XII
You know the screen stars, of course; but maybe you do not know
those larger celestial bodies, the dark and silent and invisible
stars from which the shining ones derive their energies. So, permit
me to introduce you to T-S, the trade abbreviation for a name which
nobody can remember, which even his secretaries have to keep typed
on a slip of paper just above their machine--Tszchniczklefritszch.
He came a few years ago from Ruthenia, or Rumelia, or Roumania--one
of those countries where the consonants are so greatly in excess of
the vowels. If you are as rich as he, you call him Abey, which is
easy; otherwise, you call him Mr. T-S, which he accepts as a part of
his Americanization.
He is shorter than you or I, and has found that he can't grow
upward, but can grow without limit in all lateral directions. There
is always a little more of him than his clothing can hold, and it
spreads out in rolls about his collar. He has a yellowish face,
which turns red easily. He has small, shiny eyes, he speaks
atrocious English, he is as devoid of culture as a hairy Ainu, and
he smells money and goes after it like a hog into a swill-trough.
"Hello, everybody! Madame, vere's de old voman?
"She ees being dressed--"
"Vell, speed her up! I got no time. I got--Jesus Christ!"
"Yes, exactly," said Mary Magna.
The great man of the pictures stood rooted to the spot. "Vot's dis?
Some joke you people playin' on me?" He shot a suspicious glance
from one to another of us.
"No," said Mary, "he's real. Honest to God!"
"Oh! You bring him for an engagement. Vell, I don't do no business
outside my office. Send him to see Lipsky in de mornin'."
"He hasn't asked for an engagement," said Mary.
"Oh, he ain't. Vell, vot's he hangin' about for? Been gittin' a
permanent vave? Ha, ha, ha!"
"Cut it out, Abey," said Mary Magna. "This is a gentleman, and you
must be decent. Mr. Carpenter, meet Mr. T-S."
"Carpenter, eh? Vell, Mr. Carpenter, if I vas to make a picture vit
you I gotta spend a million dollars on it--you know you can't make
no cheap skate picture fer a ting like dat, if you do you got a
piece o' cheese. It'd gotta be a costume picture, and you got shoost
as much show to market vun o' dem today as you got vit a pauper's
funeral. I spend all dat money, and no show to git it back, and den
you actors tink I'm makin' ten million a veek off you--"
"Cut it out, Abey!" broke in Mary. "Mr. Carpenter hasn't asked
anything of you."
"Oh, he ain't, hey? So dat's his game. Vell, he'll find maybe I can
vait as long as de next feller. Ven he gits ready to talk business,
he knows vere Eternal City is, I guess. Vot's de matter, Madame, you
got dat old voman o' mine melted to de chair?"
"I'll see, I'll see, Meester T-S," said Madame, hustling out of the
room.
Mary came up to the great man. "See here, Abey," she said, in a low
voice, "you're making the worst mistake of your life. Apparently
this man hasn't been discovered. When he is, you know what'll
happen."
"Vere doss he come from?"
"I don't know. Billy here brought him. I said he must have come out
of a stained glass window in St. Bartholomew's Church."
"Oho, ho!" said T-S.
"Anyhow, he's new, and he's too good to keep. The paper's 'll get
hold of him sure. Just look at him!"
"But, Mary, can he act?"
"Act? My God, he don't have to act! He only has to look at you, and
you want to fall at his feet. Go be decent to him, and find out what
he wants."
The great man surveyed the figure of the stranger appraisingly. Then
he went up to him. "See here, Mr. Carpenter, maybe I could make you
famous. Vould you like dat?"
"I have never thought of being famous," was the reply.
"Vell, you tink of it now. If I hire you, I make you de greatest
actor in de vorld. I make it a propaganda picture fer de churches,
dey vould show it to de headens in China and in Zululand. I make you
a contract fer ten years, and I pay you five hunded dollars a veek,
vedder you vork or not, and you vouldn't have to vork so much,
because I don't catch myself makin' a million dollar feature picture
vit gawd amighty and de angels in it for no regular veekly releases.
Maybe you find some cheap skate feller vit some vild cat company vot
promise you more; but he sells de picture and makes over de money to
his vife's brudders, and den he goes bust, and vere you at den, hey?
Mary Magna, here, she tell you, if you git a contract vit old Abey,
it's shoost like you got libbidy bonds. I make dat lovely lady a
check every veek fer tirty-five hunded dollars, an' I gotta sign it
vit my own hand, and I tell you it gives me de cramps to sign so
much money all de time, but I do it, and you see all dem rings and
ribbons and veils and tings vot she buys vit de money, she looks
like a jeweler's shop and a toy-store all rolled into vun goin'
valkin' down de street."
"Mr. Carpenter was just scolding me for that," said Mary. "I've an
idea if you pay him a salary, he'll feed it to the poor."
"If I pay it," said T-S, "it's his, and he can feed it to de
dicky-birds if he vants to. Vot you say, Mr. Carpenter?"
I was waiting with curiosity to hear what he would say; but at that
moment the door from the "maternity-room" was opened, and the voice
of Madame Planchet broke in: "Here she ees!" And the flesh-mountain
appeared, with the two caryatids supporting her.
