A letter from Lolita, received in Cleveland a few weeks later while
Jimmy was on the first lap of his transcontinental journey as press
agent extraordinary for Madame Olga Stephano, the noted exponent of
Ibsen, sent the dark clouds which had given him an extremely low
visibility scurrying like mist before the sun and shot his blood
pressure up almost to the danger point.
Lolita admitted the justice of Jimmy’s objection to “Ursula’s Undies,”
and sent word that she had finally ceased her connection with that
organization and was “doing bits” with a stock company in Mt. Vernon. If
Jimmy would only forgive her she’d heed his advice on all occasions in
the future. Jimmy, in a mood of extreme jubilation, had sent her a
seventy-three word night letter and had retired early.
When he bounded out of his bed in the Carlton Hotel the next morning and
looked over a copy of the Star which a thoughtful management had slid
under his door, he began to radiate gladness and to impart tidings of
good cheer. Little Sunshine, the sweet young orphan in the story book,
who went around making folks forget their troubles by telling them that
abscessed teeth and carbuncles were blessings in disguise, had nothing
on him.
He trilled a merry roundelay while he bathed and shaved, and he felt so
good that he tossed a “good morning, kid” to a pert little sparrow who
was hopping about on the fire escape outside the open window.
Jimmy had a well forged alibi for his exuberance of spirits, quite apart
from the resumption of diplomatic relations with the fair Lolita. He had
just performed that fascinating operation known in the patois of the
profession as “putting one over.” The patient who had submitted to his
deft scalpel was no less a personage than E. Cartwright Jenkins,
dramatic editor of the Star. E. Cartwright Jenkins was the alpha and
omega, the guardian angel of the drama in that corner of the world.
It is only fair to state that just one month before Jimmy’s advent on
the scene, E. Cartwright had declared war to the death on the bureau of
publicity and promotion. He had issued a manifesto which took in
everyone from the humblest representatives of a “Tom show” to the avaunt
couriers of the actors and actresses deemed worthy of favorable mention
by the critics of the Big Town.
The Jenkins’ ire had been aroused by a neat little yarn submitted by a
modest young gentleman with mild blue eyes who had attested to its
accuracy on the sacred honor of his grandsires. The subsequent
developments had almost involved the Star in an expensive libel suit and
certain blistering remarks from the owner and publisher of the paper,
directed at the dramatic editor’s head, had resulted in the issuance of
the aforementioned ultimatum. The manager of the Standard Theatre had
shown Jimmy the letter containing it.
“We shall accept from the theatre,” the letter ran, “only the briefest
sort of a general preliminary announcement giving the name of the play
and the players concerned. Press agents’ contributions are not wanted
and will not be used. It will not be necessary for them to call to pay
their respects. We will take those for granted.”
As Jimmy sat on the edge of his bed and read the dramatic page of the
Star over again he chuckled gleefully. Confronting him was a three
column head which read: “Defense and a Rebuttal.” Underneath it was a
thousand word letter addressed to the dramatic editor and signed “Very
Respectfully Yours, James T. Martin.” Following it was a long piece
bearing the signature of E. Cartwright Jenkins.
The letter was a work of surpassing art which had been jointly composed
the day before by Jimmy and a reporter on the rival Inquirer who had
covered “sports” with him in days gone by on a St. Louis paper and who
had a freely flowing repertoire of adjectives at his command that was
dazzling in its completeness. It was a protest against the Star’s
embargo on theatrical tidings and a defense of the ancient and honorable
calling of press agent. It was cunningly interlarded here and there with
oily and unctuous references to the supreme wisdom of Mr. Jenkins.
That worthy gentleman was appealed to as “the recognized authority on
all things pertaining to the serious drama in this part of the United
States” and as a “patron of the seven arts whose causeries are the
delight of the cultured and the despair of the untutored.” Mention was
made of the discouragement such worthy artists as Madame Stephano met
with as a result of the refusal of the Star to co-operate in the
movement for the uplift of the stage, etc., etc.
“That’ll get that old bird,” Jimmy had remarked to his friend after the
latter had explained what the “seven arts” were. “He’s the chairman of
the executive committee of the I-Hate-Myself Club.”
Jimmy had had prophetic vision. E. Cartwright had fallen into the trap.
He had printed the letter in full and he had followed it with certain
remarks of his own in which he regretted that the new rule interfered
with the “proper exploitation of such representative and distinguished
players as Madame Stephano,” etc., etc.
The press agent took out a lead pencil and began underscoring the name
of his star every time it appeared in both his letter and the dramatic
editor’s subjoined comment.
“Fourteen times,” he chuckled to himself. “The poor old boob.”
He stuck his derby on his head a bit rakishly, reached for a silver
topped walking stick and started a progress down to the lobby that was a
continuous round of cheery greetings. He joked with the chambermaid he
saw entering the room next his own; exchanged a bit of badinage with
another who was loitering near the elevator, and playfully slapped the
elevator boy on the back with his folded newspaper. He maintained this
exalted mood throughout breakfast during which meal he again counted
over the “Madame Stephanos” on the sixth page to see if he’d made a
mistake in his previous reckoning.
After breakfast he strolled out into the lobby again and over to the
cigar counter. As he pointed to a box in the case marked “50¢” each, he
beamed at the slender blonde who was reaching to serve him and the
blonde beamed back.
“Say, sister,” he asked pleasantly, “how’d you like a couple of seats
for the show Monday night at the Standard?”
“Fine,” replied the young woman. “What is it?”
“Olga Stephano,” returned the press agent as he reached for his pass pad
and his fountain pen.
“She’s that Russian actress, ain’t she, that plays in those highbrow
plays?”
“That’s right,” replied Jimmy. “Ibsen stuff, but she’s a bear at it. She
makes you tremble and she makes you sigh.”
The blonde person took the proffered pass and folded it carefully.
“I’ll take my sister,” she said. “She’ll have the time of her life if
there’s anything sad in it. I must say you press agents are a mighty
nice lot of boys. I meet a lot of you fellows in the course of a season
and most every one slips me a pass just for sociability. Here comes Mr.
Wilson now. He just got in this morning. He told me he’s ahead of some
new play they’re trying out for Otis Taber.”
The gentleman who was approaching was a well set-up, prosperous looking
man in his early forties who looked more like a bank cashier or a
successful professional man than the popular conception of a theatrical
advance agent. He was one of that distinguished little group of clever
newspapermen who have been lured away from the daily grind of
news-gathering or editorial work into the pleasant bypaths of theatrical
endeavor and who have found the fascinations of the show world too
subtle to resist no matter how hard they try.
“Hello, Jimmy, old man,” he said heartily. “What are you doing out here
in Cleveland? I thought you were with ‘Meyerfield’s Frolics’.”
“I was,” replied Jimmy, “but I’m off song and dance shows. I had a run
in with Meyerfield.”
“What are you doing?” asked the other.
“I’ve signed up with the little old uplift, Tom,” returned Jimmy. “I’m
elevating our well known stage.”
Tom Wilson looked puzzled for a moment.
“You don’t mean to say that you’re ahead of Stephano?” he gasped.
“That’s what,” said Jimmy, with easy assurance. “I knew it would hand a
laugh to all of you kid glove scouts, but I’m going to make good even if
I am about as much of a highbrow as a bush league second baseman. As a
matter of fact I’ve started to clean up already. Have a cigar.”
Mr. Wilson looked in the case and indicated a modestly priced weed.
Jimmy held up a deprecatory hand.
“Nothing doing, sister,” he expanded. “Slip him one of those regular
smokes.”
His friend picked a thick cigar out of the box the blonde person handed
him and looked into Jimmy’s smiling face.
“Say,” he inquired. “What’s the idea? Had a legacy or something?”
Jimmy motioned him towards a large leather sofa in the center of the
lobby.
“I’ve just put one over on the censor,” he exulted, as he settled down,
“and I just naturally feel a little frisky. You don’t mind if I pin a
few war crosses on my chest, do you?”
“Not at all,” replied the other good naturedly. “Fire ahead.”
Jimmy opened the folded newspaper in his hand and passed it to his
brother agent with a playful little flourish. As the latter read the
indicated section Jimmy watched him out of the corner of his eye
carefully looking for signs of approval. Along about the second
paragraph a knowing smile began to curl the corners of Mr. Wilson’s
mouth. His companion heaved a sigh of profound satisfaction and lolled
back at peace with all the vasty universe.
“That’s a pretty good start,” commented the other handing the paper
back. “Rather a choice line of language, too.”
“You said something,” returned Jimmy. “I’ve got a date with a couple of
those words the next time I run into a dictionary. I betcha old E.
Cartwright never gets wise. Nothing succeeds like the little old salve.”
When the meeting of Local No. 78 of the Publicity Promoters’ Mutual
Admiration Society adjourned about ten minutes later, Tom Wilson
inquired if Jimmy was planning any more attacks on the common enemy. The
latter yawned in simulation of great nonchalance.
“Oh, I’ve got a few ideas I hope to put into general circulation before
the day is over,” he remarked casually. “Old Henry P. Inspiration has
been working overtime for me since I turned highbrow. I’ll walk down to
the theatre with you.”
Jimmy’s imagination indulged in grand and lofty tumbling on the way to
the playhouse. It also soared and it may be stated, with due regard for
veracity, that it looped the loop and otherwise comported itself in a
highly sensational manner. If he had voiced only half of the weird
notions for publicity that came to him, Tom Wilson would have
undoubtedly felt constrained to take him firmly by the arm and lead him
to an alienist. Jimmy’s mind always worked that way when he was
particularly exalted. Usually there were one or two of the wild ideas
that surged within him that could afterwards stand the cold light of
reason and that served as the basis of successful onslaughts on the
custodians of newspaper space.
As the pair approached the big skyscraper that housed the Star, Jimmy
turned to his companion.
“You don’t mind if I drop in here and correct an ad proof, do you?” he
asked.
The other shook his head and they both entered the business office of
the newspaper. Directly confronting them was a huge sign hung over the
counter. It carried this legend in large letters:
THE STAR’S APPLE PIE
CONTEST IS NOW ON
ENTER YOUR PIES EARLY
Jimmy stood still and let the words sink in. They bore to him a message
of infinite hope. He leaned over eagerly to the young woman behind the
counter.
“Say, miss,” he inquired. “Where can I get the dope on this pie
contest?”
“Miss Slosson, the pie editor—right in the back of the office here,”
responded the girl.
Jimmy grabbed Tom Wilson by the arm and led him towards the rear of the
room.
“I’m going to put it over on this sheet again just for luck,” he
confided.
A sign reading, “Enter Your Pies Here,” attracted them to a railed-off
corner of the big office room. A stout woman in the skittish forties,
who was dressed like an ingenue, looked up at them from behind a table
on which a number of luscious looking apple pies reposed. On shelves on
the wall behind her, scores of other pies, all tagged, were arranged.
“Is this contest open to anyone?” inquired Jimmy bowing pleasantly.
“Certainly,” gushed the pie editor. “I’m so glad to see gentlemen in
this office. So many women have been in since we opened this contest
that it makes one feel rather lonesome for the stronger sex. Do you wish
to enter a pie?”
“Yes, m’am,” replied Jimmy promptly.
“Oh, a gentleman cook,” Miss Slosson rattled on. “How utterly adorable.
Do you know I’ve always felt that there was no reason on earth why a man
shouldn’t take a hand in the kitchen if he chose. It’s only a foolish
convention——”
“Please, Miss Slosson,” broke in Jimmy drowning out a chuckle from Tom
Wilson which seriously threatened to develop into a ribald laugh,
“please—the pie I want to enter wasn’t baked by myself. It isn’t baked
yet by anyone. I wanted to know if you’d be interested in having a pie
entered by Madame Olga Stephano?”
“You mean the Russian actress who’s coming to the Standard next week?”
asked Miss Slosson.
“Yes, m’am,” replied Jimmy. “I’m her manager and I just happened to see
the announcement of your contest and I remembered that she’s a great
cook and I thought perhaps you’d like to have her enter in the pie
stakes—that is, I mean I thought you’d like to have her bake a pie and
send it in. Apple pies are her specialty. Mr. Wilson here and myself ate
one cooked by her own hand last summer down at her country home on Long
Island. Remember that pie, Mr. Wilson?”
Jimmy’s confrere was equal to the emergency.
“I should say I did,” he quickly replied in his most dignified manner.
“How could I ever forget? It was a poem, a real lyric bit of pastry.”
“This is wonderful,” gurgled Miss Slosson, “perfectly wonderful! It will
give just the filip to this thing that I’ve been after. We can challenge
the women of the home to equal the culinary efforts of the women of the
stage. You understand, of course, that we must insist upon your entry
being bona-fide. We must have assurance that the pie has actually been
baked by Madame Stephano. How will she be able to bake it and how will
you get it here? Our contest closes the day after tomorrow, you know.”
“That’ll be all right, Miss Slosson,” returned Jimmy. “I’ll get her on
the long distance phone just as soon as I can get back to my hotel.
She’s playing in Chicago and she’s stopping with friends in a private
home. She’ll bake it right away and I’ll get her to ship it right
through by express. She’ll be tickled to death. The home is everything
to her. Most domestic little woman I ever met.”
“Isn’t that too delightful,” responded the pie editor. “Some of them are
that way I suppose. I wonder if you have any pictures of her that I
could use?”
Jimmy turned a glance toward his companion in which there was a gleam of
triumph as he began to unbuckle the leather case he always carried with
him.
“I think that it’s just possible I may have one or two right here with
me,” he said. “Yes, isn’t that lucky? Do you care for any of these?”
He handed a half dozen assorted pictures of the great Russian actress
across the table. Miss Slosson picked out three of them.
“I’ll use one tomorrow morning with a long story about her entrance,”
she said, “and I’ll use one the day after, too. Tomorrow I’ll run a
picture of Mrs. Jefferson Andrews, one of our society leaders who has
entered, right opposite Mme. Stephano’s. It’s a perfectly darling idea.
Thank you so much and be sure and get her on the phone right away and
don’t forget that the contest closes at six o’clock Thursday evening.”
Jimmy didn’t say a word until they reached the sidewalk. Then he turned
to his friend.
“Say, Tom,” he remarked, “you don’t mind waiting a minute while I pin on
the little old Croy de Gerre thing, do you? What do you think about the
way I worked the bunk on Sarah Ann Slosson? Ain’t she just the cutest
thing?”
Tom Wilson looked at him rather cynically.
“How are you going to go through with it?” he asked quietly.
“How am I going to go through with it?” echoed Jimmy. “Why I’m going to
do just what I said I was going to do. I’m going to call up the
beautiful star and get her to bake that pie or have someone else bake it
and I’m going to call up Jordan, the company manager and have him tend
to the shipping. I’ll get her to write a little note in her own
handwriting about the joys of kitchen life that they can use for a big
splash.”
“You will, eh,” retorted Wilson. “You talk as if you’d never met this
Stephano person.”
“I haven’t,” admitted Jimmy. “I joined the show by wire. This is my
first town. They sent all the dope on by mail and I’m going to duck back
here next week for the big pow-wow. What are you getting at?”
“Oh, nothing much,” replied the other, “only you hadn’t better call her
up or Jordan either. You say you were hired by wire. Well, you’d be
fired the same way.”
“I don’t get your comedy, Tom,” cut in Jimmy a bit uneasily.
His friend put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and spoke to him
earnestly.
“It isn’t comedy, old man,” he said quietly. “I thought you knew all
about that ladybird. Pie contests aren’t in her line. Now don’t
misunderstand me. It’s great publicity. I know that and I’m for it
strong and any regular actress with any real sense of values would be,
too, but this Stephano female isn’t that kind of a person. She looks
after her dignity more carefully than most women look after an only
child. I happened to be in Washington last season when she let poor
Charlie Thompson out.”
“What did he do?” inquired Jimmy cautiously.
“Well, Charlie never started well. I could figure that he wouldn’t last
when I caught a flash of the proof for his Sunday ad lying on Seymour’s
desk over in Baltimore the week before. It read, “Olga Stephano in
Ibsen’s, ‘A Doll’s House’—Bring the Kiddies.” I took Charlie aside and
killed that, and I tried to put him wise, but he fell down in
Washington.”
“What’d he do over there?” persisted Jimmy anxiously.
Wilson retailed at length the harrowing details of the yarn that rang
the death knell for Charlie Thompson. Madame Stephano had played the
capital on Easter week and Charlie had planted a story in all the Monday
papers stating that she would honor the egg-rolling festivities on the
White House lawn with her sacred presence. The story further had it that
she would sit on the grassy sward atop a little hillock and personally
autograph one egg for each little child who came up to her. It also set
forth the delectable information that she was prepared to subsequently
roll these eggs down the hill with her own fair hands for the delight
and edification of the young ones.
“I’m reliably informed that when she saw that story in print she had to
be forcibly restrained from jumping out of the eleventh story window of
her hotel,” concluded Wilson. “Charlie got his in Pittsburgh that night.
That egg rolling stunt isn’t any worse than a pie contest.”
Jimmy’s enthusiasm, during this narrative, had slowly slipped from him
like a discarded garment.
“What do you think I’d better do, Tom?” he asked.
“If I were you, Jimmy,” said his friend gently, “I’d go back in there
and call the whole thing off.”
A hurt look crept into the eyes of the exploiter of Madame Olga
Stephano.
“Gee, Tom,” he murmured. “I couldn’t do that; little old Arthur S.
Family Pride and I are still buddies. I’ve got to go through, clean
through. I just couldn’t go back there and quit cold turkey before my
new found friend, Sarah Ann. Not in a thousand years.”
“Well, there’s one thing certain,” responded the other with a note of
finality. “If you call up little Olga or that trained manager of hers
they’ll burn you up.”
Jimmy looked sadly at his friend.
“Ain’t it hell, Tom?” he opined grimly. “Ain’t it just double-distilled
hell?”
He stood for a moment staring straight ahead as if lost in abstraction.
And then he found speech again.
“I won’t call either of ’em up,” he said firmly, “but I’m going to let
that story ride. There must be some way out of the mess. Apple pie, eh?
I never did like it.”
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