Blue-gra.s.s and Broadway.
by Maria Thompson Daviess.
CHAPTER I
The need of a large sum of money in a great hurry is the root of many n.o.ble ambitions, in whose branches roost strange companies of birds, pecking away for dollars that grow--or do not--on bushes. And it was in such a quest that Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, lit upon a limb of life beside Mr. G.o.dfrey Vandeford of Broadway, New York. Their joint endeavors made a great adventure.
"There"s nothing to it, Pop; either pony girls will have to grow four legs to cut new capers, somebody will have to write a play ent.i.tled "When Courtship Was in Flower," requiring flowered skirts ten yards wide with a punch in each furbelow, or we go out of the theatrical business,"
said Mr. Vandeford, as he shuffled a faint, violet-tinted letter out of a pile of advertising posters emblazoned with dancing girls and men, several personal bills, two from a theatrical storage house and one from an electrical expert, leaned back in his chair, and prepared to open the violet communication. "We dropped twenty thousand cool on "Miss Cut-up,"
and those sixteen pairs of legs cost us fifteen hundred a week. We might be in danger of starving right here on Broadway, if we hadn"t picked a sure-fire hit in "The Rosie Posie Girl.""
"Ain"t it the truth," answered Mr. Adolph Meyers, as he glanced up from his typewriter with a twinkle in his big black eyes that were like gems in a round, very sedate, even sad, Hebrew face. "Bare legs and "cut-ups"
is already old now, Mr. Vandeford. It is that we must have now a play with a punch."
"The law won"t let us take anything more off the chorus, so we"ll have to swing back and put a lot on. Costumes that cost a million will be the next drag, mark me, Pop," Mr. G.o.dfrey Vandeford declaimed with a gloomy brow, as he still further delayed exploring the violet missive.
"A hundred thousand it will take for costuming "The Rosie Posie Girl,""
agreed Pop dolefully, from above the letter he was slowly pecking out of the machine.
"For furnishing chiffon belts, you mean, not costumes, if we go by Corbett"s clothes ideas," growled the pessimistic, prospective producer of the possible next season"s. .h.i.t in the girl-show line.
"You have it right," answered Pop, sympathetically.
"If I hadn"t promised to let old Denny in on my Violet Hawtry show for the fall I"d be tempted to throw back everything, even "The Rosie Posie Girl" and go gunning for potatoes or onions up on a Connecticut farm; but the show bug has bit Denny hard and I"ll have to be the one to shear him and not leave it to any of the others. I"ll be more merciful to his millions; but asking him to put up half of a cool hundred and fifty thousand is a bit raw. Wish I had a nice little glad play with an under twenty cast for him to cut his teeth on instead of the "Rosie Posie.""
"It"s six plays on the shelf now for reading," reminded Mr. Meyers, eagerly, for to him fell the task of weeding all plays sent into the office of G.o.dfrey Vandeford, Theatrical Producer, and his optimistic soul suffered when he discovered a gem and found himself unable to get Mr. Vandeford to read so much as the first act unless he caught him in just such a mood as the one in which he now labored. "Now, I want that you take just a peep, Mr. Vandeford, at that new Hinkle comedy for which I have written already five times to delay--"
"Can"t do it now, Pop! Don"t you see that I have got to read this purple letter and that is all the business I can attend to for this morning?"
answered Mr. Vandeford, as he pushed a slim paper cutter along the top edge of the purple missive.
"But, Mr. Vandeford, it is that I have--"
"Express. Sign here!" was the interruption that put an end to Mr.
Meyers"s immediate supplication. The parcel that he deposited upon his chief"s desk with forceful meekness was a play ma.n.u.script.
"Great guns, Pops; I"m seeing purple!" exclaimed Mr. Vandeford, as he let the violet letter fall upon the violet wrappings in which the express intrusion was incased. "Exact match! This looks like some sort of a hunch. Open it, Pops, and run through the layout while I tackle the violet letter and see if anything happens." And with great interest both grown men plunged into the excitement of the chase of the hunch.
Mr. Vandeford"s letter contained the following, delivered in bold words and script:
HIGHCLIFF.
_My dear Van:_
This is to remind you that it is now July fifth, and my contract sets September twenty-third as the last date for my opening on Broadway in a new play under your management. "The Rosie Posie Girl" will be a huge undertaking and worthy of my every effort, but I do not feel that you are up to producing it properly. I regret your losses in "Miss Cut-up," but I did my best with a vehicle that was not worthy of my ability. The success of "Dear Geraldine" was entirely due to the comedy bits I wrote in to suit myself, and I had to be costumer and producer and the whole show. In justice to myself I feel that I ought to pa.s.s under the management of a more forceful person than yourself. And anyway I don"t think you would be able to get a theater to open on Broadway in September. Remember that over a hundred good shows died on the road waiting to get into Broadway last winter, and _I_ won"t play anywhere else. Now Weiner wants to buy "The Rosie Posie Girl" from you and open his New Carnival Theatre with me in it on October first. You must sell it to him. He will make you a good offer. You can"t use it without me, and I want him to produce it. Please see him immediately. You know that you owe your reputation as a producer to me, and don"t be selfish. I"ll expect you up on the evening train to talk over the final arrangements. I"ll meet you in the runabout and we can go out to the Beach Inn for dinner. Bring me some brandied marrons, a large bottle of rose oil and a stick of lip rouge from Celeste"s.
Hurriedly,
VIOLET.
July fifth.
P. S. Of course you are to go on loving me just as usual. I couldn"t do without that. How much money have I in the Knickerbocker Trust?
After G.o.dfrey Vandeford had read the last violent purple line on violet, he dropped the letter on his desk and looked out of his office window with serious eyes that gazed without seeing, down the long canyon of Broadway, up and down which rushed traffic composed of green cars shaped like torpedoes, honking, darting motors, skulking trucks and jostling, tangled people. Flamboyant signs, waving flags, and gilt-lettered window panes made a Persian glow in a belt s.p.a.ce up from the seething sidewalks to the sky line, and above it all the roar and din rose to high heaven.
But G.o.dfrey Vandeford was blind to it all and deaf, as he sat and brooded above the furious landscape. His blue eyes, set deep back under their black, gray-splashed brows, failed to take in the lurid spectacle, and his narrow, lean face was flushed under the bronze it had acquired for keeps from the suns of many climes. His lean, powerful body seemed fairly crouched in thought. Once he shifted one leg across the other, and as he settled back in his chair he tossed the violet letter over to Mr. Meyers without seeming to know that he did so. Then he plunged back into his absorption without seeing his henchman read rapidly through the missive, look at him once with a gem-like keenness, and again begin to read the purple-covered ma.n.u.script.
"And we picked her out of a vaudeville gutter over beyond Weehawken just five years ago, Pop," Mr. Vandeford finally interrupted the flip of the ma.n.u.script pages to say, with a deep musing in his flexible, sympathetic voice.
"You taught her to eat with the knife and the fork," growled Mr. Meyers from behind his violet barricade as he ripped over another page.
"Mick!"
"Oh, not as bad as that, Pop," laughed Mr. Vandeford, with a glance of affection at the young Hebrew delving in the corner for a jewel for him.
"She"s just--oh, well, they are all children--and have to be spanked.
She wants to sell me out to Weiner after I"ve spent five nice, good years in building her into a little twinkle star, but I don"t think it will be good for her to let her do it. I"ll have to use the slipper on her, I"m afraid. I believe in hunches and I believe I"ll just use that purple ma.n.u.script you"re chewing to let her set her teeth in. She needs one good failure to tone her up. What"s the name of the effusion in ribbons?"
"The Renunciation of Rosalind," murmured Mr. Meyers, as he bent once more to the pages which he had been reading with eagerness when interrupted by his chief.
"We could call it "The Purple Slipper." About what will the cast figure?"
"Three thousand per week if you use Gerald Height at five hundred as per contract with him. But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I would say for a play this is--"
"That"s not much money to waste on a purple hunch. A nice, judicious, little second-hand staging out of the warehouse and a few weeks" road try-out for the failure will cost about ten thousand. I"ll let Denny have five thousand worth of fun mussing around with it to cut his eye teeth, and then we"ll clap Violet into "The Rosie Posie Girl," weeping with grat.i.tude to have her face saved after being slapped first. Get the parts out to-morrow and you and Chambers begin to cast it. I"ll see actors here from three to five Friday. I"ll open it September tenth. Now I"ve got to go and chase those confounded marrons. The last I took were put up in maraschino and were not welcomed. I"ll be in the office--"
"And about the author, Mr. Vandeford, and the contracts?" questioned Mr.
Meyers, with both dismay and energy in his voice.
"Oh, I forgot about the author. She won"t amount to much. A woman, I judge, from the ribbons. Offer the usual five, rising to seven and a half royalties, and explain carefully that you mean five per cent. on the box office receipts under five thousand, and seven and a half on all over that. Also go into the moving picture rights and second companies with your usual honesty, but offer her only a two hundred and fifty advance to cover a two years" option. She won"t know that it ought to be five hundred for six months, and what she doesn"t know won"t hurt her.
Besides, it will all be over for her and her play before October."
"She says in the letter which was pinned to the first page of the play, that the article about you in the "Times Magazine" made her know that you were the one producer to whom she could trust her play," said Mr.
Meyers, reading from a neat little cream-white note in his hand.
"Sweet child!" murmured Mr. Vandeford, as he took up his hat and stick.
"Don"t encourage her in any way in your letter, Pop. We don"t want her rushing to the scene of action when we butcher her child. Pay the two thousand to Hilliard for the option on "The Rosie Posie Girl" until January first, and tell him I am going to produce it in November. "Phone me at Highcliff to-morrow if you want me. I"ll be clearing the deck for the--spanking."
"I wish you good luck," said Mr. Meyers feelingly.
"What do you judge that play is about from reading the first act, and what is the author"s name? I might have to produce a little concrete information in the fracas," the eminent producer paused to inquire just as he was closing the door.
"It is written by a Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky, and it has in plenty of ruffles and romance that is in a past time of a Colonial Governor and his wife alone at home with him in Washington."
"That sounds about right for the weapon of castigation for Violet Hawtry, _nee_ Murphy. I have always believed in hunches, and that accord in color was meant to mean something. Better send me a copy special in the morning. If Mr. Farraday calls me before I get him tell him the Astor at one to-day. What did I say? Marrons, lip stick, and--"
"Rose oil," prompted Mr. Meyers, with just the trace of a sneer in his voice.
"Right O! Rose oil it is. By!" And the door closed on Mr. Vandeford"s graceful figure in its gray London tweeds.