 
 Margaret Graham, in a gray house-gown that 
 restless hands had tried to strip of its chiffon 
 until it hung in ribbons ; Margaret Graham, 
 with blowsy hair and long, ragged nails. 
 Was this the shining, well-groomed favorite 
 of the Lyceum of two years before.'' Des- 
 
 [76] 
 
The Passing of the Leading Lady 
 
 peration goaded her words that would arrest 
 those wandering eyes. 
 
 " Fred Boreman's mother is dead." 
 
 Silence. 
 
 " He can marry now. You know it was 
 her prejudice that kept him single before." 
 
 MoUie was desperate. Could she bring no 
 light of interest into those heavy, unseeing 
 eyes? 
 
 " That silly little MlUiken wiU never get 
 him in the world. He never was really in- 
 terested in her. He only thought he was, for 
 a week or two." 
 
 The duU face opposite MoUie's did not 
 change. 
 
 " How did you like starring, Margaret.'' " 
 
 " It was a failure." 
 
 " But " 
 
 "Do you remember algebra, Mollie?" 
 
 " A little." 
 
 " There were three methods of elimination. 
 One was by cancellation, and one was by addi- 
 tion and subtraction, and one was by substi- 
 tution. I tried to eliminate something by 
 [77] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 substitution, but I failed. My starring 
 venture was the substitution, and it didn't 
 eliminate." 
 
 She laughed monotonously and plucked at 
 the torn chiffon. Then she began rocking 
 fiercely, determinedly urging the chair for- 
 ward in its pale, worn path to the door. 
 
 " Good-by," said MoUie, chokingly, kiss- 
 ing the brown hair, in which the gray was be- 
 ginning to appear. Miss Graham did not 
 answer. She had forgotten her visitor. She 
 went on rocking. 
 
 " Oh, Annie ! Annie ! how dreadful ! " the 
 comedienne said when the maid met her in the 
 hall. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am, 'tis," said the maid, stolidly. 
 
 " And all for that worthless wretch of 
 
 " Don't ; she wouldn't want anyone to 
 speak of it ! Men is what women thinks them 
 — to the women, and she never could get used 
 to thinking different, and she could never go 
 back to thinking what she did before that day 
 when she couldn't make herself take that 
 [78] 
 
The Passing or the Leading Lady 
 
 woman's hand in the minuet." Annie, too, 
 had grown vague in that house of dreams. 
 
 Mollie burst into the Evans apartment, as 
 the mildly wondering Tony put it, " like a 
 young tornado." 
 
 " What's up, Mollie? " he asked. 
 
 He at once became the centre of a whirl- 
 wind that beat him vigorously with smaU, 
 gloved fists, and, when it was tired, subsided 
 in the cosey corner, sobbing tumultuously. 
 
 " Was the costumer horrid? " 
 
 " I didn't see the old thing." 
 
 " Has MandeviUe cut our salaries because 
 we insist on working double? " 
 
 " I haven't seen him, either." 
 
 " Then please, Mollie, teU me what gave 
 you this turn." 
 
 MoUie turned eyes, so swollen that the lids 
 half hid their disdain, upon him. 
 
 " I hate you, Tony Evans, because you're 
 a man ! I hate your whole tribe ! " 
 
 Tony apologized so meekly that she for- 
 gave him, because, as he humbly stated, he 
 " couldn't help it," and as she admitted he 
 " really was the best one she knew." 
 [79] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 MoUie and Tony called the next week to 
 take Miss Graham driving. They were told 
 she was too ill to go. When they called again 
 they were refused admittance by a stranger 
 who " was simply obeying orders." 
 
 The next time they found Annie packing 
 trunks for a journey. 
 
 " She never would see nobody, and she just 
 sat up there an' thought, an' thought, drivin' 
 in a circle, an' always comin' back to the place 
 she started from, an' now it's come," she ex- 
 plained. 
 
 Mollie gripped Tony's sleeve. 
 
 " It's hopeless, the doctors say," Annie 
 went on, " so they've took her off." 
 
 " To — a — sanitarium.'' " 
 
 " To an asylum. But don't cry, Miss 
 Evans. She's better now. 'Twas the nights 
 when she'd walk and walk and scream, low-like 
 under her breath, that was awful. There's 
 no more o' the restlessness an' ravin' an' cry- 
 in'. She smiles all the time an' talks soft an' 
 plays like a baby." 
 
 The Great Peace was upon her. 
 
 [80] 
 
Her One Superstition 
 
Her One Superstition 
 
 VERYONE marvelled at the 
 uniform cheerfulness of 
 Miss Eleanor Lawton, sou- 
 brette. 
 
 She was a big girl, too 
 radiant and wholesome to be 
 called merely pretty, and yet lacking much 
 of simple beauty of feature or coloring. Big 
 hazel eyes that reflected her every thought, 
 and even, flashing, white teeth that revealed 
 themselves in her every smile or laugh were 
 what people remembered best. These and a 
 fine, echoing, contralto laugh made her 
 unique, and, as expressing her innermost per- 
 sonality, beloved. The propertymen liked 
 her, and she was the only one in the company 
 whom the wardrobe women did not, from class 
 prejudice and traditional principle, fervently 
 hate. 
 
 [83 1 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 She had only one element of unpopularity. 
 She awakened distrust. 
 
 The company looked upon her very much 
 in the light that the respectable inhabitants 
 of the venerable City of Salem regarded the 
 occult ladies whom they burned and hanged. 
 Miss Lawton did not respect the traditions of 
 the profession. 
 
 She did not care a particle how she saw the 
 moon. She often whistled softly in her dress- 
 ing-room. 
 
 She walked under a ladder when the crew 
 was hoisting scenes. She belonged to an 
 " Up with Thirteen " Club. 
 
 She told often with unction that she had 
 broken a mirror on the night of her debut, 
 seven years ago, and had had an increase of 
 salary every year since. 
 
 No one had ever seen her carry an amu- 
 let, not even a little lead St. Joseph, or 
 St. Anthony of Padua, nor wear a yellow 
 garter. 
 
 She had even made the third of a trio pass- 
 ing on the stairs, which everyone properly 
 [84] 
 
Her One Superstition 
 
 brought up professionally knows is a deadly 
 omen. 
 
 And she had had the unparallelled effront- 
 ery to be born on Friday, and the bad taste 
 to exult in the fact. 
 
 So everyone in Harry Perley's " Rose of 
 the Wilderness " Company avoided her as 
 much as he or she consistently could. It was 
 not easy, for she was royally good-natured 
 and seemed never to have the headaches, nor 
 bad tempers, nor " spells " of the other 
 women. But there was something queer 
 about her; anyone could see that. Hadn't 
 she signed the contract for this engagement 
 on Friday.'' That was enough. 
 
 She lived rather apart from the others, 
 because she wanted to avoid the headaches and 
 bad tempers and " spells." She seldom 
 joined the company at late suppers, and if 
 che did she left them before the second toast 
 had mixed with their blood and transformed 
 it to a temporary ichor. She did not often 
 indulge in chatter on the trains, for she said 
 she had a great deal of reading to do. Jim 
 [85] 
 
By the Stage Doob 
 
 Hamilton, the comedian, who was handsome 
 and brutal, and boasted that he was a bad 
 study, because he always depended upon his 
 luck to " carry him through," made the dis- 
 covery that what she read were old plays and 
 the biographies of the greatest players and 
 managers. She read all she could get, too, 
 on stage technique. Having made this dis- 
 covery, handsome Jim Hamilton sniffed. 
 
 " As though she would ever be a great 
 actress with that unfinished, Irish face," he 
 had said, which hearing, a flame shot out into 
 her cheeks and something hot and burning 
 blurred the dance of the telegraph-poles. 
 
 Yet, when Jim Hamilton's wife, the pretty 
 little ingenue, fell iU, and it was screamed 
 about at rehearsal that it might be smallpox, 
 she sent her maid to ask Miss Lawton to come 
 to her room; and the soubrette, carrying her 
 head high, so that the generous breadth of 
 her nostrils could be seen, suggesting a leo- 
 nine something about her, went at once. 
 
 " I feel so afraid here by myself, with even 
 Jim gone to rehearsal," Mrs. Jim sighed, flut- 
 [86] 
 
Her One Superstition 
 
 teringly. " I thought most of your work was 
 in the first act and you could be spared. 
 Wasn't it queer that I sent for you when I 
 never really liked you, and you knew it? But 
 I wasn't sure of any of the other girls and 
 I thought you'd come." 
 
 The company was quite prepared for Miss 
 Lawton's note to the manager, saying that a 
 rash had broken out on Mrs. Hamilton's face, 
 and that she thought it best not to return to 
 the company for the present. " I will remain 
 with her until we know what this is — and 
 after — if she needs me," she wrote to the 
 manager. The company left that night, Jim 
 Hamilton and Eleanor Lawton remaining be- 
 hind in the little Southern hotel with the sick 
 woman. 
 
 That the rash proved in two days to be 
 mere varioloid, and that in another week the 
 three rejoined the company, was only another 
 proof that Eleanor Lawton was " queer." 
 " It was foolhardy," they said, " to run such 
 a risk for the company. It might have been 
 smallpox, and she might have rejoined them 
 [87] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 and infected the whole company." And they 
 glared at her, proving that some players are 
 as illogical as some women. 
 
 Jim Hamilton and his pretty wife de- 
 murred mentally against this judgment, but 
 they deemed it wise, for the sake of their own 
 popularity, not to hear, and so not to have to 
 meet these charges. 
 
 One evening the tall, red-cheeked girl sent 
 a shock in direct line through the dressing- 
 rooms, first through the women's side and 
 then communicating itself quickly to the 
 men's. She had a new fall hat, an ordinary 
 enough little affair of felt and velvet, but its 
 trimming was — imagine such a thing! — ^pea- 
 cock-feathers ! 
 
 " This is too much ! " said the leading 
 woman, stamping her foot. " I shall speak 
 to the manager. She will hoodoo the com- 
 pany." 
 
 " It's pure devilishness ! That's what I 
 say," said the character-woman. 
 
 There was a conference between the acts, at 
 which everyone had something to say except 
 [88] 
 
Her One Superstition 
 
 Jim Hamilton and his wife. They looked 
 stealthily at each other and were silent. If 
 Miss Lawton would do such a foolish thing, 
 what could they do? Though everyone was 
 outspoken in his disapproval, no one seemed 
 willing to communicate the sense of the meet- 
 ing to the soubrette. They were not afraid 
 of her. Certainly not! they were merely 
 afraid that they would lose their tempers. 
 Wouldn't Mrs. Corwin, the " old woman," 
 go.? It had been observed that Mrs. Corwin 
 was the only one at whom the soubrette had 
 not laughed, at some time or other. Accord- 
 ingly she consented to be the Mercury of the 
 committee. 
 
 She tapped at Miss Lawton's dressing- 
 room door just as the girl with the glowing 
 cheeks was putting on the trouble-provoking 
 hat. 
 
 " Won't you come up to my room this even- 
 ing, and we'U have a little lunch by our- 
 selves.!"' asked the "old woman." 
 
 The girl's eyes brightened at the unusual 
 invitation. 
 
 [89] 
 
By the Stage Doob, 
 
 " Ever so many thanks, dear Mrs. Corwin," 
 she returned. " Of course I will ! " 
 
 It was striking one as they took oflp their 
 wraps in Mrs. Corwin's very hotel-like room, 
 a narrow, grave-like one, with its grayish 
 plaster walls carrying out the illusion. 
 
 They ate their mufSns and cheese and 
 drank their milk from the top of the high 
 bureau, and it was between bites that Mrs. 
 Corwin approached her message. 
 
 " You have a new hat, I see." 
 
 " Yes ; I bought it at Remson's to-day. 
 It was a bargain. Like it? " 
 
 " Yes, it is becoming, but " 
 
 " What.? » 
 
 " Why do you wear those peacock- 
 feathers ? " 
 
 " My mother gave them to me long ago. 
 They were hers, and she said they would 
 trim a hat prettily. They do, don't you 
 think.?" 
 
 " Yes, but » 
 
 " What do you want to say, Mrs. Cor- 
 win.? " 
 
 [90] 
 
Hee One Superstition 
 
 " The fact is, the company don't like them. 
 They think they will bring us hard luck." 
 
 " How silly ! You don't think so, Mrs. 
 Corwin? " 
 
 " No, I don't," she faltered, " but — ^you — 
 make yourself unpopular by going against 
 established custom anywhere " — and she 
 laughed apologetically. 
 
 " If they don't know any better, I shall 
 teach them, the foolish creatures ! " The 
 girl's head went high. " How ridiculous ! I 
 wondered what ailed them to-night. They 
 never liked me, but they were worse than usual 
 all evening. I shall wear this hat until the 
 manager of the company forbids it. You 
 may tell them so." 
 
 " Very well, my dear," said the " old 
 woman," a trifle sullenly, brushing the crumbs 
 into a newspaper with her hand. 
 
 The soubrette flung her strong, young 
 arms around her and rested her cheek upon 
 the old woman's gray hair. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Corwin," she said, with a lit- 
 tle tremble in her voice, " I would do this to 
 
 [91] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 please you if you cared, but you know you 
 don't; and those foolish people should be 
 taught that I am not a child, nor they chil- 
 dren. But, Mrs. Corwin, I feel so keenly 
 that they don't like me. I'm so lonely! I 
 wish I could make you love me just a little. 
 Perhaps I would miss mother less then." The 
 tremor in her voice had become a sob. 
 
 Mrs. Corwin raised the girl's head and 
 looked at her. Her eyes, softened as they 
 were now in their wistfulness, reminded her 
 of a little girl whose grave she visited every 
 time she went to San Francisco. She kissed 
 Eleanor Lawton's forehead. 
 
 " Very well, my dear," she said again, not 
 sullenly now, but with the solemnity of a com- 
 pact. 
 
 The next day at the matinee Miss Lawton 
 told George Gregor, manager of the " Rose 
 of the Wilderness," that the company had 
 formally served notice on her that she should 
 not wear peacock-feathers. 
 
 " Tush ! " growled Gregor ; and thus the 
 incident closed. 
 
 [92] 
 
Her One Supekstition 
 
 When Miss Errington demanded more pay 
 for an " extra performance," and, upon the 
 management's refusal, stayed behind when 
 the company left for Portland, there was con- 
 sternation. 
 
 Mr. Gregor flitted from the drawing-room 
 to the smoking-room and back again hke an 
 uneasy spirit. 
 
 " Old man's scared; and no wonder," com- 
 mented the leading man. He'll have to 
 close." And he puffed his cigar, placidly 
 planning how he should enjoy himself in 
 Portland when the company was " laid 
 off." 
 
 In one of his restless trips through the 
 train Manager Gregor happened to glance at 
 Miss Lawton. She was deep in the " Life of 
 Mrs. Siddons." He looked at her again. 
 Finally he took a seat by her side. The com- 
 pany saw her look up brightly, and heard her 
 say, " I should like to try." 
 
 They heard him speak of " a private re- 
 hearsal at seven," and saw him draw the lead- 
 ing woman's " part," typewritten and tat- 
 [93] 
 
By the Stage Doob 
 
 tered from three months' usage, from his 
 pocket and give it to the soubrette, who, for- 
 getting his presence, at once buried herself 
 in. it. 
 
 " He is going to try her in Miss Erring- 
 ton's part," Jim Hamilton said, and this time 
 forgot to sniff. 
 
 " The Rose of the Wilderness " Company 
 opened, as usual, that night. Mrs. Gregor, 
 who had retired from the stage when she was 
 married, played the soubrette role and Miss 
 Lawton played the lead, the title role. 
 
 The audience gave her a " reception " be- 
 fore it realized that she was not their favorite, 
 Miss Errington. Then, having committed it- 
 self, remained warm. When she rode out of 
 the fort in the very teeth of a storm of arrows 
 to get succor for the garrison, it shouted 
 " Bravo " at her. At the close of the third 
 act she received all the flowers that had been 
 brought for Miss Errington. After the last 
 act she was called before the curtain. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs, Gregor met her at the door 
 of her dressing-room. " Thank you," said 
 [94] 
 
Her One Superstition 
 
 the manager, a man of few words and brief, 
 grasping her hand. 
 
 Mrs. Corwin found her shedding a few 
 happy tears and trembling a little from the 
 reaction when she went to congratulate her 
 in her dressing-room. 
 
 " Weren't you frightened.? " she asked. 
 
 " You may find it hard to believe, dear 
 Mrs. Corwin," she said, " but I wasn't a bit." 
 
 " You strange child ! I never heard of such 
 a thing ! " 
 
 "But it's true!" 
 
 " You've smashed another stage tradition. 
 Why?" 
 
 " I'll tell you some time. There is some- 
 thing else I want to tell you." And she fast- 
 ened a pin in the hat trimmed with peacock- 
 feathers. 
 
 Miss Errington's resignation was accepted 
 and Miss Lawton was engaged in her place 
 for the rest of the season. She played the 
 " lead " to the pleasure of her audiences, the 
 satisfaction of her manager, and the deep 
 concern of the critics. 
 
 [95] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 It was a week later, before the season closed, 
 when the rising of the first-act curtains fol- 
 lowed close upon sunset and preceded the 
 lighting of the street-lamps by several min- 
 utes. The leading woman was very pale 
 when she came in at the stage entrance, carry- 
 ing a newspaper. 
 
 " Please call a messenger," she said to the 
 doorkeeper, and hurried to her dressing-room, 
 holding the " extra " as in a vise. 
 
 Through the door that admitted the mes- 
 senger came the shrieks of the newsboys. 
 " All — about — horrible accident ! Special 
 train carrying Knight-Howland Company 
 wrecked. All killed!" 
 
 Miss Lawton sat staring at the great, black 
 headlines of the newspapers. Her ruddy, 
 young face had grown old in the gaslight. 
 She wrote three words on a telegraph-blank 
 and handed it to a messenger. Then she 
 forced herself to " make up." 
 
 The play went as usual. " The Rose of 
 the Wilderness " seemingly played with her 
 usual spirit. When the final curtain had 
 
 [96] 
 
Her One Supeestition 
 
 gone down a messenger-boy met her with a 
 telegram. 
 
 " Safe. Missed company's train. Followed 
 on regular. Love. 
 
 " Frank Crichton." 
 
 That night the leading lady and the " old 
 woman " had their customary frugal mid- 
 night luncheon in Mrs. Corwin's room. 
 
 Miss Lawton handed the telegram to her 
 friend. " It's from the man I am going to 
 marry next week," she said, looking at her 
 with bright, dry, grave eyes. " He is with 
 the Knight-Howland Company that was 
 wrecked on the C. & R. to-day." 
 
 "Rec'd 11.15," the "old woman" read. 
 " And you were in suspense for four hours 
 after you saw the extra? Poor little one, 
 how frightened you must have been ! " 
 
 " A little," she admitted, as she leaned her 
 
 tired, brown head on her shm hand. " It was 
 
 a shock, of course! and I feel strange and 
 
 trembly now that it's over. But I felt almost 
 
 [97] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 sure it would turn out so, and I'm going to 
 tell you why." 
 
 She fumbled with a thin gold chain around 
 her neck. 
 
 " I know you have wondered why I cared 
 nothing about signs and omens, and why I 
 have never shown nervousness or fear, even 
 when I had to play Miss Errington's part at 
 two hours' notice. This is the reason." 
 
 She opened her locket and Mrs. Corwin 
 saw two bright girl faces smiling in serene 
 confidence at life. 
 
 " They were my dearest friends," she said. 
 " We played together before we could walk. 
 We grew up together. We cared so much 
 for each other that we never had a real quar- 
 rel, and when one sickened of a fever the 
 others fell sick too. They were taken and I 
 was left. And I have never really been afraid 
 since, for " — she lifted her earnest eyes to the 
 other's face with infinite certainty — " I have 
 always known that they are taking care of 
 me." 
 
 When Mrs. Corwin told this story to the 
 [98] 
 
Her One Supeestition 
 
 company it took up a subscription for a wed- 
 ding present for their late leading lady. 
 " Jim " Hamilton sniffed that it wasn't the 
 right thing at all. It was an amulet of gold 
 filigree, in the form of an anchor. 
 
 [99] 
 
Grimston's School of Acting 
 
Grimston's School of Acting 
 
 OE Grimston was " hard up." 
 It is not essential that we 
 know why. His money may 
 have departed by way of 
 " jolly games of poker, just 
 among friends, you know," 
 or it may have gone the way of loans to 
 brothers and sisters of the boards " out of an 
 engagement." 
 
 It was gone. That was quite enough for 
 Joe's practical non-retrospective mind. 
 
 " What to do? That's aU I care about at 
 this talking," he said. 
 
 " Bings," the juvenile, top floor, rear room, 
 was in precisely the same condition. So was 
 Howard Loeser, " villain," third floor, side. 
 Ditto Minnie Long, second floor back, who 
 was only twenty-three, but couldn't play 
 [103] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 anything but " character," because she was 
 so ugly. Worst of all, good Mrs. Wilkins, 
 who kept this particular theatrical house, was 
 being " pushed." Altercations with the 
 butcher and grocer-boys, precipitated by the 
 biUs they presented daily, were giving her 
 chronic red eyes and a drooping expression. 
 The atmosphere of the house was so depress- 
 ing that it came near affecting Joe's irre- 
 pressible spirits. This was chiefly, though, 
 because he was sorry for " Mother Wil- 
 kins." 
 
 "What's the matter, Joe.?" asked Billy 
 Arnold, who had stopped at Newark on his 
 way to play a summer stock engagement at 
 Peek's Island, and found the comedian stand- 
 ing in the middle of the room above the 
 kitchen, his feet far apart, his hands thrust 
 deep into his pockets, and he whistling 
 gloomily to an audience, that, judging from 
 his upturned face, must have been located in 
 the ceiling. 
 
 " Had a compound fracture of my fi- 
 nances," returned Joe, cheerily. 
 [104] 
 
Grimston's School of Acting 
 
 " Why don't you borrow from the fel- 
 lows? " 
 
 " They're broke as bad as I am." 
 
 " I can let you have a tenner, Joe, if you'll 
 let me have it in two weeks. I'll have to 
 send for my wife and babies as soon as I get 
 settled at the Island." 
 
 " No use, old man, thank you. I'll prob- 
 ably be as bad oflF in two weeks as now, un- 
 less I can think of something. I was just, 
 thinking it out when you came in. You in- 
 terrupted me." 
 
 "Thanks; I'U go." 
 
 " You're welcome ! So long." 
 
 After Arnold had gone, Joe continued to 
 stare at the ceiling. After reflection he 
 brought his feet together suddenly, his eye& 
 beamed, and he snapped his fingers, express- 
 ing profound satisfaction. He addressed 
 the bureau with a cracked mirror. 
 
 " I'U open a school of acting," he said. 
 
 The mirror looked as though it ap- 
 proved. 
 
 The next morning there appeared conspic- 
 [105] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 uously on the advertising page of all the 
 local papers this leaded announcement: 
 
 " Joe Grimston's School of Acting will 
 open next week. All branches taught. Num- 
 ber of pupils limited. Applications must be 
 made at once, in person. Terms strictly cash 
 in advance." 
 
 The evening before Grimston had held a 
 long conference with his fellows of " fract- 
 ured finances." 
 
 " You can all come in on this," he said. 
 " Bings, you must clear out during business 
 hours so that we can open the folding-doors 
 and use the whole floor for the school. Loe- 
 ser, you must cultivate the habit of early 
 rising, for we'll want to use your place for a 
 reception-room. Minnie, get together what 
 make-up things you have. If you are out 
 of powder and rouge, Mrs. Wilkins will lend 
 you some starch and beet- juice. And Mrs. 
 Wilkins, I'll trouble you for one thing only, 
 the desk that palmist fellow left when he 
 
 [106] 
 
Grimston's School or Acting 
 
 skipped his bill. It looks business-like. We 
 may have it.? Thank you ! It will be all we 
 can do to be out and dressed when the rush 
 begins to-morrow." 
 
 He was right. Ting-a-ling! The door- 
 bell spoke with an accent of trepidation. 
 Mrs. Wilkins's face brightened. She dusted 
 the flour from her bony old hands. The 
 ring of her tormentors, the butcher and the 
 grocer-boy, had a different accent. 
 
 A slender, blond young man removed his 
 hat with unction. She remembered him well. 
 He was the cashier of the Second National 
 Bank. There was an entirely new deference 
 in his manner. 
 
 " I would like to see Mr. Grimston, the 
 head of the ' School of Acting,' " he ob- 
 served. 
 
 " Certainly ! Certainly ! " said Mrs. Wil- 
 kins, in a delighted flurry. " O, I wonder if 
 Mr. Loeser is up," she whispered, in dreadful 
 trepidation. 
 
 The " villain " was not up. Through the 
 keyhole filtered a soft snore. He was dream- 
 [107] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 ing confidently of the quick profits of the 
 " School of Acting." 
 
 The landlady led the cashier to the top 
 floor with more confidence. 
 
 " Come in," said Mr. Grimston, in deep 
 abdominal tones. 
 
 He sat before the big desk, writing busily. 
 It was several minutes before he looked 
 up. 
 
 " Ah, good-morning ! " he said, brusquely. 
 
 " Good-morning," said the cashier, suavely. 
 Yes, Mr. Grimston looked even younger than 
 on the stage in Barney's Stock. His red 
 hair and his freckles remained to identify 
 him. 
 
 But where were his fun and his grimaces? 
 This young man was a serious, care-worn 
 person. The cashier said something of the 
 sort, falteringly, to the actor. 
 
 " Comedians are never funny, except on 
 the stage," Grimston answered. " It is their 
 business to be funny. Do you find anything 
 very funny about counting cash, now? " 
 
 Grimston opened his watch and snapped it 
 [108] 
 
Grimston's School or Acting 
 
 shut quickly. " We must get to business at 
 once," he said, mendaciously. " I expect my 
 other pupils soon." 
 
 " What do you teach, the natural method 
 or " 
 
 " You have seen me act at Barney's.'' " 
 
 " Yes, I have often had the pleasure." 
 
 " Well, then, you know my method." 
 
 " What are your terms ? " 
 
 " Fifty dollars a quarter. Terms strictly 
 cash in advance." 
 
 " That is satisfactory." The cashier took 
 out a yellowish green bill that was beautiful 
 to Joe's famished eyes. The comedian has- 
 tily wrote a receipt. 
 
 " Let me see you walk across the floor. 
 That is the first step in acting." 
 
 The young man from the Second National 
 walked from the window of the front room 
 to the window of the back, which Bings had 
 wiUingly vacated, slipperless, in a dark 
 brown bath-robe. Then he walked back 
 again to the front window. 
 
 Grimston groaned. 
 
 [109] 
 
By the Stage Dooa 
 
 " Try it again," he said, with an evident 
 attempt to be patient. 
 
 The cashier again made the tour of the 
 rooms. 
 
 Again Grimston groaned. 
 
 " Can't you walk like this? " he demanded. 
 He sauntered across the room and rested an 
 elbow on the roller-top desk. 
 
 "Try that," he said, without concealing 
 his pride. 
 
 The cashier looked at him admiringly. 
 " You remind me of Kelcey leaning against 
 a mantle," he observed. " I have eighteen 
 pictures of Kelcey leaning against mantles, 
 all different mantles, too," with enthusiasm. 
 
 " I may have some mannerisms that are 
 like Kelcey's, but we are of an entirely differ- 
 ent class," said the head of the " School of 
 Acting," loftily. " I could teach Herbert a 
 good many things," he added, mysteriously. 
 
 The cashier gazed in rapt admiration at 
 his instructor. It was plain that he was pro- 
 foundly impressed. An hour later he walked 
 into the bank with a disdainful expression. 
 [110] 
 
Grimston's School of Acting 
 
 Visions of a " first night " in New York, of 
 boxes from which lovely women leaned in an 
 abandon of emotion to throw roses at him and 
 follow his every gesture with love-lit eyes, of 
 applause like intermittent thunder, of a rain- 
 fall of white and tinted notes, each with its 
 crest and monogram and its rare perfume, in 
 his dressing-room, made the high stools and 
 the brass-barred windows of the Newark Na- 
 tional a mean and hateful sight. 
 
 Grimston and the banished Loeser restored 
 to his room were just then laughing un- 
 dramatically. • 
 
 " He wanted to know how long it would 
 take him to play Billy Faversham parts. I 
 told him three months of our school ought to 
 give him an even chance with Billy, but that 
 the Englishman would be handicapped, be- 
 cause he hadn't temperament." 
 
 Loeser grinned. " I suppose he asked you 
 to get him a job.'' " 
 
 "O, yes!" 
 
 "What did you do.?" 
 
 " I promised." 
 
 [Ill] 
 
By the Stage Doob, 
 
 Then they went forth to " break the bill," 
 Mrs. Wilkins and Mollie peering anxiously 
 from the upper windows after them. 
 
 The next pupil was a tall, tailor-made 
 young woman, dignified, but nervous. She 
 kept her veil down and talked stiffly. Grim- 
 ston recognized her at once as old Reming- 
 ton the dry-goods merchant's stage-struck 
 daughter. But his face was unmoved when 
 she introduced herself as Miss Allen, of New 
 York. 
 
 " I do not need any instruction," she said, 
 " for I have distinguished myself in parlor 
 theatricals, and I do not need any introduc- 
 tion to managers, for my social position is 
 such that my name will gain me entree any- 
 where. I simply desire you to assist me in 
 deciding upon a stage name. I shall proba- 
 bly have to confer with you often, for I am 
 fastidious." 
 
 " Very well, madame," said Grimston, in 
 
 his choicest abdominal tones, to convey the 
 
 illusion of a dignity as great as his caller's. 
 
 He waved her to a chair with the same flour- 
 
 [112] 
 
Geimston's School of Acting 
 
 ish he once used when he was miscast for the 
 lead in the " County Judge." 
 
 " You are prepared to meet the conditions 
 of my advertisement ? " he continued. 
 
 " O, yes," and another yellowish-green bill 
 was transferred from her silver reticule to his 
 welcoming hand. 
 
 " Whoopee ! Hooray ! " The cry of ela- 
 tion, muffled slightly, came by way of the 
 key-hole. Grimston walked to the window. 
 
 " The noise from the streets is penetrat- 
 ing," he said, gravely. " The street gam- 
 ins are obtrusive. Go away ! " he roared, 
 and the window dropped with a warning 
 bang. Thereafter there was silence in the 
 hall. 
 
 Miss Remington, with aU the preoccupa- 
 tion of the self-centred, was saying : " My 
 fancy inclines more to Francesca Paola than 
 anything else, but I am not sure that I am 
 quite satisfied with that. Do you think it fits 
 me? " 
 
 " Not just like a glove," admitted Grim- 
 ston. " WTiy don't you use ' Remington ' .'' " 
 [113] 
 
By the Stage Dook 
 
 " What — do — ^you — ^mean? " faltered the 
 visitor. 
 
 " Mean? It is a good old-fashioned Eng- 
 lish name. It flows on smoothly. If I were 
 a rhetorician I should say it is euphonious." 
 
 " I — don't — ^like — ^it," snapped the young 
 woman. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because — it is so common." 
 
 " Perhaps it is. Permit me, madame, to 
 congratulate you on a step in the evolution 
 of woman. You have given a reason. Stand 
 up ! Let me see you cross the room. I want 
 to get an idea of your personality, so that I 
 may find a name to fit it. Raise your veil ! " 
 
 That was exactly what Miss Remington 
 had intended not to do, but for some reason 
 she could not explain she did. 
 
 " Good ! " said the comedian. " I have it. 
 ' Abigail Ruggles ! ' " 
 
 " You must be joking, sir! " said the girl, 
 her back stiffening. 
 
 " Indeed, I am not. It is a strong name, 
 one that people will not forget. You have 
 [114] 
 
Gbimston's School of Acting 
 
 a strong individuality. What would you 
 do with ' Leonie D'Arville,' for instance? 
 ' Leonie ' would live and die where she be- 
 longed, in the Casino chorus. No, Miss 
 Allen, you are adapted to tragedy. That is 
 what you want to play, now, isn't it.? I was 
 sure of it. You need a mountainous and pict- 
 uresque name, something rugged and grand, 
 like Sarah Bernhardt, only more so." 
 
 "Thank you! I'U— think— about it," re- 
 flected the pupil, her lips silently shaping 
 themselves to " Abigail Ruggles." " But I 
 should hke to confer with you again." 
 
 " Certainly ! Tuesdays and Fridays, at 
 two. Bring a directory of Greater New 
 York with you. I am sorry there is no one 
 to call a carriage for you. I sent my ' But- 
 tons ' on an errand. You won't wait for 
 Ydva? I am sorry. Good-morning!" 
 
 Upon the stairs Miss Remington passed 
 Mrs. Nelson. They glared at each other in 
 the amiable way of cats and some women. 
 Mrs. Nelson wore no veil, attempted no dis- 
 guise. 
 
 [115] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 " I can't say you have very promising 
 material for pupils if TiUie Remington is a 
 specimen. She's as graceful as a poker, just. 
 And my mahogany dining-table has more 
 temperament than she has. Now tell me just 
 what temperament is. People talk a lot about 
 it, but nobody seems to know anything. My 
 husband says I have plenty, and to spare. 
 . But he says it's temper. It isn't just that, 
 is it? Richard is a brute. I told him this 
 morning I was going to leave him and go on 
 the stage. He laughed and handed me this 
 bill. He said, ' Go to see Joe Grimston, or buy 
 a bonnet ! ' I suppose he thought I would 
 never get past the milliner's. But I did, for 
 I shut my eyes tight when we got to Mme. 
 Merle's corner, and told Tom I was late, and 
 to drive fast. Well, here's the money ! Now 
 let's begin right away." 
 
 The comedian knew that Mrs. Nelson was 
 so unused to hearing her questions answered 
 that she no longer expected anything so un- 
 usual. So he attempted nothing unique. 
 
 " Very well ! " he said, thrusting the bill 
 [116] 
 
Grimston's School of Acting 
 
 deep into his pocket. He folded his arms 
 and studied her critically. 
 
 " Walk from the fireplace to the desk," he 
 commanded. " Now back again ! " 
 
 "H'm! H'm!" he said, after she had 
 fluttered back and forth in the erratic, waver- 
 ing course of a human humming-bird. 
 
 " Walk more like this." 
 
 " I — can't," Mrs. Nelson answered, in a 
 distressed tone, as she watched his stage 
 stride. 
 
 " My — ^1-^feet — are not long enough." 
 
 "That's true!" reflected Grimston. 
 " Mary," he said, raising his voice a key, 
 " call Mr. Loeser." 
 
 There was a space of time in which 
 " Mary " did not appear — ^there being no 
 " Mary " — ^but Mr. Loeser was presented. 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Nelson, Mr. Loeser is a vil- 
 lain." Mrs. Nelson grew a shade paler. 
 " That is, a stage ' villain.' As to him per- 
 sonally, there are two opinions. One is his 
 own, that he is not a villain. The other is 
 that of everyone who knows him. But that is 
 [117] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 an aside. Now, Mrs. Nelson, Mr. Loeser will 
 try to kiss you." 
 
 " Indeed he will not ! " said the small 
 woman, indignantly. 
 
 " I mean he will pretend that he tries to 
 kiss you, but you will cry, ' Stand back, 
 sir!'" 
 
 " O ! " in mollified tones. 
 
 " Now, Loeser ! " 
 
 Although Loeser's mustache did not touch 
 her cheek by a respectful two inches, she 
 carefuUy dusted the profaned spot with her 
 fluff of a lace handkerchief. " Wouldn't 
 Tom just be sorry if he saw that.'' " she said 
 silently, but with emphasis. 
 
 " Stand back ! " she piped. 
 
 " Gesture ! " reminded Grimston. 
 
 " Stand back ! " she shrilled again, glaring 
 at good-natured-looking Loeser and moving 
 a nervous little arm in his direction. 
 
 " Gesture from the chest, not from the 
 
 waist. Gesture away from, instead of toward 
 
 you. If you gesture from the waist you 
 
 break the line and cut yourself off at the mid- 
 
 [118] 
 
GaiMSTON's School of Acting 
 
 die to the audience. You have none too 
 much height, anyhow." 
 
 " I didn't come here to be reminded of 
 that," Mrs. Nelson sniffed. 
 
 " I am merely speaking professionally. 
 There are but two classes of people in the 
 world, professionals and non-professionals." 
 
 " Geese and swans," commented Mrs. Nel- 
 son, scornfully. But the small woman soon 
 forgot such a ripple in the sea of amenities. 
 
 " There Is only one thing that worries me 
 about going on the stage. I must only play 
 parts that will keep my face or back to the 
 audience. I won't show my profile; it's 
 bad." 
 
 So it was, what there was of it. Her nose 
 was pettishly tilted, and it was a matter of 
 conjecture whether there was reaUy any 
 bridge. 
 
 " I'm afraid that can't be done. But you 
 might wear a false nose." 
 
 " How perfectly horrid ! I don't know 
 that I would like to go on the stage after 
 aU. It's so artificial! I think I'll go 
 [119] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 home and speak to my husband about that 
 nose." 
 
 That afternoon Fred Nelson, the leading 
 civil lawyer of the State, walked chuckling 
 into the " School of Acting." 
 
 " That's right, Grimston ! " he roared. 
 " You're a clever chap ! Keep her at it and 
 discourage her by encouraging her. She's 
 in bed now with a sick headache. Good girl, 
 but a little obstinate. Don't tell her about 
 the hardships, except inferentiaUy. Here's 
 the tuition for next quarter, cash in advance. 
 Good-by! Ho! Ho!" 
 
 That evening there was joyous council at 
 the house. 
 
 " Eight pupils ! $400 spot cash ! And more 
 pupils and more cash coming. Things are 
 looking up, Mrs. Wilkins. How much do 
 you owe her, Loeser? You, Bings.'' And 
 MoUie! $200. There you are!" and he 
 hugged the landlady "l^oisterously, an em- 
 brace she did not resent. 
 
 " But, Loeser, what a bluflF ! Great thing, 
 the old American game of bluff! It's well 
 [120] 
 
Grimston's School of Acting 
 
 there's no carpet; it would have been worn 
 out, I made them walk so much. And I'd 
 keep yelling at 'em, ' Gesture ! gesture ! ' and 
 no matter which hand they would use, I'd say, 
 'No, the other!'" 
 
 The " School of Acting " grew to twelve 
 pupils, " strictly cash in advance." They 
 walked and gestured, and growled or piped 
 out Shakespeare's line in such a manner that 
 their author wouldn't have known them, and 
 the quarter closed with " Uncle Tom's Cabin " 
 by the school. There was no stage scenery, 
 and there were no " props.," but Miss Rem- 
 ington played " Topsy," and Mrs. Nelson 
 " Little Eva," in a manner that made a deep 
 impression. The cashier of the Second Na- 
 tional was a swagger and terrible " Simon 
 Legree." 
 
 That was the first and last appearance of 
 the pupils upon any stage. 
 
 [m] 
 
A Triumph of Temperament 
 
A Triumph of Temperament 
 
 wo men, who were saunter- 
 ing up Broadway, walked 
 more slowly as they passed a 
 theatre, where electric lights 
 above the door spelled the 
 announcement that the most 
 popular American actress was " starring " 
 within. Double lines of carriages formed a 
 parallel of liveried luxury for three blocks. 
 A huge negro in yellow and blue, with buttons 
 that glistened, held his megaphone in readi- 
 ness to blare forth the numbers of the wait- 
 ing carriages. There was a rustle within; 
 the doors opened, and women in trailing 
 silks, their jewel-flashing hair half revealed 
 by their falling qpera-hoods, swept out to the 
 streets, followed by their escorts of expansive 
 white fronts and sober, black sides and backs, 
 the prescribed accoutrements of the men who 
 [125] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 patronized the Empire. The air was filled 
 with the hoarse calls of the haughty negro 
 with the megaphone. Vague, delicious per- 
 fumes floated from velvet and lace as the 
 women passed to their carriages. Snatches 
 of " Wasn't it charming.'' " " Isn't she more 
 delightful than ever? " reached them in swift- 
 voiced approval, echoed by enthusiastic 
 bassos. It was a fashionable " first night " 
 in New York. 
 
 " Another hit for Julia Woods," said the 
 younger of the men. 
 
 " Another triumph of the absence of tem- 
 perament," said the older. 
 
 They turned into a side street, then down 
 a cheap avenue, where pawnshops alternated 
 with French and Italian boarding-houses. 
 High, on the top floor, where the ceiling 
 sloped at a sharp angle, a dim light twinkled 
 fitfully. 
 
 " That is where Betty Gilbert is staying," 
 said the older man. 
 
 " Convenient to the pawnshop," laughed 
 the younger man, nodding toward the gleam- 
 
 [1261 
 
A Triumph of Temperament 
 
 ing three balls next door. " I saw her com- 
 ing out, looking glum, yesterday." 
 
 " Nothing left to pawn, but promises, 
 probably, and pawn-brokers, like others, hold 
 them cheap." 
 
 The man's downward-drawn mouth wore an 
 unpleasant smile. He lifted his eyes again 
 to the far window, where the light twinkled 
 feebly. 
 
 " There, my lad, you have a triumph of 
 temperament." 
 
 And they passed on. 
 
 From the stage door of the Empire a slight 
 figure, wrapped in a long cloak, came out, fol- 
 lowed by a stouter one. The two got into the 
 last waiting carriage, that was banked high 
 with flowers, looking like a great floral 
 chariot. 
 
 " Open the windows, Mary. The perfume 
 of these flowers is stifling." 
 
 Julia Woods laid her head back upon the 
 cushions. Her maid noticed anew with a 
 throb of pity for her mistress how frail she 
 looked. 
 
 [127] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 "Do you think you ought to call on her 
 to-night, Miss JuHa? Won't you send me 
 to-mprrow? " 
 
 " That is exactly what she lasks me not to 
 do," said the actress, smiling. 
 
 She drew a crumpled note from her glove. 
 
 " Don't send your maid as you would to 
 another case of charity. I want to see you, 
 Julia Woods." 
 
 " It seems to me a pert letter. Miss. Do 
 you know her? " 
 
 " Yes, I knew her well a good many years 
 ago," and again the maid noticed the weari- 
 ness in the face and voice. 
 
 " This is the place.", 
 
 Miss Woods peered from the window at the 
 misnamed Maison Riche, where one light twin- 
 kled faintly high under the roof. 
 
 " It's an eerie place, Miss. You'll let me 
 go with you? " 
 
 " Only to the hall, Mary. Wait until I 
 come down." 
 
 She climbed the three flights of stairs in the 
 dark halls and tapped at the door in front. 
 [ 128 1 
 
A Triumph op Tempekament 
 
 « Come." 
 
 The voice was impatient, child-like, but 
 there was a rich, womanly tone in it. It was 
 a contradictory voice and might puzzle one 
 who did not know its owner. Julia Woods 
 was thinking this, as, with a half smile, she 
 pushed back the door and entered. 
 
 " Come in," the voice continued. " I knew 
 you would come, though Ned and the rest said 
 you wouldn't." 
 
 " You see you were right." 
 
 Julia Woods moved nearer and stood look- 
 ing down at the woman on the bed. Neither 
 offered to greet each other more warmly, al- 
 though they had not met for ten years. They 
 had always been, by nature, antagonistic. 
 Both felt the old antagonism stirring within 
 them. They looked at each other curiously 
 with the wonder each had always felt for the 
 other, as for a strange species. 
 
 Julia Woods saw a splendid creature of 
 
 opulent womanhood still, for she was gilding 
 
 her with the colors of memory. A woman 
 
 with amber eyes, in which strange fires smoul- 
 
 [129] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 dered or leapt as the winds of her emotions 
 willed, with billows of chestnut hair, tinted 
 with the warmth of the sun, a face of perfect 
 outhne, and full, red lips that wooed even 
 while they would have repelled. Betty Gil- 
 bert smiled as she saw that the illusion re- 
 mained. She still had a good eye for effects. 
 The Hght burned low. 
 
 " Be seated. Nun." 
 
 The Julia Woods knew that she, too, looked 
 the same to the other — narrow chested, high 
 shouldered, with wan, irregular features, pale, 
 gold hair, and gray eyes that looked straight 
 and steady and beyond her. And she knew 
 that she still scorned her as a pale, feeble 
 thing. 
 
 At the sound of the old name she sat down 
 near the bed and tried to smile. 
 
 " This has been a great opening." 
 
 JuHa Woods caught the faint sneer, strug- 
 gling with wistfulness, in the woman's tone. 
 
 " The play went better than I expected, 
 though there are ever so many things I want 
 to see improved." 
 
 [130 ] 
 
A TmuMPH OF Tempeeament 
 
 " You were always modest. I heard that 
 success had not turned your head." 
 
 She seemed to admit this reluctantly. 
 
 " You are very kind. Did you want to see 
 me especially.'' " 
 
 " Yes ; for several reasons. In the first 
 place I am down. You must know that I 
 have been tobogganing it, though it hasn't 
 all been my fault. I need work." 
 
 " On the stage.? " 
 
 " Certainly. I have never given up my 
 profession." Her assumption of dignity was 
 ludicrous in the half-light of the bare room, 
 ludicrous and pitiful. The child-note sound- 
 ed again in her voice. " But the managers 
 won't see me any more, and the agents insult 
 me. I need influence." 
 
 Julia Woods looked at her curiously. 
 
 " And you want mine.'' " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Again the women measured each other with 
 their eyes. They had the sensation of spar- 
 ring, of guarding, of being keenly on the de- 
 fensive. 
 
 [131] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 The star's delicate lips straightened them- 
 selves in a thin, pale line of resolve. 
 
 " I will help you," she said, " but not in the 
 way you expect." 
 
 " You will not speak to the managers or 
 agents for me.'' " 
 
 " I cannot. It would be dishonest ; you 
 know it." 
 
 The woman tossed impatiently. Her vis- 
 itor began to see the haggard lines, despite 
 the low light. 
 
 " I could not promise that you would not 
 break your contract in mid-season, or before. 
 I could not promise that you would not insist 
 upon the manager's putting into the company 
 some incompetent favorite of yours, old or 
 new. I could not tell him that you would let 
 drink or drugs alone." 
 
 Betty Gilbert was a woman of many moods. 
 That of the beggar was uppermost now. 
 
 " I haven't a cent, and I owe for five weeks 
 to this beast of a hotelkeeper," she whined. 
 
 " I will not ask anyone to give you work. 
 They would not do it if I did. But I will 
 [132 ] 
 
A Triumph of Temperament 
 
 send you to some place in the country, some 
 sanitarium if you like, where you may rest 
 and grow strong again for a year." 
 
 They looked at each other again with those 
 closely measuring glances. 
 
 " Why would you do this for me, Julia 
 Woods? It isn't " — she laughed harshly — 
 " because you like me, or ever did like me." 
 
 " It is because " — Julia Woods spoke very 
 slowly — " I would be afraid to do an unkind- 
 ness or leave a kindness undone. That is 
 ray superstition, my one fear." 
 
 " You have reason to dislike me. Nun." 
 
 The woman's voice was soft, but the actress 
 blanched at the sound of it. She drew her 
 cloak around her and rose. She spoke hur- 
 riedly, ignorihg the speech. 
 
 " You will hear from me in a few days," 
 she said. " Perhaps to-morrow. I must go 
 now, for I am very tired." 
 
 The face on the piUow was humble. 
 
 " You are very good, Httle Nun," she said. 
 " You have brought the perfume of the 
 flowers with you." 
 
 [133] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 She drew in the deKcate essence with a long 
 inhalation of delight. Then the amber eyes 
 grew dark and dangerous. 
 
 " You poor, pale little creature ! " she 
 flung out, passionately. " Why are you not 
 where I am, and I in your place ? I am beau- 
 tiful, and as clever as you. I have tempera- 
 ment; you have not. Why is it thus with 
 us.? Why.? Why.?" 
 
 " Because " — in Julia Woods's voice there 
 was the chill of steel — " because you have 
 scattered when I have hoarded. You have 
 had impulses when I have had purpos^es. You 
 have had loves, while I have had — ^hopes." 
 
 Betty Gilbert flashed back at her in splen- 
 did scorn. 
 
 " I have lived " — she laughed cruelly — 
 "while you have studied; and for what.?" 
 — then her voice broke — " I have never known 
 an ambitious person who was not selfish," she 
 complained. 
 
 Miss Woods steadied her voice by a great 
 eiFort. 
 
 " If it is selfish to want to develop the best 
 [134] 
 
A Triumph of Temperament 
 
 that is in you, because you feel that it is your 
 duty, and know, in a dim way, that by so do- 
 ing you help the human race, then ambition 
 is selfish." 
 
 " You always did talk about things neither 
 you nor anybody else understood." Betty's 
 tone was petulant now. " You always pre- 
 tended to use the logic of men." 
 
 " Women need the logic of men." Miss 
 Woods spoke with firmness of unshakable con- 
 viction. " It will save them from the unhappi- 
 ness of women." 
 
 In Betty there had set in a counter current 
 of mood. She was curious again. 
 
 " They say yours is the life of a recluse, 
 Nun ; that when you are not playing you are 
 burrowing among books. Howard Loeser said 
 yesterday that your idea of heaven is a 
 library. Why don't you know people? " 
 
 " I don't need to let them into my home 
 and into my life to study them. I see them 
 on the trains and in the shops and in the 
 parks. Besides, we have several kinds of per- 
 sons within ourselves whom we may study. 
 You must know that." There was a shade of 
 [135 J 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 irony in the gentle voice. " Besides " — 
 the voice regained the plaintive sweetness that 
 stirred her audiences — " I am not strong 
 enough for more than one life, and I haye 
 chosen that of the student." 
 
 The light was so low now that they could 
 not see each other's faces. 
 
 " We are the same age," Betty mused. 
 " At school I always had a contempt for you ; 
 you were such a shadow of a girl. One of 
 our teachers said you were a water-color and 
 I an oil. But you are a star and I am an 
 outcast. Did you know that I danced and 
 sang in a dive last week.'' " There was no 
 answer. Betty heard the door slowly open. 
 " You are a star. I am an outcast. But I 
 have been loved as you never could be, and I 
 took your lover from you." 
 
 Mary, waiting below, heard the door open 
 and heard a half -mad laugh from someone 
 within. Julia Woods's slender figure swayed 
 in the darkness and Mary ran to meet her. 
 The maid's searching hands found that hers 
 were cold as ice. 
 
 [136] 
 
A Tkiumph op Temperament 
 
 " What was the matter with the poor 
 woman, Miss Julia? " 
 
 " Nothing," said the star, as she settled 
 into a corner of the carriage. " Not much, 
 at any rate. The light went out, and I think 
 — we were a little afraid of each other — up 
 there in the dark — alone — ^together." 
 
 Betty Gilbert, who had half slid from her 
 bed at the sound of the opening of the door,^ 
 following she knew not what awful impulse, 
 lay back again and listened as the carriage- 
 wheels rolled away. 
 
 " I might have told her he asked for her 
 when he was dying, that she was the only one 
 he remembered and cared for then," she said, 
 in a choking voice, " but I didn't, and I'm 
 glad ! I'm glad ! " She clenched the pillows 
 deep with her angry nails. " O, I'm glad ! '* 
 she said. 
 
 She reached beneath the piUow for a purple 
 velvet case. She drew a needle from it and 
 thrust it deep into her arm. In a few min- 
 utes her set features relaxed into a smile and 
 she slept. 
 
 [137] 
 
By the Stage Doos 
 
 Miss Woods was silent on their drive to her 
 home, near Central Park. 
 
 When Mary brought her her coffee and the 
 morning papers the next day the actress's 
 sleepless eyes looked at her dully from a wan 
 face. 
 
 " The notices are splendid, Miss ; the best 
 you've ever had. Hilary Bell calls you ' a 
 younger Duse.' " 
 
 Julia Woods turned her white face to the 
 wall. 
 
 " What does it matter.? " she sighed. 
 
 A young actress, smartly dressed and with 
 happy eyes, was just then climbing the nar- 
 row stairs to Betty Gilbert's room. Her at- 
 mosphere was like a sea-breeze. 
 
 " I'm going to star next season with Hil- 
 ton! Isn't it splendid? O, my dear! Do 
 you remember, when I called on you about go- 
 ing on the stage, you said ' Don't ' ? " 
 
 " I remember," said Miss Gilbert, slowly, 
 
 her fingers touching the lace at the girl's 
 
 wrist. " I was wrong, but I didn't know you 
 
 then. I didn't know that you were strong 
 
 [138 J 
 
A Triumph of Tempekament 
 
 enough to play — ^play — play, even if your 
 heart were breaking. I did not know that 
 you would keep on, on, on, even though your 
 soul was in a torment. I could not play unless 
 I was at peace with myself. If the devils with- 
 in lashed me I could not remember that I was 
 an actress, and forget that I was a sorrowing, 
 frantic woman. You are broad enough to see 
 the world in its entirety. I could see in it only 
 one person at a time. You can classify, but 
 I judged all the world by one person. You 
 are a centripetal, I a centrifugal, force. You 
 conserve, I scatter. You should have been an 
 actress, I should not. . 
 
 " Get me a Shakespeare ; it's there on the 
 shelf ; it's the only one book I have left. Ah ! 
 here it is! If I had read this, read it into 
 my very soul, as I have since, it would all have 
 been so different. Julia Woods lives by it, I 
 know. Read the lines. I can't see." 
 
 " Love all, trust few ; 
 Do wrong to none ; be able for thine enemy 
 Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend 
 Under thine own life's key ; be checked for silence 
 But never overtaxed for speech." 
 [139] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 The young actress threw her arms about 
 the sick woman and cried stormlly. 
 
 "Don't," said Betty Gilbert, weakly, 
 " don't scatter your forces so. Live as Julia 
 Woods has done, a hermit of the library. In- 
 sulate yourself with a thousand reserves. 
 Make that the law of your life. Play for the 
 world. Love no one individually, all coUeet- 
 ively. So you were made." 
 
 " I — " — ^the woman laughed strangely, 
 and the laugh died into a whisper — " O — I — 
 Frou-Frou — always Frou-Frou." 
 
 That afternoon Mary brought a check 
 from Julia Woods. The amount was so large 
 that it would have surprised the wilful woman 
 in the room under the eaves, had she been 
 there to receive it ; but she had gone. They 
 found that the needle under the pillow was 
 qviite empty. The last-act curtain had fallen. 
 
 She was buried by the Actors' Fund. 
 
 [ 140 J 
 
He Married an Actress 
 
He Married an Actress 
 
 EORGE CARLETON was 
 
 more surprised than were 
 any of his friends when he 
 married Miss Alice Greeley 
 of the " Message from the 
 Moon " Company. 
 He had always held such strong views — 
 he grew angry if anyone dared to call them 
 prejudices — regarding the stage and the 
 people of the stage. 
 
 His views about wives had been equally 
 positive. He would marry a small woman 
 and a dark woman. Not that he admired the 
 type particularly, but he had a fancy that 
 such women were more domestic and so made 
 better wives and mothers. He would never 
 marry a business or professional woman of 
 any sort. Heaven forbid! They were sg 
 [143 J 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 offensive, sometimes, in their quick readings 
 of a man. A girl who had been brought up 
 in what he chose to call the " sheltered twi- 
 light " of home was the one for him. That 
 was fully settled. 
 
 Yet here he was, married to an actress. 
 George Carleton was astonished. He could 
 give no reasonable excuse to his friends or to 
 himself. He only knew that when this tall 
 girl, whose shining golden head was on a 
 level with his own, smiled at him equally with 
 her soft blue eyes and her pink thread of a 
 mouth, in which her white teeth gleamed with 
 dainty evenness, that his objections to the 
 stage vanished. The earth narrowed to those 
 two and faded away, and in its place was 
 heaven. He was conscious that this, while 
 it was human enough, was scarcely logical, 
 so he attempted no excuse. 
 
 He was married and he was happier than 
 he had thought any man could ever be. He 
 set about a necessary readjustment of his 
 ideas. 
 
 Alice was the daughter of a manager and 
 [14.4! J 
 
He Married an Actress 
 
 a leading woman, and she had all but been 
 born upon the stage, and she had been play- 
 ing almost ever since that event. She had 
 " travelled " and had lived at hotels, spent 
 her summers in theatrical colonies on Long 
 Island, and home had been as vague a name 
 to her as God is to the dancing dervishes. 
 But when they had come, after the wedding 
 at the Little Church Around the Corner, to 
 their tiny apartment on East Fifty-ninth 
 Street, she had dropped her shining head on 
 his shoulder and cried for joy. 
 
 " Tears on our wedding-day .•* " he pro- 
 tested. 
 
 " Forgive me, George ! I was crying be- 
 cause I am so happy to have a home. Just 
 think, George! A home!" 
 
 Alice was a happy iconoclast. No sooner 
 were they married than she set about shat- 
 tering all his preconceptions about actresses. 
 
 He had thought that they affected ver- 
 milion hair and screaming costumes. His 
 wife always wore black or gray for the street. 
 
 He had thought that jewelry was indis- 
 [14.5] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 pensable to their happiness. Alice never 
 wore it. 
 
 He had believed that their lives were a 
 never-ceasing parade. But Alice rarely went 
 out except for strolls up the avenue and 
 through the park with him. ^ 
 
 He thought they could not live except as 
 the centre of a shrieking magpie group like 
 themselves. If their portly coffee-colored 
 maid-of-all-work brought a card Alice was 
 always " out," unless he insisted that she was 
 " in." 
 
 There had been a year of this life when 
 one morning he found her in her pretty morn- 
 ing negligee standing beside his desk, press- 
 ing his hard-working fountain-pen to her 
 lips. That tableau of devotion had lived 
 with him all day, in his trying interview with 
 prospective publishers, and in his calls with 
 a view to collections from the old ones. It 
 fortified him for the sight of the bulky yel- 
 low envelope that shouted "Rejected!" at 
 him from their mail-box. It made him seize 
 the little fingers that were mending a rent 
 [146] 
 
He Makkies an Actkess 
 
 in the parlor curtains and reverently kiss 
 them. 
 
 After she had gone to the matinee the blow 
 fell. In her hurried dressing she had drawn 
 a paper from the drawer that was still open. 
 It had fallen to the floor. It was so large 
 that he thought it a contract with his last 
 pubHsher. He opened it. He groaned. 
 
 " My God ! I was right. They are all 
 alike! O Alice! Alice!" 
 
 She tripped in cheerily just as the city's 
 blackness was relieved by the turning on of 
 myriads of hghts. She turned on the gas 
 and looked smilingly about for her husband. 
 He was sitting at the edge of the bed, the 
 paper still in his fingers. 
 
 " You naughty boy ! " she laughed. " So 
 you've found your Christmas gift already? " 
 
 He lifted sullen, inquiring eyes to her face. 
 
 " How long have you had this? " 
 
 " Since yesterday." 
 
 " How did you get it? " 
 
 " I bought it with my savings from my 
 salary since we were married." 
 [ 147 ] 
 
By the Stage Dook 
 
 " A lot at Orange? " 
 
 She nodded while the tears drowned the 
 joy in her eyes as they had done the evening 
 of their wedding when she surveyed the little 
 flat and cried at the thought of a home. 
 
 " You will not be sensitive about it, dear? " 
 she pleaded. " Those horrid pubhshers are 
 so slow about seeing the value of your books, 
 and I knew how you loved the country. I 
 thought you could write more satisfactorily 
 there. In another year we can build a house 
 together in this lot, or if you haven't your 
 last novel on sale, then maybe I can save 
 enough to put up a small one. Aren't you 
 glad, dearest ? " 
 
 Carleton rested his forehead for a moment 
 on her strong young shoulder. She noticed 
 afterward that her dress was wet where his 
 face had rested. 
 
 " Are you tired? " she asked him, wonder- 
 ingly. 
 
 " I have had a bad day," he admitted, 
 thinking of the hours he had sat at the edge 
 of the bed holding the deed in his fingers. 
 [148] 
 
He Mabeied an Actress 
 
 " Your ability will be recognized. You 
 will be known as one of the greatest authors 
 of your time." 
 
 " Alice," he asked, impulsively, " can you 
 ever forgive me? " 
 
 "For what, George.?" 
 
 " For everything. For any foolish sus- 
 picions I may have ever had because you had 
 not had a home, nor a home influence." 
 
 " But I have both now, dear," she said, 
 looking at him with bright, trusting eyes. 
 " And you could never have been suspicious 
 after you knew me." 
 
 He hung his head while pretending to re- 
 arrange his necktie. 
 
 " Dinner's ready," announced the portly, 
 cofFee-colored maid. 
 
 [149] 
 
Three Friends 
 
Three Friends 
 
 HE'S an angel!" 
 "He's a brute!" 
 " Something must be 
 done, but what? " 
 
 The leading man, slim, 
 elegant in his evening 
 clothes, twirled his crush hat in his hands and 
 looked at the comedian, burly and grotesque 
 as an East End cockney. He had come into 
 his friend, the comedian's dressing-room, to 
 wait for the " First Act." A swiftly pass- 
 ing figure in a gray cloak and with a small 
 head that seemed to bend under its weight 
 of pale gold hair as a lily bows under the 
 weight of its own sweetness had provoked the 
 dialogue. A glimpse of Edith Glyndon, juve- 
 nile, and wife of George Glyndon, the or- 
 chestra leader, always caused these friends to 
 [153] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 resolve themselves into a committee of ways 
 and means. But the committee had never 
 offered for adoption a formal report. 
 
 Everyone knew that George Glyndon was 
 a brutal husband. Every male member of it 
 had some time or other caught the huge 
 muscled arm that had been raised to strike 
 the cowering girl, and every woman in it had 
 said, with unconscious dramatic effect, " Hold 
 your tongue, you beast ! " when he struck 
 her with words that hurt worse than his blows. 
 He had wearied of her since the day five years 
 ago when she had eloped with him from her 
 aunt's pretty cottage in Devonshire. Had 
 she been a spirited woman the weariness might 
 not have come so soon, perhaps not at all, 
 although all agreed that there was " not a 
 good bone in George Glyndon's body." But 
 this slight girl, in whose cheeks the English 
 roses had changed to lilies, knew no such thing 
 as defiance. She had been taught that sub- 
 mission was the chief end of woman and she 
 was faithful to her creed. Tears might be 
 wrung from her, but never an indignant 
 [154] 
 
Three Fkiends 
 
 word. And now that she was ill and more 
 than ever silent and submissive it was plain 
 that Glyndon hated her, with the cruel hatred 
 of the healthy animal for the ailing. 
 
 Yet despite the scenes at the theatre the 
 management would not dismiss its orchestra 
 leader. They saw to it that he was sober at 
 rehearsals and performances, and that done, 
 the managerial responsibility ended. The 
 " private affairs " of their employees did not 
 interest the managers of His Majesty's The- 
 atre. And George Glyndon was a valuable 
 man, for no orchestra in the kingdom was so 
 well trained as were the players at His Majes- 
 ty's. The brute made way for some sublime 
 spirit of the upper airs from eight until 
 eleven, to resume its sway at exactly eleven 
 fifteen. 
 
 " What? " repeated the comedian, settling 
 his cap well over his ear after they had re- 
 viewed the situation here set forth. 
 
 " What indeed.'' " The leading man 
 stopped twirling his hat and interrogated 
 with his eyes. 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 " If she loved a man she would leave that 
 brute for him." 
 
 " Then why not—" 
 
 " Just what I was going to say. ' Why 
 not.? ' She doesn't love me." 
 
 " But—" 
 
 " She does, Linton. I can read the lan- 
 guage of a woman's eyes, if you can't. You 
 are the man who can save her. I wouldn't 
 say this if I hadn't understood you ever since 
 she joined the company, old chap." 
 
 The men gripped each other's hands, and 
 then, after the manner of men who feel deeply, 
 were suddenly struck dumb and separated in a 
 shamefaced way. Linton Southmer went to 
 the stage in answer to " First Act " and Jim 
 Ravelle stayed behind to wait his cue. His 
 hand shook when he lit his cigar, which went 
 out finally because of his feeble attention to 
 it, and he sat staring at the gray plaster of 
 his dressing-room, a dumb, pathetic patience 
 in his eyes. There had always been some- 
 thing duU and bovine about Jim. 
 
 That was the way it happened that a 
 [156 J 
 
Three Friends 
 
 pretty cottage outside the city was taken by 
 a man and a lovely, frail-looking young 
 woman, who had one frequent visitor, a 
 square-built man with an honest, patient face 
 and ox-like eyes. 
 
 Southmer had two successful seasons. The 
 average critics were lavish of their compli- 
 mentary adjectives. Their king, he whose 
 praise was as rare as deep-water pearls, was 
 gracious. And in the cottage there were 
 peace and happiness, save when the spectre 
 chose to walk shadow-like through its bright 
 rooms and chill their hearts. Edith Glyndon 
 was growing weaker. They could not hide 
 the fact, cheat each other with loving delu- 
 sions as they might. Here the doctors 
 agreed alarmingly. 
 
 " Slow consumption," they all said. " It 
 may be several years away, but the end is 
 sure." 
 
 Perhaps it was because the news benumbed 
 his energies and made his acting automaton- 
 like. Perhaps it was only the ebb tide in the 
 player's fortunes that wiU change to flood 
 [157] 
 
By the Stage Doob 
 
 again if he be patient and strong. But 
 it befell that at the opening of the third sea- 
 son he was without an engagement. Jim 
 Ravelle had been re-engaged at an advance 
 of salary for His Majesty's, but when South- 
 mer's quest for an engagement proved fruit- 
 less he gave up his engagement and he and 
 Southmer did a specialty at the Alhambra. 
 It was but an indifferent success, though it 
 led to Southmer's getting occasional engage- 
 ments in the city for a monologue. Ravelle 
 at mid-season joined a province-touring com- 
 pany. 
 
 Letters came to him from the cottage — sad 
 letters all — some in Southmer's nervous hand, 
 some in Edith's faint, characterless one. 
 London was getting tired of the monologue, 
 and there was no other engagement in pros- 
 pect. They must give up the cottage and 
 take lodgings in the city. Ravelle's reply 
 contained much sympathy and a check he 
 could little spare. 
 
 " I insist upon loaning you this, old 
 man, so that it will be taken care of," 
 [1681 
 
Three Feiends 
 
 he wrote. " I'm such an extravagant beg- 
 gar." 
 
 He patronized third-rate hotels after that, 
 so that he might save a margin for " them," 
 but he always used the letter-heads of the first- 
 class hotels. 
 
 He came back after two years. They 
 were living on the top floor of a cheap lodg- 
 ing-house. The dust-colored fog crowded in 
 at a score of crevices and formed faint 
 wraith-like shapes before it melted away into 
 the chill of the bare rooms. 
 
 Southmer was ill, and a tall, ghost-like 
 woman with pale gold hair was leaning over 
 his bed. She cried a little and said pretty, 
 feminine, fluttering things when she saw him. 
 The two men gripped each other's hands, 
 and that old silence, shamefaced and wistful, 
 weighted with the memories of the long years 
 since their boyhood, fell between them. 
 
 " You haven't had your walk to-day, 
 dear," said Southmer, at last. " Go now, 
 and Jim will sit with me." 
 
 With the same silent, unquestioning sub- 
 
 [159] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 mission he remembered, Edith Glyndon left 
 the room, and they heard her faint, dragging 
 step descending the stairs. 
 
 " I'm going, Jim," Southmer said, in a 
 husky voice. " It's quick consumption ; but 
 don't let her know, for she thinks I have 
 contracted it by taking care of her, and it 
 breaks her heart. I'm willing to go, old man, 
 for it's been a hard fight, with luck against 
 me from the first. 
 
 " I'm sorry for just one thing. It's hard 
 to leave her alone. I wanted to give her my 
 name in fact, but divorces are slow in Eng- 
 land. We've been trying to arrange this 
 ever since the first, you know, but we've 
 failed. My brother, who cast me off for this, 
 has since married a divorced woman in 
 America. 
 
 " They strike off the shackles there in a 
 few hours I'm told. 
 
 " When I'm gone she'U be alone, iU and 
 
 friendless and destitute. I've known how it 
 
 is with you for a long time, Jim. It has 
 
 come to me by degrees, somehow. Take care 
 
 [160] 
 
Three Feiends 
 
 of her, and when she is free, marry her. 
 Wm you, Jim? " 
 
 Jim answered with a silent pressure of the 
 hand, for they heard her soft step in the hall 
 and her hand was turning the knob. 
 
 On Christmas Eve Linton Southmer called 
 them both to his bedside. He placed 
 one hand in Edith's and Ravelle grasped the 
 other. With his faint remaining strength 
 he tried to draw them together. Then his 
 eyes closed. Someone had called " Last 
 Act." 
 
 A week later George Glyndon died sud- 
 denly, killed, some said, in a tavern brawl; 
 but it was given out at His Majesty's that 
 he had died from a paralytic stroke, and the 
 orchestra leader's union drew up lengthy and 
 unctuous resolutions in memorial to " our 
 esteemed and honorable brother." 
 
 On New Year's Day Edith Glyndon and 
 James Ravelle were married. He cared for 
 her tenderly, as a brother. The waning life 
 was brightened by all the tendernesses the 
 " brotherly affection " he laughingly referred 
 [161] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 to, in answer to all her thanks, could sug- 
 gest. 
 
 The manager of a company going to New 
 York for a long engagement offered him the 
 title role. He reserved his decision until the 
 next day. 
 
 He found the wraith of a woman who was 
 his wife in name sitting at the window look- 
 ing with luminous eyes at something she 
 alone saw in the glories of the sunset. 
 
 He lifted the thin, blue-white fingers to 
 his lips. He told her gently of the offer, 
 " Do you want to go, Edith.? " 
 " I can't, Jim. I am not strong enough. 
 Besides, I would be so far from Linton's 
 grave." 
 
 James RaveUe refused the manager's offer 
 and played a minor part in a London 
 theatre. 
 
 Every day when the weather was fair he 
 took Mrs. Ravelle to the cemetery, and while 
 she knelt at Linton Southmer's grave he 
 stood beside her, looking at the slim, bent 
 figure and the pale gold hair. When she was 
 [162] 
 
Three Feiends 
 
 no longer able to leave the house he gave up 
 his engagement to watch beside her. 
 
 One spring afternoon, with the sound of 
 busy, brutal life surging up from the streets 
 and the sunshine falling across her bed, she 
 complained that it had grown dark. 
 
 The actor knelt beside her and clasped 
 the transparent hand. 
 
 " I cannot see," she said, querulously. 
 "Where are you, Jim?" Suddenly she 
 lifted her head. Her voice rang out fuU, 
 strong, rejoicing. 
 
 " Linton ! " she cried. Her head sank back 
 to the pillow. A great joy transfigured her 
 features. Then came an awesome silence, 
 broken at last by a strong man's sobs. 
 
 " My love ! My love ! " 
 
 He buried her, as he had promised, beside 
 Linton Southmer. 
 
 It is one of the mysteries of the profession 
 why Jim Ravelle has never married. 
 
 [163] 
 
The Understudy 
 
The Understudy 
 
 ISS MILTON wiU never 
 give me a chance to sing 
 her part. I know she 
 won't." 
 
 Irene Gray plucked at the 
 ragged edges of the once 
 ornamental tablecloth in the dingy boarding- 
 house parlor. Anger faded into dejection 
 and she rested her elbows on the table and her 
 pretty flushed face in her hands and looked 
 appealingly at George Hammerton. Irene 
 often told the other girls in the Amy Milton 
 Opera Company that she could not remem- 
 ber the time she hadn't known George. 
 " Why, I teU him everything," she said. 
 And so she had; even the tale of that 
 August at Long Branch, when she thought 
 she had fallen in love with a man from Phila- 
 [167] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 delphia and how he had gone home without 
 " really saying anything," and how life had 
 never seemed the same after she had learned 
 that he was a married man who had affected 
 the seaside resorts while his wife and children 
 were in the mountains. Had Irene noticed, 
 she would have seen George clench his big 
 hands nervously during the recital, but she 
 wasn't in the habit of noticing George much. 
 You don't when you have known people al- 
 ways, you know. So she told the other girls 
 in the company, and when Lillie James, who 
 wore pink tarlatan and " did a specialty," 
 asked her to introduce the young broker, she 
 said, " Why, certainly ! " 
 
 Lillie, who aspired to be a premiere 
 danseuse, touched the bow on Irene's shoulder 
 daintily with her toe. 
 
 " You don't care to keep him all to your- 
 self," she remarked with a sidelong glance. 
 
 "George.'' Oh, no!" said Irene, wonder- 
 ingly, and touching up her upper lip a 
 bit as she heard the call-boy's " Second 
 Act." 
 
 [168] 
 
The Understudy 
 
 This afternoon she was telling George 
 " everything," as usual. 
 
 Irene, it must be admitted, was from the 
 country. It must also be admitted that she 
 was gauche. Candor requires a further ad- 
 mission. She had been on the stage three 
 years and was still in the chorus. But she 
 was Miss Milton's understudy, and she lay 
 awake nights thinking of the time when Miss 
 Milton should have a sore throat and she 
 should sing her part, and only Miss Milton's 
 special friends should know the difference. 
 Miss Milton's special friends and the news- 
 papers. The last would talk about her 
 " wondrous art." She had seen that phrase 
 once and it had haunted her. It would look 
 so well opposite " Irene Gray." 
 
 " But she'U never give me the chance," she 
 complained this afternoon to George Ham- 
 merton. 
 
 George listened impatiently. The story 
 was not a new one. It was beyond his mem- 
 ory and mathematical powers to calculate just 
 how often he had heard it. Being a man, 
 [169] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 he had some latent selfishness, almost as much 
 as a woman. And he had his own heart needs 
 and his own homely ambition, although he 
 never spoke of them. He only looked wist- 
 fully at the self-centred little being and lis- 
 tened with his thoughts far from Miss Milton 
 and her arias. 
 
 " Hang it all, Irene ! Why ruin your 
 temper and waste your life in this sort of 
 thing?" he broke out. "Why don't you 
 marry.'' " 
 
 He had been walking the floor of Mrs. 
 O'Rourke's parlor to the serious menace of 
 the ancient carpet. At Irene's resentful 
 " Marry whom.'' " he stopped his march and 
 looked long at her. He saw vexation in the 
 small face, nothing more, and he felt sud- 
 denly foolish and awkward. 
 
 " Someone might be found," he ventured. 
 
 " Possibly by publishing a personal, 
 ' object matrimony,' " she answered, scorn- 
 fully. 
 
 Just then LiUie James " dropped " in. 
 Welcome or not, there she was. They dis- 
 [170] 
 
The Undeestudy 
 
 pensed with the formality of announcing 
 visitors at Mrs. O'Rourke's. Irene presented 
 George Hammerton. 
 
 " We grew on adjoining farms out West," 
 she explained absently, her thoughts still 
 upon the possibihty of Miss Milton's ever 
 " giving her a chance to sing her part." 
 
 Lillie fluttered into a chair close to the 
 broker's. She smiled archly at him and said 
 he reminded her of a cousin of hers out West. 
 She did love the West. Lillie was a wise 
 woman. On their walk home she never once 
 referred to the theatre except to say as she 
 passed it that she wished she might never 
 see the " sickening old place again." She 
 coaxed the young man to teU her how he had 
 left the farm seven years ago and risen step 
 by step until he was a member of the firm. 
 She didn't say a word. Her comments were 
 in her wide, admiring eyes. It was so 
 diiFerent from those monologues in Mrs. 
 O'Rourke's parlor. Of course he invited her 
 to supper after the opera that night. And 
 she, hesitating as coyly as though she had 
 
 [171] 
 
By the Stage Dook 
 
 never had an invitation to supper before, 
 finally accepted. 
 
 Irene, hurrying out of the stage door, saw 
 them getting into a cab. She bowed stiffly 
 and went on frowning. The manager had 
 told her that Miss Milton's mother was ill 
 and she must have a rehearsal in the morn- 
 ing. 
 
 " Don't know that she'll be called to Bos- 
 ton, but she may. We must be ready," he 
 said. 
 
 The " chance " was assuming a form. She 
 must sleep well so that she would be in 
 " good voice " for rehearsal. But Irene 
 didn't sleep well. 
 
 " Isn't it absurd ! I'm actually lying here 
 thinking of George and Lillie. Lillie's a 
 nice girl, but so designing." 
 
 She buried her curly head deep in the pil- 
 low and counted imaginary white sheep jump- 
 ing an imaginary fence. 
 
 " Six, seven, eight — George never asks me 
 to supper any more. These late suppers are 
 ruinous to the voice. I'm glad I never eat 
 [172] 
 
The Understudy 
 
 them. I wonder whether they went to Rec- 
 tor's." 
 
 Much tossing and opening the small win- 
 dow of the hall bedroom wider. 
 
 " Such a suffocating night ! Fifteen, six- 
 teen — George looks almost handsome in even- 
 ing clothes. Nineteen. Lillie wore her bis- 
 cuit cloth trimmed with gold braid. She calls 
 that her gown for conquest. I wonder if she 
 thinks she can make a fool of George.'' How 
 ridiculous ! " 
 
 It was so ridiculous that she sat upright 
 in bed and laughed hollowly as she stared at 
 the darkness. 
 
 Irene met Lillie at the stage door at the 
 noon rehearsal. Lillie simpered and Irene 
 looked ill-tempered. 
 
 " Your friend's charming, and what a 
 flirt! I'm afraid I'll really lose my heart 
 this time," said the danseuse of the future. 
 
 " A flirt ! George never had that reputa- 
 tion at home," said the prospective star, tart- 
 ly. " She wants me to tell him she thinks 
 he's charming and she's losing her heart, but 
 [173] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 I won't," she thought, with an unbecoming 
 tightening of the lips. 
 
 " But men learn so much when they leave 
 home," Lillie drawled, simpering again. 
 
 The manager was cross. Irene did her 
 best, but he was brute enough to say she had 
 acquired a wide crack in her voice since yes- 
 terday, and she cried behind a newspaper all 
 the way home in the street-car. She hoped 
 George would call. She wanted to tell him 
 " everything." He didn't, and that evening 
 she saw a note in his handwriting addressed 
 to Lillie James. It lay just below the mirror 
 Lillie used at the end of the long dressing- 
 table used by seven " ladies of the chorus." 
 Irene's hand hovered above it, but she drew 
 it back, shocked at her evil impulse. Lillie 
 sauntered in singing. She snatched the note 
 from the table, read it, and ostentatiously 
 tucked it into her corsage. 
 
 " You're pale to-night, 'Rene. What's the 
 matter?" 
 
 A loud rap at the door. The stage man- 
 ager burst in and handed Irene a telegram. 
 [174] 
 
The Understudy 
 
 " Milton just left for Boston. You've got 
 to sing. Here's the key to her dressing- 
 room. Get into her things and hurry up." 
 
 He slammed the door. " Oh, bully ! " said 
 the good-natured " ladies of the chorus." 
 " Pf-f ! " said the acid-tempered ones. 
 
 Irene made a running entrance. Miss 
 Milton made it effective, but Milton was born 
 in Paris, and I have said that Irene was born 
 in the country and was gauche. She stum- 
 bled, and three gallery gods laughed. As 
 she picked herself up among her unaccus- 
 tomed draperies she saw George Hammerton 
 in front. 
 
 She saw the dark body in front as through 
 a mist. Her voice sounded strange. She 
 had missed a bar. Heavens ! And her breath 
 was leaving her. She tripped upon her train 
 as she made her exit. The audience was 
 silent save for five kind souls. One of these 
 clapped loud enough for three. It was 
 George Hammerton. 
 
 Irene cried piteously in her dressing-room. 
 A visit from the stage manager made her cry 
 [175] 
 
By the Stage Doob 
 
 the harder. She said she would not go on 
 again. He said she must, and she did. 
 
 The first act was bad, the second worse, 
 the third worst. The five kind souls were 
 loyal. The orchestra was apathetic and part 
 of it went home early. The ingenuous gal- 
 lery joked and hissed. 
 
 A lonely Uttle figure crept out of the stage 
 entrance and was met by a big, sympathetic 
 one. 
 
 " Oh, George ! " Irene gasped. " It was 
 awful. I can never look at anyone again." 
 
 He hailed a passing hansom and lifted 
 her into it. " Aren't you going — ^to — take 
 Lilhe? " she sobbed. 
 
 " No. She invited me to meet some 
 friends, but I declined. I wanted to see you, 
 Irene." 
 
 " Will anyone ever want to see me again? 
 Oh, George, I have failed ! I have failed ! " 
 
 George Hammerton took the trembling Kt- 
 tle figure in his arms and drew the curly head 
 to his shoulder. 
 
 " Be my understudy, Irene," he said. " I 
 [176] 
 
The Understudy 
 
 will give you every chance. You shall be 
 a star in my home. Be my prima donna and 
 sing only for me." 
 
 She sat up straight and dignified for an 
 instant. " You flirted with LUlie," she 
 charged. 
 
 " Not guilty," he said, laughing. " I took 
 her to supper, because she seemed so sweet 
 and sisterly and sympathetic." 
 
 " She's a designing little beast." 
 
 " Well, well, perhaps," Hammerton re- 
 turned, ungallantly. 
 
 " It was worrying about you and her and 
 that note that made me such a ' frost ' to- 
 night. I believe I'll just try again." 
 
 " No, you won't," said George Hammer- 
 ton, assertively, and she didn't. 
 
 From that date Irene Gray filled only pri- 
 vate engagements. 
 
 [177 ] 
 
Heard at the Managers' Club 
 
Heard at the Managers' Club 
 
 ^g^y 
 
 1 
 
 OE GRIMSTON" he had 
 
 been when he "shined shoes" 
 and sold newspapers on the 
 banks of the odorous Chi- 
 cago River and " Joe Grim- 
 ston " he was still when the 
 lackey, who opened the door of the Managers' 
 Club, measured his importance by the lowest 
 bow and widest grin bestowed upon any mem- 
 ber of that body of exclusive New York 
 amusement promoters. 
 
 True, he signed his contracts with the Ifead- 
 ing American and European stars and made 
 all his booking arrangements over the signa- 
 ture of Joseph T. Grimston. His wife, who 
 was a non-professional and " adored " society 
 as ardently as she " abhorred " the stage, 
 kept a standing card-plate, engraved " Mrs. 
 
 [ 181 ] 
 
By the Stage Dook 
 
 Joseph Tilton Grimston," at the stationer's 
 the year round. A magazine that had asked 
 him for a definition and an analysis of tem- 
 perament, suggested that he change the form 
 of his autograph to J. Tilton Grimston. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 The demand was made in a gruflF tone and 
 the pink-and-white young man from the ten- 
 cent medium of information looked fright- 
 ened. 
 
 " O — ^nothing, really — only it's the present 
 — ^mode." 
 
 " D ^n the present mode ! " growled the 
 
 great man of the syndicate. Then he smiled 
 and passed his cigar-case to the quaking 
 youth. 
 
 " My wife looks after the ' present mode ' 
 at home, and I have to conform to it in my 
 stage sets and dressing. After that I kick 
 loose from it. Young man, if you're not 
 good, I'U sign ' Joe ' Grimston. That's the 
 name I blacked shoes by, and sold newspapers 
 by, and rode in the circus by. It's the name 
 I gave my first school of acting." Here he 
 [182] 
 
Heaed at the Managers' Club 
 
 grinned. " No politeness of fair speech like 
 
 it, and I'd use it yet, but my d d finical 
 
 lawyer says it's not legal. So I'U concede 
 you ' Joseph T. Grimston,' no more." 
 
 The telephone summoned him to his offices, 
 and he sent back his gin-rickey, untasted. 
 
 " Only three minutes to get to the office." 
 He bustled to the door. " Good-morning, 
 gentlemen." 
 
 The pink-and-white youth stood timidly at 
 the door a moment. Then he approached the 
 manager of the best musical comedies in 
 town, who was smoking his native meer- 
 schaum. 
 
 " Pardon me. Will you give me some- 
 thing besides the bare biographical facts 
 about Mr. Grimston.'' We want to publish 
 a short character-study of him to lead his 
 views on ' temperament.' " 
 
 " Something besides the bare biographical 
 facts," repeated the man with the meer- 
 schaum. " Then you know that he was born 
 in a mining-camp in California, and that he 
 ran away twice a year from the time he could 
 [183] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 walk. His father was the sheriff of the 
 county. I suppose you know that, and that 
 his father said he had more trouble with that 
 brat of his than with all the cut-throats in his 
 hundred-mile ' circuit.' ' There's nothing bad 
 about him,' he said. ' It's just that he's al- 
 ways so d d unexpected.' " 
 
 " His semi-annual runaway was for a long- 
 er period than usual when he was ten years 
 old. After a week his father found him 
 pouring all the ardor of his being into bones. 
 He had joined a minstrel troup and was the 
 child-star. How he loved the burnt cork and 
 the jokes and the coarse, jolly fellows who 
 formed the black crescent on the stage. It 
 was a gray day when his father took him 
 away, and the only rift in the clouds that 
 gave him a glimpse of sunshine was that he 
 was able to wave a greenback before his 
 father's astonished eyes and pay for both 
 their tickets home. He had gained a niche 
 in his father's respect. He was entitled to 
 the esteem which the moneymaker always com- 
 mands." 
 
 [184] 
 
Heard at the Managees' Club 
 
 The speaker laid aside his deliciously 
 stained meerschaum. His eyes had the level, 
 sizing-up look with which he regarded the 
 raw recruits of the chorus on first rehearsal 
 day. 
 
 " It was when he was twelve years old that 
 he ran away with a circus. He came back in 
 two weeks, his feet swollen and cut by stone- 
 bruises, his mind cleared of the mist of illusion 
 about the Hfe of the circus-performers. He 
 could never endure the smell of wild animals 
 afterward. 
 
 " But when his father interviewed him be- 
 hind the barn in a way he had, an experience 
 that always followed his return home after a 
 runaway, Joe wouldn't retract. He said: 
 ' I believe in the show business as much as 
 ever, but not with animals.' 
 
 " That circus experience has stuck to him. 
 Now, I have an imitation of a bear in my new 
 musical farce, and there's a cat in an extrava- 
 ganza farther down the street. They draw. 
 But Joe won't have them. He thinks any- 
 thing in the shape of an animal is a hoodoo 
 [185] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 for him. They say that a tiger-cub clawed 
 him once and he can't forget it. 
 
 " When he was thirteen he told his father 
 he was tired of the mines. ' I haven't seen 
 very much money coming out of them,' he 
 said. ' Besides, I don't care so much about 
 money, anyway. I want to mix with people 
 and go with the show business and have a 
 show of my own some day.' And although 
 his father conjured up visions of the back of 
 the bam and the stinging-strap and hinted 
 that he might try them as a preventive, since 
 they had failed as a cure, Joe slipped out the 
 back window of the garret and made for the 
 woods. 
 
 " He laid down on the ground and tucked 
 his bundle of clothes he had under him and 
 the firs sang a whispering chorus that soothed 
 him to sleep and repeated itself in his dreams. 
 He has a hundred times told me what an 
 efiFective motif the slumber chorus of the firs 
 might be made. ' It can't be done, Joe,' I've 
 said. He would crack his fingers contemptu- 
 ously and say : ' If I knew a thing about 
 [186] 
 
Heard at the Managers' Club 
 
 music, just the first thing, I'd show you! 
 There's nothing you can't do if you want to 
 enough, George.' 
 
 " He walked to Sacramento, and, though 
 he hung around the theatres persistently there 
 was nothing for him then, and he had to take 
 to blacking boots. He saved up a little at 
 this, for people paid him for his bright face, 
 as well as for his bright shines. That's true ; 
 I tell you a sunshiny face is a moneymaker, as 
 well as a happiness-radiator. Try it, young 
 fellow. You're too glum. That phiz of 
 yours will interfere with business. If I 
 hadn't just made splendid bookings for my 
 new show I wouldn't be here prattling to you. 
 It's in spite of that scared-to-death face of 
 yours and because I like Joe and want the 
 public to know him as I know him that I am 
 playing opposite to you for an hour. You 
 need a good, stiff mental bracer. Get one, 
 somehow. It will pay you." 
 
 " I'm sure you're right, Mr. Lamson." 
 " That's right, only don't say it with a 
 whine. Of course I am ! " 
 [187] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 " Talking about Joe? " An actor-man- 
 ager stopped to listen. 
 
 " Yes ; tell a few of his characteristics 
 while I put a new stain on my pet." 
 
 And the mentor with a prefix spelling 
 " tor " to the lad from the magazine picked 
 up the object of his greatest tenderness, the 
 meerschaum. 
 
 " My first meeting with Joe was a queer 
 one," said the actor-manager. " My wife 
 and I were playing at McVickar's, in Chi- 
 cago. We were on our way to rehearsal one 
 dismal, rainy morning. My wife slipped, 
 and before I, awkward brute ! could catch her 
 she had fallen, and her ' playbooks ' went ca- 
 reening wildly before the wind, their yellow 
 covers looking like big autumn leaves that 
 were out for a dance. A dirty, shabby little 
 chap with a bundle of unsold papers under 
 his arm, shrewd and keen and kindly below 
 his shock of unkempt hair, ran toward us and 
 tried to brush the mud from Billy's — I call 
 my wife Billy when she's amiable and Bill 
 when she's not you know — dress. He handed 
 [188] 
 
Heard at the Managees' Ci-ub 
 
 her her umbrella before I could get at it; 
 he was as quick as an imp, and scampered 
 around and picked up the bespattered plays. 
 His eyes danced with wild joy as he put them 
 into my wife's hand. 
 
 " ' You are an actress, ain't you? ' he said. 
 
 " ' Yes,' she answered, giving him one of 
 those dazzlers of hers. Did you ever see her 
 smile from the front? Great, isn't it? 
 
 " Well, that little starved gamin warmed 
 himself in it, so to speak, and she saw it and 
 gave him another. ' How did you know? ' 
 
 " ' O, I buy these books — sometimes. I 
 could act great myself, if I had a chance.' 
 
 " My wife laughed and thanked him for 
 his help and I offered him some change. He 
 blushed — fancy a Chicago newsboy blush- 
 ing! 
 
 " ' Say, I don't want your money,' he said, 
 ' but if you don't mind, I wish you would give 
 me one of those books.' 
 
 " ' Certainly,' my wife said. ' Make your 
 choice.' 
 
 " ' Take my pick? ' he said, unbelieving, 
 
 [189] 
 
By the Stage Doob 
 
 his face looking like a sunburst. And what 
 do you think he chose? ' Othello,' as you 
 live. 
 
 " We said good-by and hurried away to 
 the rehearsal. Looking back, we saw that he 
 was following at a respectful distance, his 
 newspapers forgotten, the joy of a new dis- 
 covery in his eyes. 
 
 " It was a year afterward that my wife 
 came home from a mild slumming tour with 
 some visiting cousins, her eyes beaming with 
 surprise and dehght. 
 
 " ' We took in the Eden Musee,' she said, 
 ' and who do you suppose was doing a tum- 
 bling and dancing act but the boy who took 
 my ' Othello.' We were there for an hour, and 
 those poor children were on six times. Some- 
 thing had gone wrong with the bill and they 
 were working those little chaps to death. We 
 went around to the stage door to see them. 
 They were trying to eat a sandwich, but be- 
 fore they had taken the first bite they heard 
 the call, ' Rice and Flynn,' and had to run. 
 They told me their dressing-room was up 
 [190] 
 
Heaud at the Managees' Club 
 
 three flights of stairs, and that sometimes 
 they hadn't gotten half way up when they 
 were called again. ' 'Tain't noon yet,' said 
 ragged Joe, ' but we've been on twenty times. 
 Yes, 'tain't easy, but it's a start. Starts ain't 
 ever easy, are they.? ' 
 
 " After a while we saw him in a specialty 
 that was so bad, and yet so good, that it stood 
 out and the star complained to the manager, 
 and most of his business was cut. 
 
 " When my wife opened as an independent 
 star she got a bunch of roses with Joe's name 
 and wishes for success. She sent for him, and 
 he told her how he had gone on after that 
 beginning in the Eden Musee. 
 
 " ' We were so tired that night of our first 
 appearance as Rice and Flynn that we went 
 to bed with our make-up on ; and we dreamed 
 we heard them calling us, and tumbled out of 
 bed and began to do our act so vigorously 
 that it woke us up,' he said. ' The next 
 morning we were the proudest boys in New 
 York. The other newsies came around and 
 looked at us as though we were the elephant 
 [191] 
 
By the Stage Dooa 
 
 in the parade. Speaking of the elephant, I 
 joined, a circus the next summer, and that's 
 how I got my real chance, for a lady who 
 drove a chariot in the summer acted in the 
 winter. She took an interest in me and took 
 me to see a manager, and asked him to give 
 me a chance in some play. He put me into 
 a road show with her. She was cross, but she 
 made a man of me. Then they wanted an 
 acrobatic comedian for this opera, and we're 
 going to beat the record on a run in this city,' 
 he said. 
 
 " But Joe had his setbacks after that. 
 Regular roor-backs they were, too, the kind 
 that were good for a fellow if he's young. 
 The year that he had confidently expected to 
 invade the ' Rialto ' and capture everything 
 in sight he was ' Props ' in a barnstorming 
 company in the mining camps of the Sierras. 
 He was close to the ground, where he had 
 started. 
 
 " It was Grimston's partner who had joined 
 the group. 
 
 " While he was ' Props ' he was dis- 
 [192] 
 
Heaed at the Managees' Club 
 
 charged when he was with ' The Phoenix ' for 
 not yelling ' Fire ! ' at the right time. They 
 used him for the part of an Irishman that is 
 killed in the first act. But he had to get off 
 the stage somehow, although he was as dead 
 as a herring, and manage the effects of a big 
 fire scene that was one of the play's features. 
 He managed to die close to the entrance and 
 contrived to slowly edge his way off without 
 being missed by the audience. When he was 
 out of view of the audience he rushed to light 
 the red fire. He blew into the tin tube of the 
 flash-box, sending up quick flashes of light 
 that with the help of the audience's imagina- 
 tion conveyed the illusion of wild, leaping 
 flames. He broke in a door of the scene, rang 
 an alarm bell, and then ran around to the 
 front of the stage and got the curtain down 
 on the picture. And all the while he kept 
 working the flash-box. 
 
 " When the curtain had thumped to the 
 stage and the audience was applauding, the 
 stage manager rushed around, looking for 
 Joe. 
 
 [193] 
 
By the Stage Doob, 
 
 You lunatic ! Why in the 
 
 didn't you yell fire ? ' he shouted, choking with 
 rage. ' I give you notice.' 
 
 " Joe has never been known to lose his tem- 
 per. He laughed in the man's face and asked 
 him if he took him for a hose company. But 
 the notice stood. 
 
 " He joined another company of the same 
 kind that was snow-bound in a mining camp. 
 To make matters more devilish the theatre 
 burnt down after the first night's perform- 
 ance. The company hadn't a dollar, and they 
 couldn't move on account of the snow, and be- 
 cause of the landlord, who had begun to worry 
 about the pay. Joe hocked his gold skates 
 that he had won in a tournament and divided 
 the proceeds royally, but that didn't last 
 longer than a dewdrop in a kitchen fire. 
 Finally he thought of something and talked 
 it over with the landlord, who fell in think- 
 ing he saw a prospect of ' collecting,' after 
 all. They rigged up a stage at the end of 
 the dining-room and played matinee and 
 night performances daily. The other storra- 
 [194] 
 
H£AB.D AT THE MaNAGESS' ClUB 
 
 bound guests saw the company's full reper- 
 toire and were glad to pay for being enter- 
 tained. When the sun shone the next week 
 and the company moved on, Joe was able to 
 reclaim from the pawnbroker his beloved gold 
 skates, the proud trophies of a skating tour- 
 nament. 
 
 " At last the great year came when he in- 
 vaded New York. He saw the city thoroughly 
 and ' studied life ' from nearly every stand- 
 point. But he didn't get a job. The agents 
 didn't care about him. He was big and raw- 
 boned and ungainly. They didn't care any- 
 thing about the youthful 'enthusiasm in his 
 eyes nor the queer three-cornered smile that 
 was in itself a fvdl equipment for a comedian. 
 He did some stock work in Newark, but not 
 by the grace of the agents. He ' went broke ' 
 several times and saved himself once by a 
 fearful school of acting he started over there 
 and made money out of. 
 
 " Then he began paying his attentions to 
 managers instead of agents. They didn't 
 care any more about him. 
 [195] 
 
By the Stage Dooa 
 
 " ' Nothing for you,' snarled one busy chap 
 one morning. 
 
 " ' Be careful,' Joe said, in warning. * You 
 may be turning away a new Salvini.' 
 
 " ' No danger, I guess,' was the answer. 
 
 " One fellow that felt pretty bad that 
 morning impaled him on his red eye and 
 said: 
 
 *' ' No, there's nothing. Certainly not ! 
 and there never will be anything. Young 
 man, you'd better go back West. That's 
 where you belong ! ' 
 
 "'Thank you,' said Joe. 'I think I'll 
 take your advice. I'll go ' — and he flour- 
 ished his arm awkwardly in the doorway — 
 ' but I return.' 
 
 " He went West and organized a company 
 of his own without a doUar of capital. It 
 stranded three times, but he always got it to- 
 gether again, and after a while it began to 
 gain ground and to get free advertising. 
 When he had come to be quite a great man in 
 that section his company played in his native 
 town. His father, who had been re-elected 
 sheriff, as a kind of tribute to his honorable 
 
 [196] 
 
Heard at the Manageks' Club 
 
 career, was a proud and happy old man that 
 night. It was a big house and a quietly ap- 
 preciative house, but Joe was cut to the heart 
 because there wasn't a single clap, not the 
 ghost of a demonstration. When his father 
 paid him a visit in his dressing-room before 
 the last act he said : 
 
 " ' It's the best imitation of a funeral I ever 
 saw, father. Why don't they like me? ' 
 
 " ' They do ; you're doing a killing with 
 them,' said the old man. ' Why do you think 
 they don't like you? ' 
 
 " ' Because they act as though they were 
 dead. There hasn't been a sound from them 
 all evening.' 
 
 " ' Sound ! I guess there wasn't ! I made a 
 speech in the town hall the day before yes- 
 terday and said to them : " Now, I've heard 
 that some of the bad citizens of this town have 
 been heard to say they would set the town on 
 fire when my son plays here. All I've got to 
 say is if there's so much as a whimper from 
 one fellow in, the hall, I and my posse will take 
 him off to the jail, the scorn of all his fel- 
 [197] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 lows." That's the reason they're so peaceable 
 and law-abiding to-night.' And the old fellow 
 strutted back to his duties and patroUed the 
 aisle during the last act. The curtain fell 
 upon a silent house and the audience walked 
 out as decorously as though it was ' exiting ' 
 from a church. 
 
 " It was soon after this that Joe heard of 
 an old theatre in the suburbs of New York 
 that was about to be sold for a mortgage. 
 He came on and bought in the old thing for a 
 song. He furnished it up and brought his 
 company from the West and made it a family 
 amusement-house. The first season he was a 
 little out of pocket. The second he was even, 
 and the third he was ahead. 
 
 " Then he got an interest in my old theatre 
 and we started a company on the road. 
 
 " In a year or two he got Miss Rogers and 
 made her over, from a first-class leading 
 woman into a star. She has made him and 
 herself rich. 
 
 " Once, when he was in the midst of this 
 prosperity, I said to him : ' Joe, old man, how 
 does it feel.'' ' He looked at me sorrowfully, 
 [198] 
 
Heaed at the Managers' Club 
 
 and said : ' D ^n bad, Harry ! I've lost 
 
 something I'll never get back. The day be- 
 fore I became a manager I was a pretty fair 
 actor; the day after, I was a rotten per- 
 former; the day before, I was a fine fellow; 
 the day after, I was a rascal. It's surprising 
 how authority sends a fellow down in the scale 
 of goodness. I never had a taste for being 
 execrated. I'm homesick for the old times 
 when people Uked me.' 
 
 " While he was getting his chain of thea- 
 tres and four or five paying stars, Joe fought 
 the syndicate. One morning he told me he 
 had given up. 
 
 " ' The fight has been bad for my people 
 and bad for me,' he said. ' I'm going to fol- 
 low the Kne of least resistance in business. 
 I've joined the syndicate, and I'm going to 
 fight it from within.' " 
 
 " I wonder if he's ahead of the game? " 
 said another, who had joined the group. 
 
 " He doesn't know himself. He said so the 
 other day. But I don't think he cares. 
 There's nobody over him, anyway. It's some- 
 thing to be the ' Czar.' " 
 [199] 
 
An Early Jump 
 
An Early Jump 
 
 HEY were making an " early 
 jump." To be strictly ac- 
 curate, it were better to say 
 they would have made an 
 " early jump " had the train 
 permitted. The train was 
 ate, the agent didn't know or wouldn't say 
 how late. They had waited two and a half 
 hours now, after rising at three o'clock. The 
 situation had reached a poignant stage. 
 
 Mollie Shannon had walked to the extreme 
 end of the long platform of the low, red- 
 painted station. She had snubbed two or 
 three members of the company who dared to 
 be conversational. She drew her dark furs 
 close around her pretty, petulant face, 
 shrugged her shoulders, and looked down the 
 curving track for the tardy engine. 
 [203] 
 
By the Stage Doob. 
 
 " Jim " Hamilton and his wife were saun- 
 tering near. 
 
 " Your first trip South, Miss Shannon ? " 
 ventured Jim. 
 
 " My fourteenth," returned Miss Shannon, 
 scarcely audibly without turning around. 
 
 " Come on. Don't bother her," whispered 
 Mrs. Jim, looking at the " second lady " with 
 something like apprehension. 
 
 " But I must talk or swear — and you are 
 too sleepy to talk to me," persisted Jim, " and 
 Miss Shannon looks as though she needs cheer- 
 ing up. This is our first trip through the 
 South," he said, in what was intended to be 
 a debonair tone. 
 
 " It's a country you can do very well with- 
 out seeing," snapped Miss Shannon, still re- 
 fusing to take her eyes from the far sweep of 
 the track. 
 
 " I like the courtesy and warm-heartedness 
 of the people. I liked the spirit of the 
 audience last night. Not a snowball in it. 
 True, their standards differ from ours." 
 
 " Yes." Miss Shannon was savage. " The 
 [204] 
 
An Early Jump 
 
 Southern women demand that their lovers be 
 gentlemen. Northern women are content if 
 they be men." 
 
 " The cooking at our hotel was good. The 
 best fried chicken " 
 
 " The cooking is degenerating in the South. 
 And the hotel rooms are mere holes." 
 
 " This morning air is so soft," murmured 
 Mrs. Jim, pacifically. " It is more like that 
 of the Italian Riviera, than in any spot I 
 have seen in the United States." 
 
 " You don't seem to be hungry," said Miss 
 Shannon, lowering. " You must enjoy being 
 routed out of bed at three and waiting three 
 hours for a train at a vile station." 
 
 Mrs. Jim laughed. " Miss Shannon is 
 tired of us," she said. " Let us see what the 
 others are doing." 
 
 " They're scandalizing, of course." Miss 
 Shannon smiled unpleasantly. 
 
 " We've been together eight weeks. It is 
 then the backbiting begins in American com- 
 panies. They have found out all there is to 
 know about each other by that time." 
 [205] 
 
By the Stage Doou 
 
 " I think this is a very friendly company." 
 
 " As friends and companies go," and Miss 
 Shannon resumed her study of the track. 
 
 " There's the test of a woman's temper," 
 said Jim Hamilton, still frowning under his 
 snubbing. " If she gets up ill-natured she's 
 a shrew." 
 
 Again Mrs. Jim laughed. She had learned 
 how a laugh dissipated an impending storm, 
 and she used it effectively at times like this. 
 The deep furrow between her husband's eyes 
 almost disappeared. 
 
 " Never mind." His wife's cheek grazed 
 his shoulder quite as if by accident. 
 
 " Your favorite motto again," he said, 
 smiling. " It's a pretty good one in almost 
 any emergency." 
 
 They strolled to another group. Mrs. Cor- 
 win, the old woman, was sitting on a packing- 
 box. Alice Greely, juvenile, and Eleanor 
 Lawton, soubrette, stood beside her laughing. 
 
 " I've been umpiring a game," said Mrs. 
 Corwin, pointing to a wheelbarrow full of 
 broken glass. " Eleanor has been sitting on 
 [206] 
 
An EAaiiY Jump 
 
 the wheel and Alice on the handles. One would 
 jump off and watch the other save herself. 
 A nice intellectual pursuit, isn't it? But that 
 isn't the game. Each told me she had been 
 sitting on the front of the wheelbarrow. Now, 
 I leave it to you, Jim, which is the front of a 
 wheelbarrow.'' " 
 
 " The wheel, of course." 
 
 " That's where I sat," said Alice Greely, in 
 triumph. 
 
 " Jim Hamilton ! " Miss Lawton struck a 
 threatening attitude. " Do you mean to say 
 that my arms are not on the front of my 
 body.?" 
 
 " Yours are, I believe." 
 
 " Then the arms or handles of a wheelbar- 
 
 row 
 
 " A wheelbarrow wears his behind." 
 
 Miss Belle Errington, the leading woman, 
 
 and Howard Loeser, the star, were passing. 
 
 At the sound of laughter they turned grave, 
 
 inquiring faces upon the group. 
 
 " What a gray morning ! " Miss Errington 
 
 shivered. 
 
 [207] 
 
By the Stage Dook 
 
 Eleanor Lawton smiled at her with sudden 
 brightening of the eyes and flash of the teeth 
 that were instant restoratives to good-humor 
 for all who saw. 
 
 " It is gray because it is going to be golden 
 in a little while. Do you see that glow over 
 there on the rim of the world.'' " They fol- 
 lowed the soubrette's whimsical glance and saw 
 the faint, slow flush in the east. 
 
 The leading woman turned her fine eyes on 
 the young woman. It seemed she had never 
 really looked at Eleanor Lawton before. Faint 
 memories of a cheeriness that never failed 
 stirred within her. Why had she been too self- 
 centred to notice this wholesome girl before .J" 
 But then she belonged to the profession of 
 egotists. Why should she be expected to think 
 of others.'' 
 
 " You seem to distil drops of hope from 
 any sort of a gloomy mixture," Miss Er- 
 rington said, still looking kindly at the 
 girl. 
 
 Eleanor Lawton blushed. The leading ^ 
 woman was as fine as she was remote. The) 
 [208] 
 
An Eaely Jump 
 
 girl had admired her fervently for many a 
 season without daring to say more than 
 " Good-morning," " Good-night," or the lines 
 of the play to her. 
 
 " What is the book you are carrying ? " 
 Miss Errington held out her hand for it. 
 
 Miss Lawton blushed hotly. " Not a diary," 
 she protested. " I call it ' Help.' Good 
 things that I hear or think, and can remem- 
 ber, I write in it. There are philosophical 
 sayings, sentiments, even jokes. It is a hodge- 
 podge of everything, and when I am lonesome 
 I like to read it. It is a great comfort when 
 we have an ' early jump.' " 
 
 " May I read from it.? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 "Aloud?" 
 
 " If you like." , 
 
 Miss Errington turned the leaves slowly, 
 scanning the girlish, irregular writing. 
 
 " Everyone has a third leg. It may be be- 
 lief in some religion or philosophy. It may 
 be only a great faith in a friend. But it is 
 something outside of ourselves that we depend 
 [209] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 upon. It is our support in the hard places 
 and in the hard times of life." 
 
 The leading woman looked quickly from the 
 book to its owner. 
 
 " You wrote that yourself.'' " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you believe it.? " 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 " Who does not.? " asked the leading man. 
 " What is your third leg, Mrs. Corwin ? " 
 
 " Christian Science, applied," said the old 
 woman. " I have been living by it for several 
 years. It is the prop our profession most 
 needs. We should take our religion as we take 
 our medicine, according to our particular 
 needs. Methodism is needed for the emo- 
 tional. Episcopalianism for the formal, Pres- 
 byterianism for the stem and the self-re- 
 strained, but Christian Science is for the fret- 
 ful and the finical. It makes you say ' It 
 doesn't matter ' about the things that used to 
 harass you. It makes them seem matters of 
 comparative indifference if someone else gets 
 the part you wanted yourself, and if some 
 [210] 
 
An Early Jump 
 
 ambitious young chap takes your scene from 
 you. Our profession, more than any other, 
 needs Christian Science, for there is no other 
 that has so many petty annoyances. Science 
 teaches you what trifles all those things are." 
 
 " But does it make one indifferent to his 
 work .'' " Howard Loeser asked this with some 
 apprehension, for he had a share in the man- 
 agement. 
 
 " On the contrary, it makes one a better 
 actor, because it increases the sense of respon- 
 sibility toward the management and the pub- 
 lic. It helped a girl I know, who was under- 
 sized, to grow several inches taller, so that 
 she might play leads." 
 
 The second comedian blew upon his fingers. 
 
 " I know this to be true. Tommy Trot," 
 said the old woman, mildly. Everyone recalled 
 that she had boxed the comedian's ears pub- 
 licly three years before because he dared to 
 doubt a statement of hers. 
 
 " It teaches one to divest a character of its 
 personalities," Mollie Shannon was walking 
 languidly nearer. " You don't say that any- 
 
 [m] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 one you know is shrewish or selfish. You 
 deal with qualities alone. You say ill-temper 
 and selfishness are phantasms of the mortal 
 mind. As they do not exist, you know no one 
 who has them." 
 
 All eyes turned involuntarily toward Miss 
 Shannon, then toward the east, where the sun 
 was breaking gloriously from his prison be- 
 hind the horizon. 
 
 " Like this," said Miss Errington, reading 
 from Miss Lawton's " Help : " "A woman 
 once set a rose-bush in the window of a dark 
 room. The rose, turn it often as she might 
 toward the gloom of the room, always twisted 
 back toward the sunshine. We can train our 
 natures to be like that rose, always reaching 
 "upward and outward to the sunlight, away 
 from the darkness." 
 
 She turned a page. " Marcus Aurelius said 
 something like ' Nothing in itself can hurt us. 
 We have nothing to fear but our opinion of 
 it.' At least that's what he meant, and I 
 think he's the same dear old fellow who said 
 that if we didn't like a thing we must simply 
 [ 212 ] 
 
An Early Jump 
 
 change our opinion of it; just turn around 
 the headland and into the bay." 
 
 " May I have the book? " Miss Lawton 
 turned the leaves quickly. " Doesn't this come 
 near summing it all up .'' " she said. " This 
 just came to me once, and I set it down and 
 I've thought a great deal about it. ' The 
 ultimate is always good.' " 
 
 " I have seen Christian Science turn men 
 and women from intemperance, from insanity 
 and suicide. I have seen it perform miracles, 
 for I have known it to make people stop hat- 
 ing. The most fearful thing in the world is 
 hatred. I believe it slays its thousands every 
 year ; not the persons who are hated, but those 
 who hate. Do you know that a great chemist 
 has proven by actual tests that violent hatred 
 and anger cause a distinct chemical change 
 in the human body.'' I have no doubt that 
 people are hated to death every day. The 
 only way to counteract the current is to send 
 out thoughts of love and happiness to the race. 
 The person so insulated cannot be slain, nor 
 even hurt, by anyone's hatred." 
 [213] 
 
By the Stage Dooe 
 
 " When I was in France I visited the fa- 
 mous miracle-working church at Lourdes," 
 said Howard Loeser. " I went there simply 
 because I wanted to see the place that had 
 worked a wonder with Minnie Caswell. You 
 all know that Minnie was on the debris heap 
 four years ago. She had lost her voice, her 
 beauty, her friends, and her hope. She was 
 the most forlorn figure in Thespis land. In 
 fact she didn't belong in the land any more. 
 I might say that she had strayed beyond 
 the border. She was always talking about 
 Lourdes. ' They could make me over at 
 Lourdes,' she said. The next thing I heard 
 she had gone over in the steerage to Havre 
 and from there to Lourdes. And you know 
 where she is now.'' Right at the top In comic 
 opera, and there to stay, too. So it is a 
 question of any system or faith, after all, 
 Mrs. Corwin?" 
 
 " It is developing the light within, in the 
 way that is easiest for us all," admitted the 
 old woman. 
 
 " Deep in our natures is a never-failing 
 [214 J 
 
An Eaklt Jump 
 
 spring of kindness to others and faith in the 
 good. Pump it up. Keep on pumping," read 
 Miss Errington from Eleanor Lawton's 
 " Help." 
 
 " Fear nothing but hatred of your kind," 
 Hannah More said. " If I had an enemy I 
 should want him to hate someone." Mrs. Cor- 
 win smiled as she looked far over the soft 
 Southern meadows. She slid off the trunk 
 and made her way to Mollie Shannon, whom 
 she joined in her walk. 
 
 Soon the second woman's face relaxed into 
 a smile. Its strained look disappeared. It 
 began to take on the soft contour of con- 
 tent. 
 
 " Did you know that Mrs. Corwin is a 
 healer.'' " said Alice Greely, in a low voice. 
 " She is treating poor Mollie Shannon for her 
 ' blues ' and her temper." 
 
 " How.? " 
 
 Even doubting Tommy Trot was interested. 
 
 " Just by thinking," explained Alice. 
 " Thinking hard that everything's all right 
 with Mollie and with everyone and everything 
 [215] 
 
By the Stage Door 
 
 else In the world. She says you can think peo- 
 ple into anything good you want them to be." 
 
 " Provided you never allow yourself to lose 
 hope and faith in them," added Eleanor. 
 
 " That's all right. I hke that." Tommy 
 Trot thought deeply for a moment. " Isn't 
 the ' profesh ' buying a reading-desk or pul- 
 pit or something for some sort of church some- 
 where? " 
 
 "Yes. The Second Church of Christ 
 Scientist in New York." 
 
 " Let's fix up a contribution from the com- 
 pany," said Tommy. 
 
 " Good, Tommy. We'll do it. You shall 
 be treasurer," said Loeser. 
 
 " Where shall I send it.? " 
 
 " To Mrs. Beaumont Packard, New York." 
 
 " And this is finis in Miss Lawton's 
 * Help,' " read Miss Errington. " Ella 
 Wheeler Wilcox, isn't it.? " 
 
 " The tide of love swells In me with such force 
 It sweeps away all hate and all distrust. 
 As eddying straws and particles of dust 
 Are lost by some swift river in its course. 
 
 [216] 
 
An Early Jump 
 
 Love is a plant that we can cultivate 
 To grace and fragrance sweeter than the rose ; 
 Or leave neglected while our heart still grows 
 Rank with that vile and poison nettle — hate. 
 
 Love is the law : but yield to its control. 
 And thou shalt find that all things work for best. 
 And in the cahn, still heaven of thy breast 
 That God himself sits talking with thy soul." 
 
 " Hooray ! There's the train ! " shouted 
 Tommy Trot. 
 
 [217]