THE MAN IN THE KITCHEN
Let it be said of Alice that, even in this moment of triumph, she did
not gloat over her victory--for victory it was. Had she planned it,
events could not have transpired to better purpose. The combination
of circumstances had forced her father along the line of least
resistance into the very path she would had chosen for him, and she
felt in her soul that it was best.
But she did not say: "There, I knew you'd come to it, Daddy!" Many a
girl would, and so have spoiled matters. Alice merely looked demurely
at her father--and gave him the address.
The girl was perhaps wiser than her years would indicate, and
certainly in this matter she was more resourceful than was Ruth. But
then chance had played into her hands. That meeting with Russ had
done much.
"Yes, I think I must come to it," sighed Mr. DeVere. "It is being
forced on me--the movies. I never thought I would descend to them!"
"It isn't a fall at all, Daddy!" declared Alice, stoutly. "I'm glad
you are going into them. You'll like them, I'm sure."
"The actors--and actresses--if one can call them such--who take parts
in moving picture plays must be very--very crude sort of persons," he
said.
"Not at all!" cried Alice. "I was there and saw them, and there were
some as nice as you'd want to meet. They were real gentlemen and
ladies, even if the men were in their shirt sleeves."
"But they can't act!" asserted Mr. DeVere. "I have seen bills up
advertising the moving pictures--all they seemed to be doing--the
so-called actors, I mean--was falling off horses, roping steers--I
believe "roping" is the proper term--or else jumping off bridges or
standing in the way of railroad trains. And they call that acting!"
"Oh, you wouldn't have to do that, Daddy!" cried Alice, with a laugh.
"Mr Pertell is putting on some real dramas--just like society plays,
you know. Of course all the scenes won't take place in a parlor, I
suppose. You won't have to do outdoor work, though, and I'm sure you
won't have to catch a wild steer, or stop a runaway locomotive."
"I should hope not," he replied, with a tragic gesture.
"But that is real acting, all the same," went on Alice. In that
little while she had come to have a great liking and interest in the
moving picture side of acting. "You should see some of the scenes I
saw. Why, Daddy, some of the men and women were just as good as some
of the actors with whom you have been on the road."
"Oh, yes, if you include the road companies of the barn-storming
days, perhaps," admitted Mr. DeVere. "But I refer to the real art of
the drama, Alice. However, let us not discuss it. The subject is too
painful. I have decided to take up the work, since I can do nothing
else on account of my unfortunate voice--and I will do my best in the
movies. It is due to myself that I should, and it is due to you girls
that I provide for you in any way that I can."
"Oh, Dad!" exclaimed Ruth. "It is too bad if you have to sacrifice
your art to mere bread and butter."
"Tut! Tut!" he exclaimed, smiling and holding up a chiding hand. "I
don't look at it that way at all. I am not so foolish. Art may be a
very nice thing, but bread and butter is better. We have to live, my
dear. And, after all, my art is not so wonderful. I hope I have not
exaggerated my worth to myself. I am very willing to try this new
line, and I am very glad that Alice suggested it. Only it--it was
rather a shock--at first. Now let us consider."
They talked it all over, and Alice went more into detail as to what
she had seen at the moving picture theatre. Mr. DeVere grew more and
more interested.
"It is very kind of Russ and Mr. Pertell to think of me," he said. "I
will go and see this manager to-morrow."
The interview must have been a very satisfactory one, for Mr. DeVere
returned from it with a smiling face--something he had not worn often
since the failure of his voice.
"Well, Daddy?" queried Alice, as she entered the dining room, where
she and Ruth were trying to make the most of a scanty supply of food.
"How was it?"
For answer he pulled out a roll of bills--not a large one, but of a
size to which the girls had not been accustomed of late.
"See, it is real money!" he cried, and he struck an attitude of one
of the characters in which he had successfully starred. He was the
old Hosmer DeVere once more.
"Where did you get it?" asked Ruth, with a little laugh. She foresaw
that some of her housekeeping problems bade fair to be solved.
"It is an advance on my salary as a moving picture actor," he
replied, hoarsely, but still with that same gay air. "See, I have put
my other life behind me. Henceforth--or at least until my voice
promises to behave," he went on, "I shall live, move and have my
being on the screen. I have signed a contract with Mr. Pertell--a
very fair contract, too, much more so than some I have signed with
managers of legitimate theaters. This is part of my first week's
salary. I have taken his money--there is no going back now. I have
burned my bridges."
"And--are you sorry?" asked Alice, softly.
"No, little girl--no! I'm glad!" And truly he seemed so.
"Tell us about it," suggested Ruth, and he did--in detail.
"Then it wasn't so bad as you expected; was it, Daddy?" asked Alice.
"No, I found many of the company to be very fine characters, and some
with exceptional ability. Mr. Wellington Bunn, by the way, is a man
after my own heart."
"Oh, yes. He seemed very anxious to play Shakespeare," remarked
Alice, with a smile. "I heard Mr. Pertell caution him about not
letting Hamlet get into the parlor scene they were presenting," and
she laughed at the recollection.
"Of course it was rather new and strange to me," went on Mr. DeVere,
"but I dare say I shall get accustomed to it. There were some of the
young ladies, though, for whom I felt no liking--Miss Pearl
Pennington, who plays light leads, and her friend, Miss Laura Dixon,
the ingenue."
"They were in vaudeville until recently," remarked Alice. "So Russ
told me. Miss Pennington seemed very pretty."
"Passably so," agreed Mr. DeVere. "Well, our living problem is solved
for us, anyway. Now I must study my new part. It is to be a sort of
society drama, and will be put on in a few days. Mr. Pertell gave me
some instructions. I shall have to unlearn many things that are
traditional with those who have played all their parts in a real
theatre. It is like teaching an old dog new tricks, but I dare say I
shall master them."
"You're not really old, Daddy!" said Alice, slipping her arms about
him, and nestling her cheek against his.
"There--there!" he returned, indulgently, "don't try to flatter your
old father. You are just like your dear mother. Run along now, I
must take up this new work. What a relief not to have to declaim my
lines! I shall only move my lips, and who knows but, in time, my
voice may come back?"
"I hope it will," answered Ruth, with a sigh. Somehow she could not
quite bring herself to like her father in moving picture rôles. Alice
was entirely different.
"But, even if it does come back," said the younger girl, "you may
like this new work so well, Dad, that you'll keep at it."
"Perhaps," he assented. "Here, Ruth, take care of this money--my
first moving picture salary," and he handed her the bills.
As he went to his room with the typewritten sheets of his new part,
Alice whispered to her sister:
"Hurray! Now we can have a real dinner. I'll go and buy out a
delicatessen store."
The meal was a great success--not only from a gastronomic standpoint,
but because of the jollity--real or assumed--of Mr. DeVere. He went
over the lines of his new part, telling the girls how at certain
places he was to "register," or denote, different emotions.
"Register" is the word used in moving picture scenarios to indicate
the showing of fear, hate, revenge or other emotion. All this must be
done by facial expression or gestures, for of course no talking
comes from the moving pictures--except in the latest kind, with a
phonographic arrangement, and with that sort we are not dealing.
"Oh, I'm sure it will be fine!" cried Alice. "Can we go and see you
act for the camera, Daddy?"
"Yes, I guess so," he replied. "Would you like it, Ruth?"
"I believe I should!" she exclaimed, with more interest than she had
before shown. "It sounds interesting."
"Maybe we'll act ourselves, some day," added Alice.
"Oh, no!" protested her sister. "But let's sit down. The meal is
spoiling. Oh!" she cried, with a hasty glance at the table. "Not a
bit of salt. I forgot it. Alice, dear, just slip across the hall and
borrow some from Mrs. Dalwood."
Humming, in the lightness of her heart, a little tune, Alice crossed
to the apartment of their neighbor, not pausing after her first knock
at the rear kitchen door.
She heard a rattling among the pots and pans, and naturally supposed
Mrs. Dalwood was there.
"May we have some salt?" Alice called, as she entered the kitchen,
but the next moment she drew back in surprise and fear, for a strange
man, rising suddenly from under the sink, confronted her.
He, too, seemed startled.
"Oh--Oh!" gasped Alice. "Isn't Mrs. Dalwood here?"
"I--I believe not," stammered the man. "I--I'm the plumber--there's a
leak----"
"Oh, excuse me," murmured Alice, but even in her embarrassment she
could not help thinking that the man looked like anything but a
plumber. She backed out of the kitchen, after picking up a salt
cellar, and was more startled as she observed the man following her.