The new secretary had some difficulty in convincing Brainard of the
importance of what he called “publicity.” His own varied experience as a
newspaper and magazine writer had given him a deep faith in this modern
method of propaganda. He constituted himself at once the publicity agent
of the new undertaking.
“It’s the only way to do things in this country. You must scatter your
idea about in the newspapers and magazines, get people to talk about it
and read about it, or it is dead before you start.”
Rather against Brainard’s inclination, Farson set off the first of a
series of journalistic squibs concerning the “Sulfur King,” his
spectacular fortune, and the novel manner in which he purposed to spend
it, in a profusely illustrated article in the new _Bunker’s Magazine_.
Brainard submitted to this indignity because of his desire to advertise
the Melody mine and in this way possibly attract the attention of its
unknown mistress. But of all the letters that came to him after the
publication of his spectacular biography, not one was from “Melody.”
The People’s National Drama Society had not been incorporated before the
sputter in the daily press began, with long-winded remarks by theatrical
experts—actors, managers, and critics—predicting failure and ridiculing
“the new uplifter of the stage from Arizona.” The public yawned and
skipped. There was nothing new in this “uplift” talk about the drama;
but the “Sulfur King” was new, and the public was much more interested in
him and his golden stream of wealth than in his dream of creating a
popular drama.
All sorts of mythical tales began to appear in print concerning his
personality. The story that obtained the widest vogue was that Brainard,
having in his younger and penniless days sighed in vain for the favor of
a theatrical lady, had gone off to Arizona with despair in his heart,
“struck sulfur,” and now had returned to build a palatial theater on
Broadway for his old flame. A rather obscure young actress was named as
the heroine of the tale, and the lady, when asked about the story by
reporters, failed to deny it. Instead, she coyly led the newspaper men
to embroider further details on the theme.
“See what you’ve got me into with your publicity business!” Brainard
exclaimed ruefully, holding out the morning newspaper to Farson, when the
latter came for the day’s work to the little house on Gramercy Park into
which Brainard had moved.
The secretary, who had already seen the article, merely grinned and
admitted:
“She has the cheek! They are all like that—anything to get themselves
talked about. But it’s all right—it helps to spread the great idea.”
“I should say it did! Look at that!” Brainard pointed to a sack of mail
that had been poured out over the library table. “And there’s a lot
more, they tell me, at the post office. We shall have to open an office
and hire some clerks, or chuck it into the fire.”
“It all helps,” the ex-reporter affirmed, dipping his hands into the mass
with zest. “You don’t understand the American public yet. It has to
have Romance with a capital R to sugar-coat any idea before it will
swallow it.”
“There was pretty nearly everything in yesterday’s mail, from an offer of
marriage to a recipe for making a successful play, not to mention one
hundred and eighty-seven specimens of original American drama.”
“Here are a few more of the same sort,” the secretary laughed, tossing
out a handful of bulky packages. “The literary committee will have
something to do when it finds time. That’s me!”
He tossed the manuscripts into a corner.
“The thirty-first application for position as leading lady from an
actress ‘of established reputation, at present on the Oregon
circuit’—that goes to Mac’s pile,” he remarked, throwing the lady’s
letter into a basket. “Proposal of marriage, marked ‘strictly
personal,’” he continued, handing over an envelope to his employer. “We
must get out some printed forms for acknowledgment of these—one for
marriage, one for plays, and one for positions in the company.”
“If this is publicity, let’s try for privacy!” Brainard groaned, tearing
the marriage letter into bits.
“Here’s a new note!” Farson exclaimed, pausing in his swift disposal of
the mail to read aloud a letter.
“GENTS:
“I saw in yesterday’s Kansas City papers a piece about your new
theater. I think your idea is fine! It’s all right! Have you got a
part for a beginner who will take anything or everything, but wants
to begin? I know I’ve got stuff in me, and I must see New York.
Please reply.
“Yours anxiously,
“LOUISIANA DELACOURT,
“P. O. Box 8, Iole, Kansas.”
“I think that Louisiana should get a chance to see New York,” Brainard
observed.
“She might take less than everything then. What do you say?”
“Put her down for the college,” laughed Brainard. “She thinks the Idea
is fine.”
And that is how Miss Louisiana Delacourt, of Iole, Kansas, became the
first pupil in the new college of dramatic art, which was not yet
founded.
When the second mail came in with a large assortment of begging letters
and more manuscript plays, Brainard rose in disgust and seized his hat to
flee from his own house.
“Don’t forget Mrs. Pearmain’s—luncheon at half past one!” the secretary
warned.
“Confound Mrs. Pearmain!” Brainard muttered. “Just tell her I’ve gone
out of town, Ned.”
A look of horror spread over the secretary’s handsome face.
“It wouldn’t do! She’s to have a lot of important people there to hear
about the Idea. She would never forgive you. It would spoil everything
at the social end,” the young man pleaded. He had worked for weeks to
“start the social business,” as he called it, and thus arouse an interest
of a fashionable kind in their undertaking. This luncheon at Mrs.
Pearmain’s was to be the brilliant opening of a social campaign that
should go hand in hand with the more democratic press campaign. It was
unthinkable for Brainard to refuse from whim or shyness or fastidiousness
the gracious advances of Society!
“I don’t like all this woman business,” Brainard remarked sulkily, laying
aside his hat. “Whatever did you get us into it for, Ned? I don’t need
their money.”
“No, you don’t need their money,” Farson pronounced oracularly, “and
that’s just why you’ll get what you do need. You need their influence.
You can’t get anything started without the women—not in America. A
movement for art in any form couldn’t exist, if the women didn’t take it
up. Why, there isn’t any Art in any form in this country, except what
the women keep going. So far as literature, drama, and music go, there’s
but one sex in America, and it doesn’t wear trousers either!”
“Lord!” the young Mæcenus groaned, “I didn’t know that, Ned.”
“There’s a good deal you don’t know about America and Americans that
you’ll have to learn, if you want to make good in this thing,” the
secretary commented severely. “That’s what you need me for—to open your
eyes.”
“Thanks,” Brainard murmured humbly.
“You will find Mrs. Donnie Pearmain the very one to give the right
_cachet_ to the movement.”
The young man rather prided himself on his social knowingness acquired
since his return to New York. Brainard sighed, and, with a grimace,
resigned himself to Mrs. Donnie Pearmain. The secretary proceeded to
prepare his master for the coming luncheon.
“You know what she did for the half orphans last year? The year before
it was the tuberculosis campaign. But now she’s giving up mere charity
for art, and ours is the very thing to interest her. The Rev. Thomson
Spicer will be there.”
“The clergy, too!”
“Of course. They make the next best publicity agents after the
newspapers. They preach about popular movements, you know. You’ll see
what Spicer will do for us next Sunday. He’s much interested in the
moral influence of the theater upon the masses.”
Brainard groaned.
“President Nathaniel Butterfield of Eureka University has also promised
to be there.”
“Professors? Ye gods! Where will you stop, Ned?”
“Dr. Butterfield has views on the educational value of the stage.”
“I’m not founding a religious kindergarten!”
The secretary, ignoring this feeble protest, consulted his note book for
further details.
“Jaggard, the banker, has been asked, and Toowit, of the _Daily Beacon_,
and my old boss, Howard Bunker. A very representative gathering of
prominent persons!” the secretary commented complacently. “They would
make an admirable board of trustees.”
“What do you propose to trustee—me?” Brainard roared.
“Every movement has to have a board of trustees—a list of good names to
print at the head of the note paper, you know,” the young man explained
patiently. Brainard’s simplicity was occasionally wearisome, and he was
proving more difficult to handle than Farson had expected. It required
considerable tact at times “to keep the ‘Sulfur King’ all on the track.”
He remarked to pacify his employer, “They don’t interfere unless you ask
them for money, and of course you won’t have to do so in this case.”
What Brainard might have said about wrapping his great idea in a wad of
distinguished trustees was prevented by the appearance of MacNaughton.
He came into the library at that moment, with the air of an old diplomat,
which was the rôle he had affected since he had joined the movement. His
quiet gray suit was adorned with a small red button. He wore horn-bowed
eyeglasses and carried a large leather portfolio. An unlighted cigar
protruded from his mouth.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he remarked, settling himself in a chair
opposite the secretary and turning over the pile of applications for
positions in the companies of the new society. He slowly dropped the
letters to the floor. “All rotters, every one of them,” he announced
with a profound sigh. “My boy, will you please hang out the sign, ‘No
lady help wanted’?”
“Are you sure they are all so bad?” Brainard asked hopefully.
“My dear fellow,” the old Scotsman replied languidly, “there are at least
three thousand women in New York to-day, young and old, who think they
can act and want a chance to take your money. I’ve seen twenty-nine
hundred and ninety-nine of them!”
“There must be some good ones eager for the opportunity we offer.”
“All those that are any good, and many that aren’t, have signed up with
Einstein & Flukeheimer and the other managers. I tell you they have
passed the word up and down Broadway to have nothing to do with us. They
call us cranks!” the old actor cried. “We are blacklisted, sir—that’s
what it is.”
“But with this great chance to do something for dramatic art?” Brainard
protested, quoting from a conversation he had had with a famous actress.
“Talk!”
“The opportunity to devote themselves to their profession, relieved of
all sordid cares?”
“More talk!”
“Their desire to subordinate personal ambitions for the good of dramatic
art?”
“All talk!”
“We’ll have to double the salaries, then.”
“Even that won’t bring the better ones who have made names already. They
don’t want to compromise themselves with highbrows. We shall have to
start with unknown talent and build up our company gradually.”
“That will take time, but I like it better,” Brainard replied
optimistically. “Show him Louisiana’s letter, Ned. That’s the right
spirit.”
“The little dear,” MacNaughton commented ironically. “How many like her
there are!” He dropped the letter in the secretary’s basket.
Presently there appeared the architect who had been asked to prepare
plans for the first playhouse. The three gathered around him and
examined the voluminous prints and watercolor sketches that he had
brought with him. He was a young man, and he had seen his opportunity,
with the wealth of the sulfur king behind him He had planned a monumental
building of marble, with beautiful colonnades, a magnificent foyer,
reception rooms, a restaurant, and a library. Behind, in the form of an
annex, was the college of dramatic art with its own little theater,
lecture rooms, and dormitory. The whole looked like a public institution
for the insane rather than a simple theater.
“What do you think it would cost to build?” Brainard inquired, as they
came to the last sheet.
“I should think it could be done for three millions,” the architect
replied glibly.
“Three millions,” the secretary repeated easily.
“Three millions—um!” MacNaughton echoed, as one who dealt habitually in
seven figures.
Brainard said nothing. He was thinking, perhaps, that the Melody sulfur
spring must gush like a yellow geyser to pour forth enough gold for the
Idea as it was expanding from day to day. He had learned, however, not
to be daunted by large figures—the mine had taught him that—nor did he
ever allow himself to worry over expense. He had wasted his youth in
such fruitless cares. As a man he would do what he could, and then stop.
Presently the three left for Mrs. Pearmain’s luncheon. The secretary
thoughtfully took with him the plans for the new theater.