Sena Yim
Bellefonte, Pa., September 4, 1931.
—————————————————
BETTER NOT KNOW
Life is so kind, never to let us know,
The time of our descent down the
long steep hill;
Never to know when he
soft snow,
Nor which bright
last to trill
bird will be the
Never to konw what joy will be the last.
When will fleet youth turn and wing
away?
But leave us know that the height is
past, -
Of that brief passion which no love
can stay.
Life
dream,
is so kind, far kinder than we
eee,
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|
i
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i
falls, the last
have to be on at the next rise,
you know, Miss Kellogg.”
“Did you see him throw me all
over the stage in that scene?” she
demanded. ‘It nearly killed my
curtain.”
Hampton
might be about to agree with her,
but Bates said sharply: “If you in-
terfere with my work, Hampton,
you'll have to take the responsi-
bility.”
“Now, now,” the director said.
“You are both nervous and wrought
| “Well, for the present.
Pain and grief darkens the hours, still
a gleam.
If I had known the day that you were
to die
I never, never could have said ‘‘Good-
Bye.”
e—— A —————
DIRTY WORK.
Lawrence Bates, the clear-cut
cameo of his profile a beauteous
to see even while he surren-
dered to such overmaste rage as
this, towered above Jean Kellogg as
she shrank imploringly back from
him. “You liar!” he cried tensely.
“You rotten liar!”
His fingers gripped her throat. He
choked her, shook her, threw her
from him so violently that she went
crashing down upon the floor.
As he left her and strode toward
the door she sat up and pulled her-
self into a chair, trying her best to
do it gracefully, but aware that this
was next to impossible. Her ears
strained for the first sign of the
fatal titter. It almost came; there
was an indefinable movement from
the audience, hardly more than a
breath, which threatened it. Unless
she could head off the laugh, her
dignity was lost, with no hope of
regaining it during the one minute
that remained before the curtain.
And Bates, across the stage, did
nothing to draw the eyes of the
audience from her.
She fought to take their minds
away from the grotesque fall. Some-
how she succeeded. In the chair, her
back to Bates, she got out her hand-
kerchief. She could not see him,
but she knew he was standing by
the door.
‘You—you hurt me,” she said.
And he replied: “I wouldn't care if
I had killed you.”
She spoke drearily, hopelessly; a
statement, not a question. “Then
it's all over.”
He did not answer her. In silence
she wept into her handkerchief.
Her anger and resentment were
tempered by triumph. Bates had
almost ruined her of the scene
and she had saved it. But the
triumph, in turn, was tempered by
apprehension. If he did that again
and again, she could hardly hope al-
ways to save it, and it was vitally
important that at this second act
curtain the audience should sympa-
thise with both the husband and the
e.
While thus she quietly wept, a
forlorn and tragic victim of misun-
derstanding and injustice, Bates had
his chance, and took it, as always,
admirably. He stood by the door,
looking at her. His mobile, intel-
ligent features, his long-lashed ex-
pressive eyes, even his broad shoul-
ders and tapering hands registered
|
up. It is only the second night.
will settle down in the next
day or two. Don’t quarrel.”
“Do you mean,” Jean protested,
“that you're going to let him keep on
doing it?"
“Of course he is,” Bates exclaim-
ed, and Hampton said, placatingly:
see, Miss Kellogg. It seemed to
me you both got over very well, ih-
deed. But we'll see.”
“When?”
“Oh, when things get a little
more set—next week, perhaps. We're
in for a run, you know. The spec-
ulators made a ten week's buy this
morning as soon as they saw the
good press. I'll look at the scene
from out front some night.”
Bates was smiling ironically as
Jean went to her dressing room.
And she knew as well as he did
that Hampton would do nothing.
Hampton was a good director, but it
was his first job with the Aarons
management. Bates had been a pop-
ular leading man in New York for
five years, and Jean had no particu-
lar Broadway public; this was her
first big part. >
Her mind raced as she made her
change. What was it all about?
Why should Lawrence Bates want to
ruin her in the play? It didn't
hurt his part in the slightest to have
hers played well.
He hadn't done it—yet. She had
succeeded in pulling herself out of
the situation tonight; perhaps she
could continue to do sc indefinitely.
If she couldn’t—if she failed to hold
the audience in that big scene at the
close of the second act—if the au-
dience once laughed at her—? Her
two week's notice; smaller parts
again; Piovary never another chance
at a lead in New York. And she
had worked so hard to climb. Her
first great opportunity—
The assistant stage manager tap-
ped on her door. “Third act!" he
called. She snatched one final
glance into the mirror and hurried
or stage. The curtain rose. She
forced herself to forget the second
act and concentrate on this one.
There was no place in it where
Bates could damage her work with-
out also injuring his own. The act
went magnificently. Together, af-
ter their powerful reconciliation
scene upon which the final curtain
fell with her in his arms, they took
seven calls. .
The newspaper reviews that morn- BTes
ing and afternoon had not been too
strong. ‘Mistaken Marriage” was
a definite hit.
The play had opened on Thursday
night, and at the Saturday matinee
another capacity audience saw it.
As Jean, on her first entrance, look-
ed out past the footlights into the
hazy darkness spotted in the fore-
with solid rows of vague
pink faces, her thought was that for
many weeks to come there would be
houses just like this one—whether
she were here to see them or not.
She must be here.
As the climax of the second act
approached she prepared herself as
best she could for the quarrel scene;
tried to fall gracefully, without
avail. Bates was too strong for
er.
she almost heard the dread-
Again
to all that he firmly intended never ed laugh, and again by the barest
to return to her—but that he surely
would; he could not do otherwise.
Jean heard the door close behind
him, and the house burst into ap-
plause. He had succeeded in getting
them with another of his wonderful
speechless exits.
She let the applause die, then rose
and moved, first hesitatingly and
then with resolution, to the tele-
phone, where she called the other
man-—the would-be lover whom ear-
lier in the act she had repulsed and
sent away, al h her husband
had believed her a liar when she
told him so. The curtain fell as
she asked that other man to come
back.
There was a loud rattle of hand-
clapping, and Bates came on to
join her in taking the call. He
smiled at her with cordial enthusi-
asm, contriving to let the audience
see that, regardless of how great a
part of that applause might be his,
he was generously glad to share it
all with her. They took two more
curtains’ r. The handclap-
ping ceased and Bates started for
jis dressing room, but she halted
m.
“Just 2a minute, Mr. Bates,” she
said. “That quarrel scene. What
was the idea of doing it differently
from last night? We never rehears-
ed it that awy.”
“It came to me at the moment as
a good bit of business,” he replied.
“Went over very well, don’t you
think 7?"
“They nearly laughed,” she retort-
ed. “These long skirts are hard
enough to handle without being
twisted around so that they slide up
over the knees. And when you
threw me you were too rough. You
actually hurt me.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said.
i
‘her. “He makes me look ridiculous, Pily.
succeeded in avoiding it.
Something approaching panic grip-
ped her.
This panic did not last into the
third act-—she was too experienced
an actress for that—and the ap-
plause that followed the final cur-
tain was, she knew, as much for
her as for him. Nevertheless, it
was an apprehensive and unhappy
leading woman who sat before the
mirror cold creaming her make-u
when a knock at the door was fol-
lowed by the entrance in a kimono
of Mrs. Adrian Shore, whose proud
record it was to have been on the
American stage, for sixty-two years,
since she was 14.
Slightly bent and thin with the
shrinkage of age, but still an im-
pressive figure, Mrs. Shore's parts in
these twilight days were small; so-
phisticated but kindly grandmothers,
and authoritative, likable and usually
epigrammatic society grande dames.
She did not appear in the last act
of “Mistaken age,” and ordi-
narily would have left the theatre
before the end of the performance,
but her matinee-day custom during
the run of any play in which she
worked was to remain and rest be-
tween afternoon and night.
“My dear,” she said, “what is this
talk I hear about you and Bates hav-
ing — Jun-in over some rough work
of on”
“That sounds as though you had
heard all there is to it” Jean told
and Hampton will do nothing about
it"
“Hampton is a jellyfish,” Mrs.
Shore declared abruptly. “He cut
three lines of mine out of the
first act during rehearsals for no
better reason than that Bates knew
“But you'll if I ever spoke them I would take
get used to it and be able to break the stage away from him.”
the fall.”
“Do you
it that way every
“Perhaps
try,” he said.
'ormance 7?”
“I have to be gov-
erned somewhat by my emotions at
I can't help
the moment—my art.
being realistic.”
“1 know how to make any kind of
a fall realistic, if it's property re-
hearsed. You don't have slam
me around like a mailbag.”
“My public,” said Bates, “expects
my best—always—and is entitled to
it. I never give them less.”
“Could you two postpone the
argument until some other time?”
a soft, tired voice broke in. Willis
Hampton, the director, had come
over to them—a worried little man
with longish white hair. “You
mean you propose to do!on me du
not exactly, although I'll out.
“Bates sprang the new business
the performance last
night,” said Jean, “and won't cut it
“A whi pper!” the old lady
exclaimed. “He has been calling
me ‘Miss Shaw’ ever since that re-
hearsal when I tried to save those
three lines of mine—and my Juliet
was getting good notices from critics
kg years before he was born.
It's the strangest thing, because an
actor learns how to walk and talk
like an intelligent person, how the
public get it into r heads he is
one.”
“1 don’t know what he has against
me,” said Jean. “I never met him in
my life until we began rehearsing
play. And I haven't done any-
thing to him since—not consciously.”
' him,
looked as though he
Later, we'll good
‘and
this part opposite
Mrs. Shore. Pw
Paula Joy at liberty.” |
Jean stopped the p of her
toilet. “Oh, is that it?” she said.
“I hadn't heard. Is she"
“I dom't know. Salk i oiReye
engaged. At any rate, ° ayward
a rs J Ee po
is oy no en-
ent, she has ved with this
management, and there should be
a vacancy in the woman lead of this
piece, she would stand a good chance
of getting it.”
“1 see. And he is in love with
her.”
“He's never in love with anybod
but Bates,” the old actress snapped.
“The most reasonable explanation of
it is that she is clever at giving him
cues that allow him to mention how
he is. I can worry along in-
definitely without having her in this
company. I played with her two
seasons ago in ‘Trial Divorce,’ and
she stepped on my best line for
seventy-one nights and twenty-four
matinees. But if Bates can make
you flop in that second act—It's bad
enough to have him in this cast
without having her, too. I am de-
pending upon you to see to i"
Jean smiled wryly. “Be assuredI
shall if I can,” she promised, “but if
they ever laugh when he tips me
over in that second-act climax, I'm
afraid I'll be sunk. If Hampton
would interfere—"
“He won't. You'll have to attend
to it yourself.”
“1 wish you could tell me how.”
Mrs. Shore considered this, and
then aslted: “Have you ever done
much dirty work?”
“Do you mean plays that are——"
“Great heavens! Is every tradi-
tion of the stage to be lost to this
generation?” cried the veteran. “I
thought every walk-on knew what
dirty work means. Stepping on good
lines—killing laughs-—upstaging the
other woman——"
“I know. I just never happened
to hear it called that,” Jean said.
“Mean tricks of the trade.”
“Devices of the profession,” Mrs.
Shore corrected her. “One shouldn't
have to do them, but the only way
to beat a scene hog is to root deep-
er than he does.”
“In this particular case, how?
“I don't know. You have no chance
to hit him back, have you? I have
never seen that second-act climax,
except at rehearsals, and I paid no
attention to it then, not being in on
it. But as I recall it, you have to
take what he gives you.”
“Yes,” Jean agreed.
“Too bad. If you didn't, perhaps—"
Mrs. Shore chuckled slightly.
“I was thinking of a most interest-
ing experience I had at the New
Wallack's in 1883. My husband was
on the road that season with Mr.
Booth-—doing Horatio, Cassio and
Edmund. Mr. Booth often said that
Adrian's Horatio—but I mustn't di-
s. We were playing a melodra-
ma called ‘Out of the Night. I had
the lead, of course. And the villain
was a man named Learoyd-—he
drank himself to death more than
forty years ago, or fellow! He
‘had formed a dislike for me a
small matter of curtain call which I
received and he pretended to think
‘should have been his. And the feud
got bigger, with one thing and anoth-
er, he set out to make me leave
the company.
“We had a big scene together—just
he and I—at the close of the fourth
act. He struck me, and I retaliated
by hitting him over the head witha
pottery vase. There were two vases
on the table and one of them-—the
one I used—was a rubber one, of
course. And he got to 80 much
‘force in that scene that I literally
had the mark of his hand on my
back every night when that act was
over.”
Unconsciously, Jean stroked her
left wrist, still sore from the vio-
lence of her fall in the second act.
“Perhaps I should have gone to
Lester Wallack about it,” Mrs. Shore
went on, “but he had many other
things on his mind, and actors were
supposed to solve their own personal
{ ulties—and, after all, earoyd
was the
and, with Wallack, the play was the
thing. MY Sear, you should have
seen his rles Surface and Bene-
dict back at the old second Wal-
lack’'s. With the exception of my
+husband—Where was I?
“Except play
" replied
“You didn't go to Mr. Wallack
about it.”
“No. I stood it as long as I
‘could. Then I said to Learoyd one
night after the curtain: ‘I've told
|you more than once not to strike
you now
You it again, |
you'll take the consequences.’
(And he sneered at me, and laughed
| —quite in his villain character. And
the next night he hit me harder
| than ever.” |
| A beatific smile of comf
Sllection illumined the old y's
ace.
i
|
me like that. I'm
for the last time.
“He was supposed, after that bat-
(the of ours,” she said, “to remain
{unconscious on the floor until the
| . And that night he did.” |
‘What did you do?”
| “My dear,” Mrs. Shore said hap- |
“I accidentally smote him
with the wrong vase.”
She added: “Mr. Wallack gave
ime the devil, but I have always
thought he was quite pleased.”
“Unfortunately,” Jean commented,
“there are no pottery vases or their |
equivalent in this play.” |
“This play? Oh, yes” said Mrs. |
Shore, ccming beck across the half |
century. “And Hampton won't do a |
thing. He's got his job to keep, |
and, anyway, he has about as much
force as Ophelia in modern clothes. |
Bates is out to kill work and |
get your place for Paula Joy. I!
don’t want that.
you, my dear, to face upstage when
|1 speak those two good lines in the
! first act.”
“And it's lovely the way they are
going over,” Jean told her sincerely.
“And those of yours in the
second act, too. It's wonderful the |
way you get every word over in a
low voice.”
“I'm from a day when all the]
people who paid their money for |
seats heard what an actress said, or |
she wasn't an actress,” Mrs. Shore |
reminded her. “But, getting back to
i
Bates. You've got to fix this with |
“With him >
scene convincing, Spoke to her now because she was
| applauded exit.
It is very nice of stage
|
“A fine chance!” |
“There's always a chance—when
you're fighting somebody with less
brains than you've got, y if
he's all swelled up with vanity.
Bates would make terms with you ed.
in a minute if you could kill some
big scene of his. Oh, without
to do it intentionally, of
the
vase over Learoyd's
only because he had hurt me so
much that I became confused. And
me with more than ten year's ex-
ence already; but Mr. Wallack
looked as though he believed it—
there was an actor! What is Bates’
best scene with you?”
“That one in the second act
climax, after he has thrown me to
the floor and I have crawled back in-
to the chair. At his exit.”
“I forget the scene—if I ever no-
ticed it. Is it the way he does an
exit speech?”
“No. It is all business. Hesita-
tion. Determination never tc re-
turn. Yet a pull that is sure to
bring him back—which, I with my
back to him, don't see; if I did, I
would never go to the phone and
call Richmond. He has got a big
hand every performance on that ex-
ity
Mrs. Shore's mayriad wrinkles deep-
ened with her thought. “And what
do you do,” she asked after a mo-
ment, while he has that exit busi-
ness?”
“Cry.”
“How? Show me just how youdo
it, please.”
Jean produced her handkerchief
and showed her. The old lady emit-
ted a cry of delight that was almost
a whoop.
“Oh, lovely!” she exclaimed. “I
have it, my dear. Give me that
handkerchief. You never stop weep-
ing until he has left the stage, do
you? Never mind how lorg he
might take to de it, or how much
he might change the timing of his
business.”
“No. I don't move till he slams the
door.”
Jean looked-listened—laughed. Mrs.
Shore returned the handkerchief and
came a trifle creakily to her feet.
“I'll be getting back to my room,”
she said. ‘““You have to get your
dinner, and I must have a nap. If
I don't, I might drop off to sleep
during that long scene in the first
act where I have nothing to do but
twiddle my thumbs—thanks to Bates
getting Hampton to cut my lines.
Good luck to you. 1 propose, if
possible, to be in the wings to see
the denouement of this plot myself.”
She paused before she opened the
dressing-room door and delivered an
exit speech.
“He calls me ‘Miss Shaw!" she ex-
claimed, “And better actors than he
is have carried spears for me.”
Bates crossed to the door at the
end of the second act that night and
stood there, doing nothing to take
the eyes of the audience from Jean,
who was desperately wrestling with
her twisted skirt.
he realized that again she had ex-
tricated herself from the situation;
she was in the chair, her handker-
chief in her hand, and they had not
laughed.
He and she had their three lines
of dialogue. He made his exit. The
door slammed behind him.
He took one step, stopped, listen-
ed in incredulous and shocked amaze-
ment. Not one handclap came
from the audience. He blinked,
seeking to recall every detail of busi-
ness just past. What had he fail-
ed to do that he ought to have
done? Nothing. He felt certain of
that. Not for one second had his
mind been off the technique of that
exit. There could be only one ex-
planation.
Old Mrs. Shore was standing a
few feet away, in her second-act
dress, having postponed going to her
dressing room until the curtain.
Bates did not appreciate that this
was unusual; he had never noticed
whether or not she was an offstage
observer of this climax, or cared. He
the only person at hand.
“Rotten audience tonight,” he
said. “No intelligence.”
“You never can tell,” the old lady
replied.
It did not, could not, occur to
Bates that she possibly might mean
anything except that there was no
predicting the mental quality of au.
dleuces ust be a housed of
yaps, Hissustedly. “Minds
all on the price butter and eggs.
And now no call unless Hampton
forces it." |
Jean's voice, on stage, was speak-
ing into the phone, and quick upon
the fall of the curtain came the loud
rattle of the audience's appreciation
of the act, as enthusiastic as during
any of the other three performances. '
Bates returned through the door to
share the call with her and the two
more that followed. As Jean came
off, preceding him, Mrs. Shore nod-
ded to her and said: “Nice work,
child.” i
Bates, frowning as he went to his
dressing room, did not hear her; his
mind was too intently upon that un- |
as it ble |
that he had fumbled it? e must
have, somehow. Well, Monday
night would tell a different story; he |
would se to that. i
But it did not. With every ounce
of skill he he went thro
the exit business; knew he was |
ing it better than ever. The door
slammed shut. Silence.
The true explanation came to him
—harrowingly. His smile as he
took the calls with Jean was no less
cordial and generous than on other
nights, but when they had left the
and she had hurried to her
room he went swiftly to where the
director was turning from the)
“Look here, Hampton!” he de-!
manded. “What did that woman do |
to me?” |
“What woman?” the director ask-
ed. “When?”
“Kellogg. Just now. She did
something to kil! my exit.” i
“What?”
i
| switchboard entrance.
can't see through the back of a|
chair. You could see her from |
Disappointedly Yo!
{had accentuated Bates’ beauty left
| controlled by
“How the devil do I know? I switch.
where you were standing. What a minute, Miss Kellogg. You need
did she do?” (to hear this.”
“Nothing but the usual business.” Jean's
“Yes, she did. She must have.
I've made that exit two nights now
without getting a hand.”
y second-
a>: exit by blowing her nore,” Bat>g
“1 noticed that,” Hampton remark- auaped To Hampton. “I want you
u stop it.”
“Well, can it be my fault?” “Blowing—-oh, no,” the direclor
The director . “You fad. “You could hear it.”
haven't got them.” | “Some of them can hear it—over
“Have 1 done anything different on that side, down front. But the
from the way I did it the first three point is that the whole house sees
performances, when I did get them 2» jt. She has a handkerchief to her
“I don't know; can't see you make face, and just one second before 1}
that exit on this side from where begin my exit business she bunches
I'm standing at the curtain. I'll her fingers and twitches the end of
get out into the house some night—" her nose with it. And every eye
“You don't need to get out into stays on her till she stops. Anc
the house any night, ampton, to she doesn’t stop. She doesn’t stop
know that I'm doing my work until the door closes and I am gone
right,” Bates broke in. “I don't She does it two or three different
have to be told how to make exits, ways.”
and when. I make an exit like that “I'm sure I don't see what all the
one, either I get a big hand or, some- fuss is about,” Jean told the direc:
body has killed it. And there isn't tor. “I merely cry. The busines:
anybody on stage but Kellogg.” He calls for it.”
scowled suspiciously. “If I thought “You blow your nose. And twitcl
you and she had put up any job on it. I had you watched,” exclaimec
me—' the 1 man.
“Now, Mr. Bates” the director re- “Had her watched—what do you
monstrated. “Don’t get nervous and mean?” Jean asked innocently
excited. If there's anything being “Surely the business of that scenei:
done that's wrong, of course I'll stop no secret; the whole house sees ms
it. Ill watch tomorrow night— do it. And why shouldn't I blow
but I was looking tonight, and I my nose—softly—and twitch it? 2
didn't see anything.” woman always does that when sh:
cries.”
“Your eyes are getting old,” Bates ’
told him brutally, and turned away. Why hen Tm making on ex
And the eyes with which the direc- «op put Mr. Bates!" she protest
tor followed him were unquestionably oq TI can't help being realistic
oid—and, as unquestionably, resent- y,, couldn't ask it. Mr. Hampto
In = quiet corner at : the Lafubs, at Solilen t. And even if you did, m;
mid-r ‘ght, Lawrence tes recoun “Art, hell!” cried Bates. ‘Liste
ed his trouble to Jerome Wilstead, yampton! She's stealing my scen
an actor well-nigh as decorative as __ every night. Are you going t.
Bates himself, who for the moment gang for tat, or must I go t
was at liberty. Between them Aar.ong?’ ’ go
there existed a friendship as warm « : best
as could be possible between any Jens pe Diphie a ar w
fo Sicaway leading men of sim- can't give them any less.”
r g "
Eure you are Baten con. ol pl KalbEEy, tery
cluded. Every eye in the house pampton said, “I 't believe M)
swings ver b er at exactly the Aarons would interfere—not with th
minu at exit business—I .q))5 ghe is getting every night o
know it. She does something toget nat scene. You can see him abou
them, and that old fool Hampton ji if you want to, of course, althoug
can't see it. He can't really be in naturally I'd rather you didn't.” H
on it, of course. It isn't likely he explained: “I'd be afraid, if w
could be a party to doing anything called his attention to the fact tha
- down, where's his your work isn't going over at tha
show 7" spot, he might wonder why I a
“Right,” agreed Wilstead. “It's
the woman, no doubt. What a wo- sl lelting you take all those call
ejaculation ma
man will do to kill a man's artistic y
work is unbelievable. Last season, na red SuiNng as a prayer
when 1 was ying in ‘Frail Lady’ 1 pate to do it, Mr. Bates, if yo
pposite Lola Trask, I had a wonler- don’t like it,” Jean said “Reall
ful scene. It was in the last act: 4, But you'll get used to Rs
quite the most outstanding thing in game ag I'am getting used to tha
the pace. Trask—a mice Nitle Wo. fall.”
man, but temperamental! ©. Hampton's old
quite jealous. Oh, naturally enough, ,ressionless as he. said mildly:
I suppose; it really must have been * .y pone this is going to be a ha
jrargd jor Lek, tie_way, Yihda gem monious company. And while I can
I a OO EY igi , 00 On gee my way clear to stopping any
8 ist a am peak BO t oid Bie thing in that scene that is good ac!
at: the: ohne a ver Kell 18 ing, it does seem to me the scene a
- OEE 18 5 ‘whole went just as well the firs
doing, while sie js shat night as it has been going since-
r, 0 , g wan
to. set In the front row, tomor without either that awkward fall
Tow night, away rer on hat side. ine ™*Y me Dislness | Exc
on ru be lad to. Wh he locks up.”
m ng ome nson, e . y
playwright. He is crazy to get me The smile with which Jean wai
. ed for Bates to speak, as the direc
ra n eee :
ag oA Pl out Tue afraig 1 tor bustied away, was in no wit
can't offer you but one seat. I'll triumphant, but artless—the smi
have to buy it, you know—at specu- with which she had conquered a:
lators' prices.” diences when her parts had bee
those of naive ingenues. And Bate
“Why, of course, if you have to | after swallowing twice, became tk
do that,” Wilstead sympathetically charming actor and achieved a mo:
agreed. “It didn't occur to me. I Winning manner of friendly consic
am always able to get paper for my eration.
frignds_Sven with a sellout.” ou Sertain) 2 wi
o , naturally,” replied Bates. r scene, Ogg; you 0
“But even I rt rr a special, that” he said. “I'll tell you whi
definite seat, and you'll have to be let's do. It really isn't a new ide:
in the front row, on that side of the I've had it in my mind ever sinc
stage. That means the ticket brok- that little talk we had the othe
er will have to find it or pretend to Night, but I've been terribly bus:
—and how they soak you when you NeW photographs and other demand
have to have a certain location! Suppose we have a little rehears:
Come on back right after that scene; tomorrow and work out a way ¢
I'll tell the doorman to send you that what I do will look proper
to my room. We'll have plenty of rough and yet leave you in & goc
time to talk. I'm not on in the position for the remainder of ti
third act for nearly ten minutes.” Scene.”
“I might wait until the final cur- “That's a good idea,” Jean
have no desire to hu
agree
tain. As 1 as I'm there, I'd “Shall we say 12 o'clock, here?”
ike to
robably 1 see the opening of “If that is most convenient f«
the oy act.” you,” Bates said. He seemed !'
“There's little of any consequence Wonder if perhaps he had not co
in it, I assure you,” Bates said. ceded too much, too quickly. *“(
“Still, if you want to, can hurry course,” he added, “there might |
out front again, but I'd like to have Some rformance when I became :
you come on back at once, while it's away by my emotions—"
fresh in your mind. I want to “Of course” said Jean amiabl
know. And don't take r eyes “Rvery artist has moments like tha
off her for a moment. a And I know, when you do, that y¢
of how artistic my business may be will understand it—and not feel ba
at the other side of the stage, watch ly at all—if I, too, carried awe
her.” by emotion and 1
“Just as everybody else in the Behind them sounded a most lad
house does, eh?” said Wilstead. like laugh—the sort of laugh th
“You may nd upon me, old fel- would be described in the script of
low. It re me of an incident Society dowager's part as “slight
when I was pla ‘Discretion.’ amused” —and Bates turned to o
You didn’t see me in that, as I re. serve that old Hrs. Shore, dress:
call it, but you know the hit I made. for the street, was standing not f.
I had a big scene inthe third act—" away. He wondered how much sl
Jerome Wilstead— at a cost to could have heard.
Bates of eight dollars—sat on Tues- “At noon tomorrow, then,” |
day night in row AA, the third seat said to Jean, and strode toward
from the left-center aisle. He re- dressing room. As he passed he
mained there not only until the cur- Mrs. Shore said to him in her swe¢
tain had descended upon thelast of est other voice:
the calls that followed the second * night, Mr. Butts.”
act, but until the house lights were Copyright, 1931, by J. Frank Dav
up ‘and most of the rush to the lob-|
y Was over. en went up i
through the lobby and the sidewalk | POST OFFICES DECREASIN
Sow Jas al Ssunrely. Se has Rural residents receive about se
alley leading to the stage door, and enteen times more mail than th
he 80 acceleratd the conversation in Send in a year, according to t
Bates’ dressing room that he was latest figures of the Post Office D
able to return and down the partment. These show that an ave
length of the aisle while still there a8 of 102 pounds of mail matt
was ample light. But the talk be- Was delivered per trip, over 43,0
pp ——————
‘tween him and Bates, brief and con- Fural routes last year, whereas on
| cise as he made it, was sufficient. |six pounds was collected. The ave
The leading man in “Mistaken Mar-'38¢€ of 102 pounds delivered includ
riage” was no longer mystified as to all classes of mail matter and co:
what was restraining audiences from pu Sout “i pieces on an ave
ving him his meed of exit lause. .
Ene third act moved on n APR end | Although more than 340 new pc
of passionate reconciliation and he Offices each year have been added
and Jean made their final bows. | the United States postal § tem sin
Then, as the director signaled for 1789, there were early ,000 mc
the footlights to go off, the smile | Post, Mets 1 Giiten in 190 m
jen Guo; humo eails | the spread of the rural free ¢
his f livery system, established a lit
ea BD thous enti | more than 30 years ago.—Montrc
| Independent.
“Hampton!” he called sharply. And |
no less sharply said to Jean: “Wait |
————— A ——————
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