According to my instructions I applied for board at number -- West
Forty-Ninth street, Mrs. Atwood, landlady. I gave my name as Winston
Darnall, and made out I was a character actor just in from the road. I
engaged the rear hall room top floor. The place is an ordinary actor's
house, considerably run down. The landlady has only lately bought the
business from another woman, so it hasn't got the familiar friendly air
of a long-established place.
At the supper table I recognised my man Kenton Milbourne from the
description furnished. He's an unusual looking man--unusually homely.
He doesn't keep to himself at all, like a fellow with something on his
mind. He seems to be on good enough terms with the other boarders, but
they keep out of his way because he's such a tiresome talker. There's
one or two old fellows that go around with him. They sit in the
parlour and talk by the hour about what dandy actors they are.
Milbourne has the large front room on the third floor. As luck would
have it, the hall room adjoining was vacant, and there is only a thin
board partition between, because the hall-room was originally an
alcove. But I judged this was too much of a good thing. I was afraid
of taking the hall room for fear of putting M. wise. Maybe later, when
we're friends I can move.
I wasn't in any rush to pick up Milbourne. Thought I'd better wait
awhile and give him a chance to make up to me. Meanwhile I jollied the
landlady. She was a talker like all of them. Milbourne, it seems, is
her pet. She holds him up as a model for the other boarders because he
paid her four weeks board in advance when her rent fell due. This
seems to indicate he means to stay a while.
All the boarders look up to Milbourne with a kind of respect because
he's just closed his season with a first-class company, while the rest
are mostly with repertoire companies, and cheap road shows.
The second night I was there, Milbourne braced me in the parlour.
Looking for a new listener, I guess. He started in to tell me what a
hit he made with the Irma Hamerton production. If this man is a crook
he's the smoothest article I ever ran up against. Because he isn't
smooth at all. He talks all the time about himself as simple as a
child, but at that he don't tell you much. He's got a dull eye which
don't seem to take in nothing, and he talks in a slow, monotonous way
and says a thing over and over until you're doped.
A couple of nights later some of the younger boarders were having a bit
of a rough house in the parlour and M. asked me up to his room where we
could talk in peace. His room was bare like. He don't show any
photographs or pictures or gimcracks. Seems he never even unpacks his
trunk. It was a big trunk even for an actor, and packed neat and full
as a honeycomb. Whenever he wants a little thing he unlocks it, takes
out what he's after, and locks it again, even though he's right in the
room. The key is on a chain fastened to his waistband.
His talk was mostly about the Irma Hamerton company. He told me what
he says is the rights of the story about her sickness, and the
unexpected closing in the middle of good business. She was in love
with her leading man, Roland Quarles, according to him. Nothing was
too bad for him to say about Quarles.*
* My operative went into considerable detail here as to Milbourne's
opinion of Roland. Most of it I have deleted, since it was no more
than meaningless abuse.