SOME EMINENT ARTISTS AMUSE MEESTER BURNIT WHILE HE WAITS
One might imagine, after Bobby's heroic declarations, that, like young
David of old, he would immediately proceed to stride forth and slay
his giant. There stood his Goliath, full panoplied, sneering, waiting;
but alas! Bobby had neither sling nor stone. It was all very well to
announce in fine frenzy that he would smash the Consolidated, destroy
the political ring, drive Sam Stone and his henchmen out of town and
wrest all his goods and gear from Silas Trimmer; but until he could
find a place to plant his foot, descry an opening in the armor and
procure an adequate weapon, he might just as well bottle his fuming
and wait; so Bobby waited. In the meantime he stuck very closely to
the Brightlight office, finding there, in the practice of petty
economics and the struggle with well-nigh impossible conditions, ample
food for thought. In a separate bank reposed the new fund of two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which he kept religiously aside
from the affairs of the Brightlight, and this fund also waited; for
Bobby was not nearly so feverish to find instant employment for it as
he had been with the previous ones--though he had endless chances.
People with the most unheard of schemes seemed to have a peculiar
scent for unsophisticated money, and not only local experts in the
gentle art of separation flocked after him, but out of town
specialists came to him in shoals. To these latter he took great
satisfaction in displaying the gem of his collection of post-mortem
letters from old John Burnit:
"You don't need to go away from home to be skinned; moreover,
it isn't patriotic."
That usually stopped them. He was growing quite sophisticated, was
Bobby, quite able to discern the claws beneath the velvet paw, quite
suspicious of all the ingenious gentlemen who wanted to make a fortune
for him; and their frantic attempts to "get his goat," as Biff Bates
expressed it, had become as good as a play to this wise young person,
as also to the wise young person's trustee.
Agnes, who was helping Bobby wait, came occasionally to the office of
the Brightlight on business, and nearly always Bobby had reduced to
paper some gaudy new scheme that had been proposed to him, over which
they both might laugh. In great hilarity one morning they were going
over the prospectus of a plan to reclaim certain swamp lands in
Florida, when the telephone bell rang, and from Bobby's difficulty in
understanding and his smile as he hung up the receiver, Agnes knew
that something else amusing had turned up.
[Illustration: Little me to trot out and find an angel. Are you it?]
"It is from Schmirdonner," he explained as he turned to her again.
"He's the conductor of the orchestra at the Orpheum, you know. I
gather from what he says that there are some stranded musicians here
who probably speak worse English than myself, and he's sending them up
to me to see about arranging a benefit for them. You'd better wait; it
might be fun, or you might want to help arrange the benefit."
"No," disclaimed Agnes, laughing and drawing her impedimenta together
for departure, "I'll leave both the fun and the philanthropy to you. I
know you're quite able to take care of them. I'll just wait long
enough to hear how we're to get rid of the water down in Florida. I
suppose we bore holes in the ground and let it run out."
"By no means," laughed Bobby. "It's no where near so absurdly simple
as that," and he turned once more to the prospectus which lay open on
the desk before them.
Before they were through with it there suddenly erupted into the outer
office, where Johnson and Applerod glared at each other day by day
over their books, a pandemonium of gabbling. Agnes, with a little
exclamation of dismay at the time she had wasted, rose in a hurry, and
immediately after she passed through the door there bounded into the
room a rotund little German with enormous and extremely thick glasses
upon his knob of a nose, a grizzled mustache that poked straight up on
both sides of that knob, and an absurd toupee that flared straight out
all around on top of the bald spot to which it was pasted. Behind him
trailed a pudgy man of so exactly the Herr Professor's height and
build that it seemed as if they were cast in the same spherical mold,
but he was much younger and had jet black hair and a jet black
mustache of such tiny proportions as to excite amazement and even awe.
Still behind him was as unusually large young woman, fully a head
taller than either of the two men, who had an abundance of jet black
hair, and was dressed in a very rich robe and wrap, both of which were
somewhat soiled and worn.
"Signor R-r-r-r-icardo, der grosse tenore--Mees-ter Burnit,"
introduced the rotund little German, with a deep bow commensurate with
the greatness of the great tenor. "Signorina Car-r-r-avaggio--Mees-ter
Burnit. I, Mees-ter Burnit, _Ich bin_ Brofessor Fruehlingsvogel."
Bobby, for the lack of any other handy greeting, merely bowed and
smiled, whereupon Signorina Caravaggio, stepping into a breach which
otherwise would certainly have been embarrassing, seated herself
comfortably upon the edge of Bobby's desk and swung one large but
shapely foot while she explained matters.
"It's like this, Mr. Burnit," she confidently began: "when that
dried-up little heathen, Matteo, who tried to run the Neapolitan Grand
Opera Company with stage money, got us this far on a tour that is a
disgrace to the profession, he had a sudden notion that he needed
ocean air; so he took what few little dollars were in the treasury and
hopped right on into New York.
"Here we are, then, at the place we were merely 'to make connections,'
two hundred miles from our next booking and without enough money among
us to buy a postage stamp. We haven't seen a cent of salary for six
weeks, and the only thing we can do is to seize the props and scenery
and costumes, see if they can be sold, and disband, unless somebody
gallops to the rescue in a hurry. Professor Fruehlingsvogel happened to
know another Dutchman here who conducts an orchestra at the Orpheum,
and he sent us to you. He said you knew all the swell set and could
start a benefit going if anybody in town could."
"Yes," said Bobby, smiling; "Schmirdonner telephoned me just a few
minutes ago that the Herr Professor Fruehlingsvogel would be up to see
me, and asked me to do what I could. How many of you are there?"
"Seventy-three," promptly returned Signorina Caravaggio, "and all
hungry. Forty singers and an orchestra of thirty--seventy--besides
props and the stage manager and Herr Fruehlingsvogel, who is the
musical director."
"Where are you stopping?" asked Bobby, aghast at the size of the
contract that was offered him.
"We're not," laughed the great Italian songstress. "We all went up and
registered at a fourth-rate place they call the Hotel Larken, but
that's as far as we got, for we were told before the ink was dry that
we'd have to come across before we got a single biscuit; so there they
are, scattered about the S. R. O. parts of that little two-by-twice
hotel, waiting for little me to trot out and find an angel. Are you
it?"
"I can't really promise what I can do," hesitated Bobby, who had never
been able to refuse assistance where it seemed to be needed; "but I'll
run down to the club and see some of the boys about getting up a
subscription concert for you. How much help will you need?"
"Enough to land us on little old Manhattan Island."
"And there are over seventy of you to feed and take care of for, say,
three days, and then to pay railroad fares for," mused Bobby, a little
startled as the magnitude of the demand began to dawn upon him. "Then
there's the music-hall, advertising, printing and I suppose a score of
other incidentals. You need quite a pile of money. However, I'll go
down to the club at lunch time and see what I can do for you."
"I knew you would the minute I looked at you," said the Signorina
confidently, which was a compliment or not, the way one looked at it.
"But, say; I've got a better scheme than that, one that will let you
make a little money instead of contributing. I understand the Orpheum
has next week dark, through yesterday's failure of The Married
Bachelor Comedy Company. Why don't you get the Orpheum for us and back
our show for the week? We have twelve operas in our repertoire. The
scenery and props are very poor, the costumes are only half-way decent
and the chorus is the rattiest-looking lot you ever saw in your life;
but they can sing. They went into the discard on account of their
faces, poor things. Suppose you come over and have a look. They'd melt
you to tears."
"That won't be necessary," hastily objected Bobby; "but I'll meet a
lot of the fellows at lunch, and afterward I'll let you know."
"After lunch!" exclaimed the Signorina with a most expressive placing
of her hands over her belt, whereat the Herr Professor and Der Grosse
Tenore both turned most wistfully to Bobby to see what effect this
weighty plea might have upon him. "Lunch!" she repeated. "If you would
carry a fork-full of steaming spaghetti into the Hotel Larken at this
minute you'd start a riot. Why, Mr. Burnit, if you're going to do
anything for us you've got to get into action, because we've been up
since seven and we still want our breakfasts."
"Breakfast!" exclaimed Bobby, looking hastily at his watch. It was now
eleven-thirty. "Come on; we'll go right over to the Larken, wherever
that may be," and he exhibited as much sudden haste as if he had seen
seventy people actually starving before his very eyes.
Just as the quartette stepped out of the office, Biff Bates, just
coming in, bustled up to Bobby with:
"Can I see you just a minute, Bobby? Kid Mills is coming around to my
place this afternoon."
"Haven't time just now, Biff," said Bobby; "but jump into the machine
with us and I'll do the 'chauffing.' That will make room for all of
us. We can talk on the way to the Hotel Larken. Do you know where it
is?"
"Me?" scorned Biff. "If there is an inch of this old town I can't put
my finger on in the dark, blindfolded, I'll have that inch dug out and
thrown away."
At the curb, with keen enjoyment of the joke of it all, Bobby gravely
introduced Mr. Biff Bates, ex-champion middle-weight, to these
imported artists, but, very much to his surprise, Signorina Caravaggio
and Professor Bates struck up an instant and animated conversation
anent Biff's well-known and justly-famous victory over Slammer Young,
and so interested did they become in this conversation that instead of
Biff's sitting up in the front seat, as Bobby had intended, the
eminent instructor of athletics manoeuvered the Herr Professor into
that post of honor and climbed into the tonneau with Signor Ricardo
and the Signorina, with the latter of whom he talked most volubly all
the way over, to the evidently vast annoyance of Der Grosse Tenore.
The confusion of tongues must have been a very tame and quiet affair
as compared to the polyglot chattering which burst upon Bobby's ears
when he entered the small lobby of the Hotel Larken. The male members
of the Neapolitan Grand Opera Company, almost to a man, were smoking
cigarettes. There were swarthy little men and swarthy big men, there
seeming to be no medium sizes among them, while the women were the
most wooden-featured lot that Bobby had ever encountered, and the
entire crowd was swathed in gay but dingy clothing of the most
nondescript nature. Really, had Bobby not been assured that they were
grand opera singers he would have taken them for a lot of immigrants,
for they had that same unhappy expression of worry. The principals
could be told from the chorus and the members of the orchestra from
the fact that they stood aloof from the rest and from one another,
gloomily nursing their grievances that they, each one the most
illustrious member of the company, should thus be put to
inconvenience! It was a monstrous thing that they, the possessors of
glorious voices which the entire world should at once fall down and
worship, should be actually hungry and out of money! It was, oh,
unbelievable, atrocious, barbarous, positively inhuman!
With the entrance of the Signorina Caravaggio, bearing triumphantly
with her the neatly-dressed and altogether money-like Bobby Burnit,
one hundred and forty wistful eyes, mostly black and dark brown, were
immediately focused in eager interest upon the possible savior. Behind
the desk, perplexed and distracted but still grimly firm, stood frowzy
Widow Larken herself, drawn and held to the post of duty by this vast
and unusual emergency. Not one room had Madam Larken saved for all
these alien warblers, not one morsel of food had she loosed from her
capacious kitchen; and yet not one member of the company had she
permitted to stray outside her doors while Signorina Caravaggio and
Signor Ricardo and the Herr Professor Fruehlingsvogel had gone out to
secure an angel, two stout porters being kept at the front door to
turn back the restless. If provision could be made to pay the bills of
this caravan, the Widow Larken--who was shaped like a pillow with a
string tied around it and wore a face like a huge, underdone apple
dumpling--was too good a business woman to overlook that opportunity.
Bobby took one sweeping glance at that advancing circle of one hundred
and forty eyes and turned to Widow Larken.
"I will be responsible for the hotel bills of these people until
further notice," said he.
The Widow Larken, looking intently at Bobby's scarf-pin, relented no
whit in her uncompromising attitude.
"And who might you be?" she demanded, with a calm brow and cold
determination.
"I am Robert J. Burnit," said Bobby. "I'll give you a written order if
you like--or a check."
The Widow Larken's uncompromising expression instantly melted, but she
did not smile--she grinned. Bobby knew precisely the cause of that
amused expression, but if he had needed an interpreter, he had one at
his elbow in the person of Biff Bates, who looked up at him with a
reflection of the same grin.
"They're all next to you, Bobby," he observed. "The whole town knows
that you're the real village goat."
The Widow Larken did not answer Bobby directly. She called back to a
blue-overall-clad porter at the end of the lobby:
"Open the dining-room doors, Michael."
Signorina Caravaggio immediately said a few guttural words in German
to Professor Fruehlingsvogel, a few limpid words in Italian to Signor
Ricardo a few crisp words in French to Madame Villenauve, a nervous
but rather attractive little woman with piercing black eyes. The
singers of other languages did not wait to be informed; they joined
the general stampede toward the ravishing paradise of midday
breakfast, and as the last of them vacated the lobby, the principals
no whit behind the humble members of the chorus in crowding and
jamming through that doorway, Bobby breathed a sigh of relief. Only
the Signorina was left to him, and Bobby hesitated just a moment as it
occurred to him that, perhaps, a more personal entertainment was
expected by this eminent songstress. Biff Bates, however, relieved him
of his dilemma.
"While you're gone down to see the boys at the Idlers' Club," said
Biff, "I'm going to take Miss Carry--Miss--Miss--"
"Caravaggio," interrupted the Signorina with a repetition of a laugh
which had convinced Bobby that, after all, she might be a singer,
though her speaking voice gave no trace of it.
"Carrie for mine," insisted Biff with a confident grin. "I'm going to
take Miss Carrie out to lunch some place where they don't serve
prunes. I guess the Hotel Spender will do for us."
Bobby surveyed Biff with an indulgent smile.
"Thanks," said he. "That will give me time to see what I can do."
"You take my advice, Mr. Burnit," earnestly interposed the Signorina.
"Don't bother with your friends. Go and see the manager of the Orpheum
and ask him about that open date. Ask him if he thinks it wouldn't be
a good investment for you to back us."
Biff, the conservative; Biff, whose vote was invariably for the
negative on any proposition involving an investment of Bobby's funds,
unexpectedly added his weight for the affirmative.
"It's a good stunt, Bobby. Go to it," he counseled, and the Caravaggio
smiled down at him.
Again Bobby laughed.
"All right, Biff," said he. "I'll hunt up the manager of the Orpheum
right away."
In his machine he conveyed Biff and the prima donna to the Hotel
Spender, and then drove to the Orpheum.