The advance sale of seats for the engagement of the Frolics opened that
morning. Jimmy Martin stood chatting with Manager George Seymour in the
lobby of the Lyric Theatre and watching the long queue of prospective
ticket purchasers which stretched out to the sidewalk and curved up the
street for nearly half a block. Jimmy couldn’t resist gloating just a
little bit. He had adopted a more or less casual, “I told you so”
attitude the day before when the first story appeared, but this morning
he just naturally expanded.
“Well, Georgie old man,” he remarked cheerily. “You’ve got to give him
credit. The kid’s clever.”
“What kid?” asked Mr. Seymour.
“That Martin fellow ahead of the ‘Frolics.’ I told you stirring up towns
was a specialty of his. He certainly handed this one a jolt. Do you hear
’em all talking about this morning’s yarn? It’s the biggest press story
in years.”
“Just luck—dumb luck.”
“Pretty good for the little old showshop and the little old show,
though, you’ve got to admit. Come on, Georgie, act human. Own up that if
it hadn’t been for the big idea I led in by the hand, little old Robert
B. Luck wouldn’t have had a chance to sit in and draw five cards.”
“Say,” remarked Seymour irrelevantly, “did you know Meyerfield was
coming over this morning? He phoned me from Washington last night after
you’d gone.”
“I didn’t know it,” responded Jimmy, “but it’s music to my ears. I want
to be lingering around when he lamps this line. You know he told me to
smear the girls all over the front page, but he didn’t say anything
about doing it two days running.”
Jimmy strolled down the lobby and loitered near the slow moving line. He
felt a pleasurable little thrill as he listened to the comments on the
Bulletin’s story. He walked out to the street and ran his eye along the
queue that nearly reached the corner. Then a taxi drove up and
Meyerfield alighted. Jimmy caught a flash of the Bulletin sticking out
of the manager’s overcoat pocket. So he’d seen the story already, he
thought. Well, he’d try to be modest.
“Hello, Martin,” said Meyerfield, holding out a clammy hand and giving
Jimmy a barely perceptible grip. “Glad I caught you. Pittsburg’s
cancelled and we’re going straight through to Boston from here. You’d
better duck over there right away. Come back to the office a minute.
There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
The manager gave the line a look of quick appraisal as he passed quickly
back to Seymour’s office. Jimmy followed him, a little shade downcast at
the failure of his employer to make mention of his achievement.
Meyerfield greeted Seymour pleasantly, slid into a chair, slowly lit a
cigar and assumed his most judicial manner.
“Martin,” he said presently. “I want to talk to you about these stories
that have been running in the Bulletin. Now——”
“Some little smear, eh?”
“It’s a smear all right, but it isn’t the kind of publicity I want.”
“But,” Mr. Meyerfield,” broke in Jimmy incredulously. “Did you see the
line? Why——”
“Yes, I saw the line, but that doesn’t mean everything. It’s just a
little flash in the pan, and besides it’s dangerous stuff—why you can’t
tell what would come of it. Someone told me on the train coming over
that there was a quarter of a billion dollars represented by the names
in that story.”
“But that’s just why it’s good stuff! The more important the people——”
“I wish you wouldn’t interrupt me,” snapped Meyerfield. “I’ve got a
silent partner in New York—a big banker—he’s going to back my new summer
show. Why, if he ever gets wise to this stuff you can’t tell what’d
happen. He may know some of these fellows you’ve mixed up in this story
and he may call the whole thing off. You came pretty near getting me in
Dutch. Maybe you have. You’d better pull a new line of stuff over in
Boston. This kind’ll never do.”
He watched Jimmy narrowly to see how that ordinarily enthusiastic young
gentleman was responding to this line of talk. Jimmy’s first expression
of bewilderment was replaced by one of great anxiety.
“All right, Mr. Meyerfield,” he said deferentially. “You know best.
You’ve been at it longer than I have, and, of course, you know the show
business from more angles than I do. I’m sorry it happened. I didn’t
understand. I’ll try and pull something different over in Boston.”
“That’s it,” beamed Meyerfield. “The fireworks stuff is all right, but
sticking to facts and real legitimate publicity is what lasts. We’ll let
by-gones be has-beens. You’d better start on the earliest train
possible. By the way, Miss Bellairs is going to lay off for a couple of
weeks after our opening here. Her doctor says she’ll have a six month’s
session in a sanitarium if she doesn’t, but we can get by that all
right. You mustn’t let a word of this get out. You understand?”
“Sure I understand,” replied Jimmy. “Who’s going on in her place?”
“Little Leona LeClaire,” said Meyerfield. “It’s a chance to put her on
in the leading role, but I think she’ll fill the bill all right. She’s
been under-studying all season.”
“I get you, Mr. Meyerfield. I’ll try and pull something different.”
“That’s the talk,” replied the manager, extending a fishy hand again.
As the door swung shut on the press agent, Meyerfield turned to Seymour
and gave him a prodigious wink.
“How do you like my work, George?” he asked expansively.
“I don’t understand,” puzzled the theatre manager. “What do you mean? I
thought that newspaper stuff was damned good, if you ask me. Best thing
pulled off here in years.”
“Of course it was George,” responded Meyerfield with an air of great
wisdom. “It was one of the best ever, but if I told that fresh gink I
thought it was, there’d be no holding him. He’d take the bit in his
teeth and bolt down Main street. He’d begin to think he was worth a
thousand dollars a minute. Birds like that have to be held down. Don’t
let ’em ever think they’re good, I know how to handle all his kind.”
* * * * *
Meyerfield’s office boy dumped a big pile of Boston Sunday papers on his
desk the following Monday morning. The manager opened the Press and
turned to the theatrical page. He skimmed it hurriedly and then uttered
a low moan. Staring him in the face was a double column picture of Leona
Le Claire. Over it was a headline which read:
PRIMA DONNA’S ILLNESS
GIVES CHORUS GIRL
A BIG OPPORTUNITY
––––
A story detailing the facts about Bessie Bellairs’ threatened breakdown
followed, together with some account of the stage beginnings of the
understudy. Meyerfield frantically looked through the other papers and
found the photograph of the Le Claire girl featured in each one of them
with practically the same story. He called his stenographer and angrily
dictated this telegram:
JAMES MARTIN,
AGENT MEYERFIELD’S FROLICS,
STAR THEATRE, BOSTON, MASS.
WHY DID YOU PRINT THAT BONE-HEAD
STORY ABOUT UNDERSTUDY
AFTER MY INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CON-
TRARY—YOU’RE RUINING MY BUSINESS
—WIRE IMMEDIATELY.
MEYERFIELD.
This answer came back—collect—in an hour and a half:
MAURICE MEYERFIELD,
1426 BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY.
GO OUT AND PLAY WITH THE CHIPPY
BIRDS. IF YOU WANT TO PUT ANYTHING
OVER ON ME YOU’LL HAVE TO
SET YOUR ALARM CLOCK EARLIER—I
RESIGN—I’M OFF SONG AND DANCE
SHOWS FOR LIFE—NOTHING BUT highbrow
STUFF FOR MINE FROM NOW ON—HAVE
SIGNED TO GO AHEAD OF OLGA
STEPHANO IN HEDDA GABLER, BY
HENRI K. IBSEN.
MARTIN.
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