another of the wondrous “get up” of Mary Magna. You can imagine her
facing him--that bold and vivid figure which you have seen as
“Cleopatra” and “Salome,” as “Dubarry” and “Anne Boleyn,” and I know
not how many other of the famous courtesans and queens of history.
In daily life her style and manner is every bit as staggering; she
is a gorgeous brunette, and wears all the colors there are--when she
goes down the street it is like a whole procession with flags. I'll
wager that, apart from her jewels, which may or may not have been
real, she was carrying not less than five thousand dollars worth of
stuff that fall afternoon. A big black picture hat, with a flower
garden and parts of an aviary on top--but what's the use of going
over Isaiah's list?
“Everything but the nose jewels,” said Carpenter, “and they may be
in fashion next week.”
“How about the glasses?” put in Rosythe, entering into the fun.
“Oh, shucks!” said I, protecting my friend. “Turn out the contents
of your vanity-bag, Mary.”
“And the crisping-pins?” laughed the critic.
“Hasn't Madame Planchet just shown us those?”
All this while Mary had not taken her eyes off Carpenter. “So you
are really one of those religious fellows!” she exclaimed. “You'll
know exactly what to do without any directing! How perfectly
incredible!” And at that appropriate moment T-S pushed open the door
and waddled in!
XII
You know the screen stars, of course; but maybe you do not know
those larger celestial bodies, the dark and silent and invisible
stars from which the shining ones derive their energies. So, permit
me to introduce you to T-S, the trade abbreviation for a name which
nobody can remember, which even his secretaries have to keep typed
on a slip of paper just above their machine--Tszchniczklefritszch.
He came a few years ago from Ruthenia, or Rumelia, or Roumania--one
of those countries where the consonants are so greatly in excess of
the vowels. If you are as rich as he, you call him Abey, which is
easy; otherwise, you call him Mr. T-S, which he accepts as a part of
his Americanization.
He is shorter than you or I, and has found that he can't grow
upward, but can grow without limit in all lateral directions. There
is always a little more of him than his clothing can hold, and it
spreads out in rolls about his collar. He has a yellowish face,
which turns red easily. He has small, shiny eyes, he speaks
atrocious English, he is as devoid of culture as a hairy Ainu, and
he smells money and goes after it like a hog into a swill-trough.
“Hello, everybody! Madame, vere's de old voman?
“She ees being dressed--”
“Vell, speed her up! I got no time. I got--Jesus Christ!”
“Yes, exactly,” said Mary Magna.
The great man of the pictures stood rooted to the spot. “Vot's dis?
Some joke you people playin' on me?” He shot a suspicious glance
from one to another of us.
“No,” said Mary, “he's real. Honest to God!”
“Oh! You bring him for an engagement. Vell, I don't do no business
outside my office. Send him to see Lipsky in de mornin'.”
“He hasn't asked for an engagement,” said Mary.
“Oh, he ain't. Vell, vot's he hangin' about for? Been gittin' a
permanent vave? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Cut it out, Abey,” said Mary Magna. “This is a gentleman, and you
must be decent. Mr. Carpenter, meet Mr. T-S.”
“Carpenter, eh? Vell, Mr. Carpenter, if I vas to make a picture vit
you I gotta spend a million dollars on it--you know you can't make
no cheap skate picture fer a ting like dat, if you do you got a
piece o' cheese. It'd gotta be a costume picture, and you got shoost
as much show to market vun o' dem today as you got vit a pauper's
funeral. I spend all dat money, and no show to git it back, and den
you actors tink I'm makin' ten million a veek off you--”
“Cut it out, Abey!” broke in Mary. “Mr. Carpenter hasn't asked
anything of you.”
“Oh, he ain't, hey? So dat's his game. Vell, he'll find maybe I can
vait as long as de next feller. Ven he gits ready to talk business,
he knows vere Eternal City is, I guess. Vot's de matter, Madame, you
got dat old voman o' mine melted to de chair?”
“I'll see, I'll see, Meester T-S,” said Madame, hustling out of the
room.
Mary came up to the great man. “See here, Abey,” she said, in a low
voice, “you're making the worst mistake of your life. Apparently
this man hasn't been discovered. When he is, you know what'll
happen.”
“Vere doss he come from?”
“I don't know. Billy here brought him. I said he must have come out
of a stained glass window in St. Bartholomew's Church.”
“Oho, ho!” said T-S.
“Anyhow, he's new, and he's too good to keep. The paper's 'll get
hold of him sure. Just look at him!”
“But, Mary, can he act?”
“Act? My God, he don't have to act! He only has to look at you, and
you want to fall at his feet. Go be decent to him, and find out what
he wants.”
The great man surveyed the figure of the stranger appraisingly. Then
he went up to him. “See here, Mr. Carpenter, maybe I could make you
famous. Vould you like dat?”
“I have never thought of being famous,” was the reply.
“Vell, you tink of it now. If I hire you, I make you de greatest
actor in de vorld. I make it a propaganda picture fer de churches,
dey vould show it to de headens in China and in Zululand. I make you
a contract fer ten years, and I pay you five hunded dollars a veek,
vedder you vork or not, and you vouldn't have to vork so much,
because I don't catch myself makin' a million dollar feature picture
vit gawd amighty and de angels in it for no regular veekly releases.
Maybe you find some cheap skate feller vit some vild cat company vot
promise you more; but he sells de picture and makes over de money to
his vife's brudders, and den he goes bust, and vere you at den, hey?
Mary Magna, here, she tell you, if you git a contract vit old Abey,
it's shoost like you got libbidy bonds. I make dat lovely lady a
check every veek fer tirty-five hunded dollars, an' I gotta sign it
vit my own hand, and I tell you it gives me de cramps to sign so
much money all de time, but I do it, and you see all dem rings and
ribbons and veils and tings vot she buys vit de money, she looks
like a jeweler's shop and a toy-store all rolled into vun goin'
valkin' down de street.”
“Mr. Carpenter was just scolding me for that,” said Mary. “I've an
idea if you pay him a salary, he'll feed it to the poor.”
“If I pay it,” said T-S, “it's his, and he can feed it to de
dicky-birds if he vants to. Vot you say, Mr. Carpenter?”
I was waiting with curiosity to hear what he would say; but at that
moment the door from the “maternity-room” was opened, and the voice
of Madame Planchet broke in: “Here she ees!” And the flesh-mountain
appeared, with the two caryatids supporting her.
XIII
“My Gawd!” gasped Mrs. T-S. “I'm dyin'!”
Her husband responded, beaming, “So you gone and done it again!”
Said Mrs. T-S: “I'll never do it no more!”
Said the husband: “Y'allus say dat. Fergit it, Maw, you're all right
now, you don't have to have your hair frizzed fer six mont's!”
Said Mrs. T-S: “I gotta lie down. I'm dyin', Abey, I tell you. Lemme
git on de sofa.”
Said the husband: “Now, Maw, we gotta git to dinner--”
“I can't eat no dinner.”
“Vot?” There was genuine alarm in the husband's voice. “You can't
eat no dinner? Sure you gotta eat your dinner. You can't live if you
don't eat. Come along now, Maw.”
“O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oh!”
T-S went and stood before her, and a grin came over his face. “Sure,
now, ain't it fine? Say, Mary, look at dem lovely curves. Billy,
shoost look here! Vy, she looks like a kid again, don't she! Madame,
you're a daisy--you sure deliver de goods.”
Madame Planchet beamed, and the flesh-mountain was feebly cheered.
“You like it, Abey?”
“Sure, I like it! Maw, it's grand! It's like I got a new girl! Come
on now, git up, we go git our dinner, and den we gotta see dem night
scenes took. Don't forgit, we're payin' two tousand men five dollars
apiece tonight, and we gotta git our money out of 'em.” Then, taking
for granted that this settled it, he turned to the rest. “You come
vit us, Mary?”
“I must wait for my grannie.”
“Sure, you leave your car fer grannie, and you come vit us, and we
git some dinner, and den we see dem mob scenes took. You come along,
Mr. Carpenter, I gotta have some talk vit you. And you, Billy? And
Rosythe--come, pile in.”
“I have to wait for the missus,” said the critic. “We have a date.”
“Vell,” said T-S, and he went up close. “You do me a favor, Rosythe;
don't say nuttin' about dis fellow Carpenter tonight. I feed him and
git him feelin' good, and den I make a contract vit him, and I give
you a front page telegraph story, see?”
“All right,” said the critic.
“Mum's de vord now,” said the magnate; and he waddled out, and the
two caryatids lifted the flesh-mountain, and half carried it to the
elevator, and Mary walked with Carpenter, and I brought up the rear.
The car of T-S was waiting at the door, and this car is something
special. It is long, like a freight-car, made all of shining
gun-metal, or some such material; the huge wheels are of solid
metal, and the fenders are so big and solid, it looks like an
armored military car. There is an extra wheel on each side, and two
more locked on to the rear. There is a chauffeur in uniform, and a
footman in uniform, just to open the doors and close them and salute
you as you enter. Inside, it is all like the sofas in Madame's
scalping shop; you fall into them, and soft furs enfold you, and you
give a sigh of Contentment, “O-o-o-o-o-o-oh!”
“Prince's,” said T-S to the chauffeur, and the palace on wheels
began to glide along. It occurred to me to wonder that T-S was not
embarrassed to take Carpenter to a fashionable eating-place. But I
could read his thoughts; everybody would assume that he had been “on
location” with one of his stars; and anyhow, what the hell? Wasn't
he Abey Tszchniczklefritszch?
“Wor-r-r-r-r! Wor-r-r-r-r-r!” snarled the horn of the car; and I
could understand the meaning of this also. It said: “I am the car of
Abey Tszchniczklefritszch, king of the movies, future king of the
world. Get the hell out o' my way!” So we sped through the crowded
streets, and pedestrians scattered like autumn leaves before a
storm. “My Gawd, but I'm hungry!” said T-S. “I ain't had nuttin' to
eat since lunch-time. How goes it, Maw? Feelin' better? Vell, you be
all right ven you git your grub.”
So we came to Prince's, and drew up before the porte-cochere, and
found ourselves confronting an adventure. There was a crowd before
the place, a surging throng half-way down the block, with a whole
line of policemen to hold them back. Over the heads of the crowd
were transparencies, frame boxes with canvas on, and lights inside,
and words painted on them. “Hello!” cried T-S. “Vot's dis?”
Suddenly I recalled what I had read in the morning's paper. The
workers of the famous lobster palace had gone on strike, and trouble
was feared. I told T-S, and he exclaimed: “Oh, hell! Ain't we got
troubles enough vit strikers in de studios, vitout dey come spoilin'
our dinner?”
The footman had jumped from his seat, and had the door open, and the
great man began to alight. At that moment the mob set up a howl.
“For shame! For shame! Unfair! Don't go in there! They starve their
workers! They're taking the bread out of our mouths! Scabs! Scabs!”
I got out second, and saw a spectacle of haggard faces, shouting
menaces and pleadings; I saw hands waved wildly, one or two fists
clenched; I saw the police, shoving against the mass, poking with
their sticks, none too gently. A poor devil in a waiter's costume
stretched out his arms to me, yelling in a foreign dialect: “You
take de food from my babies!” The next moment the club of a
policeman came down on his head, crack. I heard Mary scream behind
me, and I turned, just in the nick of time. Carpenter was leaping
toward the policeman, crying, “Stop!”
There was no chance to parley in this emergency. I grabbed Carpenter
in a foot-ball tackle. I got one arm pinned to his side, and Mary,
good old scout, got the other as quickly. She is a bit of an
athlete--has to keep in training for those hoochie-coochies and
things she does, when she wins the love of emperors and sultans and
such-like world-conquerors. Also, when we got hold of Carpenter, we
discovered that he wasn't much but skin and bones anyhow. We fairly
lifted him up and rushed him into the restaurant; and after the
first moment he stopped resisting, and let us lead him between the
aisles of diners, on the heels of the toddling T-S. There was a
table reserved, in an alcove, and we brought him to it, and then
waited to see what we had done.
XIV
Carpenter turned to me-and those sad but everchanging eyes were
flashing. “You have taken a great liberty!”
“There wasn't any time to argue,” I said. “If you knew what I know
about the police of Western City and their manners, you wouldn't
want to monkey with them.”
Mary backed me up earnestly. “They'd have mashed your face, Mr.
Carpenter.”
“My face?” he repeated. “Is not a man more than his face?”
You should have heard the shout of T-S! “Vot? Ain't I shoost offered
you five hunded dollars a veek fer dat face, and you vant to go git
it smashed? And fer a lot o' lousy bums dat vont vork for honest
vages, and vont let nobody else vork! Honest to Gawd, Mr. Carpenter,
I tell you some stories about strikes vot we had on our own lot--you
vouldn't spoil your face for such lousy sons-o'-guns--”
“Ssh, Abey, don't use such langwich, you should to be shamed of
yourself!” It was Maw, guardian of the proprieties, who had been
extracted from the car by the footman, and helped to the table.
“Vell, Mr. Carpenter, he dunno vot dem fellers is like--”
“Sit down, Abey!” commanded the old lady. “Ve ain't ordered no stump
speeches fer our dinner.”
We seated ourselves. And Carpenter turned his dark eyes on me. “I
observe that you have many kinds of mobs in your city,” he remarked.
“And the police do interfere with some of them.”
“My Gawd!” cried T-S. “You gonna have a lot o' bums jumpin' on
people ven dey try to git to dinner?”
Said Carpenter: “Mr. Rosythe said that the police would not work
unless they were paid. May I ask, who pays them to work here? Is it
the proprietor of the restaurant?”
“Vell,” cried T-S, “ain't he gotta take care of his place?”
“As a matter of fact,” said I, laughing, “from what I read in the
'Times' this morning, I gather that an old friend of Mr. Carpenter's
has been paying in this case.”
Carpenter looked at me inquiringly.
“Mr. Algernon de Wiggs, president of the Chamber of Commerce, issued
a statement denouncing the way the police were letting mobs of
strikers interfere with business, and proposing that the Chamber
take steps to stop it. You remember de Wiggs, and how we left him?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Carpenter; and we exchanged a smile over
that trick we had played.
I could see T-S prick forward his ears. “Vot? You know de Viggs?”
“Mr. Carpenter possesses an acquaintance with our best society which
will astonish you when you realize it.”
“Vy didn't you tell me dat?” demanded the other; and I could
complete the sentence for him: “Somebody has offered him more
money!”
Here the voice of Maw was heard: “Ain't we gonna git nuttin' to
eat?”
So for a time the problem of capital and labor was put to one side.
There were two waiters standing by, very nervous, because of the
strike. T-S grabbed the card from one, and read off a list of food,
which the waiter wrote down. Maw, who was learning the rudiments of
etiquette, handed her card to Mary, who gave her order, and then Maw
gave hers, and I gave mine, and there was only Carpenter left.
He was sitting, his dark eyes roaming here and there about the
dining-room. Prince's, as you may know, is a gorgeous establishment:
too much so for my taste--it has almost as much gilded moulding as
if T-S had designed it for a picture palace. In front of Carpenter's
eyes sat a dame with a bare white back, and a rope of big pearls
about it, and a tiara of diamonds on top; and beyond her were more
dames, and yet more, and men in dinner-coats, putting food into red
faces. You and I get used to such things, but I could understand
that to a stranger it must be shocking to see so many people feeding
so expensively.
“Vot you vant to order, Mr. Carpenter?” demanded T-S; and I waited,
full of curiosity. What would this man choose to eat in a “lobster
palace”?
Carpenter took the card from his host and studied it. Apparently he
had no difficulty in finding the most substantial part of the menu.
“I'll have prime ribs of beef,” said he; “and boiled mutton with
caper sauce; and young spring turkey; and squab en casserole; and
milk fed guinea fowl--” The waiter, of course, was obediently
writing down each item. “And planked steak with mushrooms; and
braised spare ribs--”
“My Gawd!” broke in the host.
“And roast teal duck; and lamb kidneys--”
“Fer the love o' Mike, Mr. Carpenter, you gonna eat all dat?”
“No; of course not.”
“Den vot you gonna do vit it?”
“I'm going to take it to the hungry men outside.”
Well, sir, you'd have thought the world had stopped turning round,
so still it was. The two waiters nearly dropped their order-pads and
their napkins; they did drop their jaws, and Mrs. T-S's permanent
wave seemed about to go flat.
“Oh, hell!” cried T-S at last. “You can't do it!”
“I can't?”
“You can't order only vot you gonna eat.”
“But then, I don't want anything. I'm not hungry.”
“But you can't sit here like a dummy, man!” He turned to the waiter.
“You bring him de same vot you bring me. Unnerstand? And git a move
on, cause I'm starvin'. Fade out now!” And the waiter turned and
fled.
XV
The proprietor of Eternal City wiped his perspiring forehead with
his napkin, and started rather hurriedly to make conversation. I
understood that he wanted to enjoy his dinner, and proposed to talk
about something pleasant in the meantime. “I vonna tell you about
dis picture ve're goin' to see took, Mr. Carpenter. I vant you
should see de scale we do tings on, ven we got a big subjic.
Y'unnerstand, dis is a feature picture ve're makin' now; a night
picture, a big mob scene.”.
“Mob scene?” said Carpenter. “You have so many mobs in this world of
yours!”
“Vell, sure,” said T-S. “You gotta take dis vorld de vay you find
it. Y'can't change human nature, y'know. But dis vot you're gonna
see tonight is only a play mob, y'unnerstand.”
“That is what seems strangest of all to me,” said the other,
thoughtfully. “You like mobs so well that you make imitation ones!”
“Vell, de people, dey like to see crowds in a picture, and dey like
to see action. If you gonna have a big picture, you gotta spend de
money.”
“Why not take this real mob that is outside the door?”
“Ha, ha, ha! Ve couldn't verk dat very good, Mr. Carpenter. Ve gotta
have it in de right set; and ven you git a real mob, it don't alvays
do vot you vant exactly! Besides, you can't take night pictures
unless you got your lights and everyting. No, ve gotta make our mobs
to order; we got two tousand fellers hired--”
“What Mr. Rosythe called 'studio bums'? You have that many?”
“Sure, we could git ten tousand if de set vould hold 'em. Dis
picture is called 'De Tale o' Two Cities,' and it's de French
revolution. It's about a feller vot takes anodder feller's place and
gits his head cut off; and say, dere's a sob story in it vot's a
vunder. Ven dey brought me de scenario, I says, 'Who's de author?'
Dey says, 'It's a guy named Charles Dickens.' 'Dickens?' says I.
'Vell, I like his verk. Vot's his address?' And Lipsky, he says,
says he, 'Dey tell me he stays in a place called Vestminster Abbey,
in England.' 'Vell,' says I, 'send him a cablegram and find out vot
he'll take fer an exclusive contract.' So we sent a cablegram to
Charles Dickens, Vestminster Abbey, England, and we didn't git no
answer, and come to find out, de boys in de studios vas havin' a
laugh on old Abey, because dis guy Dickens is some old time feller,
and de Abbey is vere dey got his bones. Vell, dey can have deir
fun--how de hell's a feller like me gonna git time to know about
writers? Vy, only twelve years ago, Maw here and me vas carryin'
pants in a push-cart fer a livin', and we didn't know if a book vas
top-side up or bottom--ain't it, Maw?”
Maw certified that it was--though I thought not quite so eagerly as
her husband. There were five little T-S's growing up, and bringing
pressure to let the dead past stay buried, in Vestminster Abbey or
wherever it might be.
The waiter brought the dinner, and spread it before us. And T-S
tucked his napkin under both ears, and grabbed his knife in one hand
and his fork in the other, and took a long breath, and said:
“Good-bye, folks. See you later!” And he went to work.
XVI
For five minutes or so there was no sound but that of one man's food
going in and going down. Then suddenly the man stopped, with his
knife and fork upright on the table in each hand, and cried: “Mr.
Carpenter, you ain't eatin' nuttin'!”
The stranger, who had apparently been in a daydream, came suddenly
back to Prince's. He looked at the quantities of food spread about
him. “If you'd only let me take a little to those men outside!” He
said it pleadingly.
But T-S tapped imperiously on the table, with both his knife and
fork together. “Mr. Carpenter, eat your dinner! Eat it, now, I say!”
It was as if he were dealing with one of the five little T-S's. And
Carpenter, strange as it may seem, obeyed. He picked up a bit of
bread, and began to nibble it, and T-S went to work again.
There was another five minutes of silence; and then the picture
magnate stopped, with a look of horror on his face. “My Gawd! He's
cryin'!” Sure enough, there were two large tears trickling, one down
each cheek of the stranger, and dropping on the bread he was putting
into his mouth!
“Look here, Mr. Carpenter,” protested T-S. “Is it dem strikers?”
“I'm sorry; you see--”
“Now, honest, man, vy should you spoil your dinner fer a bunch o'
damn lousy loafers--”
“Abey, vot a vay to talk at a dinner-party!” broke in Maw.
And then suddenly Mary Magna spoke. It was a strange thing, though I
did not realize it until afterwards. Mary, the irrepressible, had
hardly said one word since we left the beauty parlors! Mary, always
the life of dinner parties, was sitting like a woman who had seen
the ghost of a dead child; her eyes following Carpenter's, her mind
evidently absorbed in probing his thoughts.
“Abey!” said she, with sudden passion, of a sort I'd never seen her
display before. “Forget your grub for a moment, I have something to
say. Here's a man with a heart full of love for other people--while
you and I are just trying to see what we can get out of them! A man
who really has a religion--and you're trying to turn him into a
movie doll! Try to get it through your skull, Abey!”
The great man's eyes were wide open. “Holy smoke, Mary! Vot's got
into you?” And suddenly he almost shrieked. “Lord! She's cryin'
too!”
“No, I'm not,” declared Mary, vialiantly. But there were two drops
on her cheeks, so big that she was forced to wipe them away. “It's
just a little shame, that's all. Here we sit, with three times as
much food before us as we can eat; and all over this city are poor
devils with nothing to eat, and no homes to go to--don't you know
that's true, Abey? Don't you know it, Maw?”
“Looka here, kid,” said the magnate; “you know vot'll happen to you
if you git to broodin' over tings? You git your face full o'
wrinkles--you already gone and spoilt your make-up.”
“Shucks, Abey,” broke in Maw, “vot you gotta do vit dat? Vy don't
you mind your own business?”
“Mind my own business? My own business, you say? Vell, I like to
know vot you call my business! Ven I got a contract to pay a girl
tirty-five hunded dollars a veek fer her face, and she goes and gits
it all wrinkles, I ask any jury, is it my business or ain't it? And
if a feller vants to pull de tremulo stop fer a lot o' hoboes and
Bullsheviki, and goes and spills his tears into his soup--”
It sounded fierce; but Mary apparently knew her Abey; also, she saw
that Maw was starting to cry. “There's no use trying to bluff me,
Abey. You know as well as I do there are hungry people in this city,
and no fault of theirs. You know, too, you eat twice what you ought
to, because I've heard the doctor tell you. I'm not blaming you a
bit more than I do myself--me, with two automobiles, and a whole
show-window on my back.” And suddenly she turned to Carpenter. “What
can we do?”
He answered: “Here, men gorge themselves; in Russia they are eating
their dead.”
T-S dropped his knife and fork, and Maw gave a gulp. “Oh, my Gawd!”
“There are ten million people doomed to starve. Their children eat
grass, and their bellies swell up and their legs dwindle to
broom-sticks; they stagger and fall into the ditches, and other
children tear their flesh and devour it.”
“O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oh!” wailed Maw; and the diners at Prince's began
to stare.