4.
To Mr Goble, fermenting and full of strange oaths, entered Johnson
Miller. The dance-director was always edgey on first nights, and
during the foregoing conversation had been flitting about the stage
like a white-haired moth. His deafness had kept him in complete
ignorance that there was anything untoward afoot, and he now
approached Mr Goble with his watch in his hand.
"Eight twenty-five," he observed. "Time those girls were on stage."
Mr Goble, glad of a concrete target for his wrath, cursed him in
about two hundred and fifty rich and well-selected words.
"Huh?" said Mr Miller, hand to ear.
Mr Goble repeated the last hundred and eleven words, the pick of the
bunch.
"Can't hear!" said Mr Miller, regretfully. "Got a cold."
The grave danger that Mr Goble, a thick-necked man, would undergo
some sort of a stroke was averted by the presence-of-mind of the
stage-director, who, returning with the hat, presented it like a
bouquet to his employer, and then his hands being now unoccupied,
formed them into a funnel and through this flesh-and-blood megaphone
endeavored to impart the bad news.
"The girls say they won't go on!"
Mr Miller nodded.
"I _said_ it was time they were on."
"They're on strike!"
"It's not," said Mr Miller austerely, "what they like, it's what
they're paid for. They ought to be on stage. We should be ringing up
in two minutes."
The stage director drew another breath, then thought better of it. He
had a wife and children, and, if dadda went under with apoplexy, what
became of the home, civilization's most sacred product? He relaxed
the muscles of his diaphragm, and reached for pencil and paper.
Mr Miller inspected the message, felt for his spectacle-case, found
it, opened it, took out his glasses, replaced the spectacle-case,
felt for his handkerchief, polished the glasses, replaced the
handkerchief, put the glasses on, and read. A blank look came into
his face.
"Why?" he enquired.
The stage director, with a nod of the head intended to imply that he
must be patient and all would come right in the future, recovered the
paper, and scribbled another sentence. Mr Miller perused it.
"Because Mae D'Arcy has got her notice?" he queried, amazed. "But the
girl can't dance a step."
The stage director, by means of a wave of the hand, a lifting of both
eyebrows, and a wrinkling of the nose, replied that the situation,
unreasonable as it might appear to the thinking man, was as he had
stated and must be faced. What, he enquired--through the medium of a
clever drooping of the mouth and a shrug of the shoulders--was to be
done about it?
Mr Miller remained for a moment in meditation.
"I'll go and talk to them," he said.
He flitted off, and the stage director leaned back against the
asbestos curtain. He was exhausted, and his throat was in agony, but
nevertheless he was conscious of a feeling of quiet happiness. His
life had been lived in the shadow of the constant fear that some day
Mr Goble might dismiss him. Should that disaster occur, he felt,
there was always a future for him in the movies.
Scarcely had Mr Miller disappeared on his peace-making errand, when
there was a noise like a fowl going through a quickset hedge, and Mr
Saltzburg, brandishing his baton as if he were conducting an unseen
orchestra, plunged through the scenery at the left upper entrance and
charged excitedly down the stage. Having taken his musicians twice
through the overture, he had for ten minutes been sitting in silence,
waiting for the curtain to go up. At last, his emotional nature
cracking under the strain of this suspense, he had left his
conductor's chair and plunged down under the stage by way of the
musician's bolthole to ascertain what was causing the delay.
"What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?" enquired Mr
Saltzburg. "I wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. . . . We
cannot play the overture again. What is it? What has happened?"
Mr Goble, that overwrought soul, had betaken himself to the wings,
where he was striding up and down with his hands behind his back,
chewing his cigar. The stage director braced himself once more to the
task of explanation.
"The girls have struck!"
Mr Saltzburg blinked through his glasses.
"The girls?" he repeated blankly.
"Oh, damn it!" cried the stage director, his patience at last giving
way. "You know what a girl is, don't you?"
"They have what?"
"Struck! Walked out on us! Refused to go on!"
Mr Saltzburg reeled under the blow.
"But it is impossible! Who is to sing the opening chorus?"
In the presence of one to whom he could relieve his mind without fear
of consequences, the stage director became savagely jocular.
"That's all arranged," he said. "We're going to dress the carpenters
in skirts. The audience won't notice anything wrong."
"Should I speak to Mr Goble?" queried Mr Saltzburg doubtfully.
"Yes, if you don't value your life," returned the stage director.
Mr Saltzburg pondered.
"I will go and speak to the children," he said. "I will talk to them.
They know _me!_ I will make them be reasonable."
He bustled off in the direction taken by Mr Miller, his coattails
flying behind him. The stage director, with a tired sigh, turned to
face Wally, who had come in through the iron pass-door from the
auditorium.
"Hullo!" said Wally cheerfully. "Going strong? How's everybody at
home? Fine! So am I! By the way, am I wrong or did I hear something
about a theatrical entertainment of some sort here tonight?" He
looked about him at the empty stage. In the wings, on the prompt
side, could be discerned the flannel-clad forms of the gentlemanly
members of the male ensemble, all dressed up for Mrs Stuyvesant van
Dyke's tennis party. One or two of the principals were standing
perplexedly in the lower entrance. The O. P. side had been given over
by general consent to Mr Goble for his perambulations. Every now and
then he would flash into view through an opening in the scenery. "I
understood that tonight was the night for the great revival of comic
opera. Where are the comics, and why aren't they opping?"
The stage director repeated his formula once more.
"The girls have struck!"
"So have the clocks," said Wally. "It's past nine."
"The chorus refuse to go on."
"No, really! Just artistic loathing of the rotten piece, or is there
some other reason?"
"They're sore because one of them has been given her notice, and they
say they won't give a show unless she's taken back. They've struck.
That Mariner girl started it."
"She did!" Wally's interest became keener. "She would!" he said
approvingly. "She's a heroine!"
"Little devil! I never liked that girl!"
"Now there," said Wally, "is just the point on which we differ. I
have always liked her, and I've known her all my life. So, shipmate,
if you have any derogatory remarks to make about Miss Mariner, keep
them where they belong--_there!_" He prodded the other sharply in the
stomach. He was smiling pleasantly, but the stage director, catching
his eye, decided that his advice was good and should be followed. It
is just as bad for the home if the head of the family gets his neck
broken as if he succumbs to apoplexy.
"You surely aren't on their side?" he said.
"Me!" said Wally. "Of course I am. I'm always on the side of the
down-trodden and oppressed. If you know of a dirtier trick than
firing a girl just before the opening, so that they won't have to pay
her two weeks' salary, mention it. Till you do, I'll go on believing
that it is the limit. Of course I'm on the girls' side. I'll make
them a speech if they want me to, or head the procession with a
banner if they are going to parade down the boardwalk. I'm for 'em,
Father Abraham, a hundred thousand strong. And then a few! If you
want my considered opinion, our old friend Goble has asked for it and
got it. And I'm glad--glad--glad, if you don't mind my quoting
Pollyanna for a moment. I hope it chokes him!"
"You'd better not let him hear you talking like that!"
"An contraire, as we say in the Gay City, I'm going to make a point
of letting him hear me talk like that! Adjust the impression that I
fear any Goble in shining armor, because I don't. I propose to speak
my mind to him. I would beard him in his lair, if he had a beard.
Well, I'll clean-shave him in his lair. That will be just as good.
But hist! whom have we here? Tell me, do you see the same thing I
see?"
Like the vanguard of a defeated army, Mr Saltzburg was coming
dejectedly across the stage.
"Well?" said the stage-director.
"They would not listen to me," said Mr Saltzburg brokenly. "The more
I talked, the more they did not listen!" He winced at a painful
memory. "Miss Trevor stole my baton, and then they all lined up and
sang the 'Star-Spangled Banner'!"
"Not the words?" cried Wally incredulously. "Don't tell me they knew
the words!"
"Mr Miller is still up there, arguing with them. But it will be of no
use. What shall we do?" asked Mr Saltzburg helplessly. "We ought to
have rung up half an hour ago. What shall we do-oo-oo?"
"We must go and talk to Goble," said Wally. "Something has got to be
settled quick. When I left, the audience was getting so impatient
that I thought he was going to walk out on us. He's one of those
nasty, determined-looking men. So come along!"
Mr Goble, intercepted as he was about to turn for another walk
up-stage, eyed the deputation sourly and put the same question that
the stage director had put to Mr Saltzburg.
"Well?"
Wally came briskly to the point.
"You'll have to give in," he said, "or else go and make a speech to
the audience, the burden of which will be that they can have their
money back by applying at the box-office. These Joans of Arc have got
you by the short hairs!"
"I won't give in!"
"Then give out!" said Wally. "Or pay out, if you prefer it. Trot
along and tell the audience that the four dollars fifty in the house
will be refunded."
Mr Goble gnawed his cigar.
"I've been in the show business fifteen years . . ."
"I know. And this sort of thing has never happened to you before. One
gets new experiences."
Mr Goble cocked his cigar at a fierce angle, and glared at Wally.
Something told him that Wally's sympathies were not wholly with him.
"They can't do this sort of thing to me," he growled.
"Well, they are doing it to someone, aren't they," said Wally, "and,
if it's not you, who is it?"
"I've a damned good mind to fire them all!"
"A corking idea! I can't see a single thing wrong with it except that
it would hang up the production for another five weeks and lose you
your bookings and cost you a week's rent of this theatre for nothing
and mean having all the dresses made over and lead to all your
principals going off and getting other jobs. These trifling things
apart, we may call the suggestion a bright one."
"You talk too damn much!" said Mr Goble, eyeing him with distaste.
"Well, go on, _you_ say something. Something sensible."
"It is a very serious situation . . ." began the stage director.
"Oh, shut up!" said Mr Goble.
The stage director subsided into his collar.
"I cannot play the overture again," protested Mr Saltzburg. "I
cannot!"
At this point Mr Miller appeared. He was glad to see Mr Goble. He had
been looking for him, for he had news to impart.
"The girls," said Mr Miller, "have struck! They won't go on!"
Mr Goble, with the despairing gesture of one who realizes the
impotence of words, dashed off for his favorite walk up stage. Wally
took out his watch.
"Six seconds and a bit," he said approvingly, as the manager
returned. "A very good performance. I should like to time you over
the course in running-kit."
The interval for reflection, brief as it had been, had apparently
enabled Mr Goble to come to a decision.
"Go," he said to the stage director, "and tell 'em that fool of a
D'Arcy girl can play. We've got to get that curtain up."
"Yes, Mr Goble."
The stage director galloped off.
"Get back to your place," said the manager to Mr Saltzburg, "and play
the overture again."
"Again!"
"Perhaps they didn't hear it the first two times," said Wally.
Mr Goble watched Mr Saltzburg out of sight. Then he turned to Wally.
"That damned Mariner girl was at the bottom of this! She started the
whole thing! She told me so. Well, I'll settle _her!_ She goes
tomorrow!"
"Wait a minute," said Wally. "Wait one minute! Bright as it is, that
idea is _out!_"
"What the devil has it got to do with you?"
"Only this, that, if you fire Miss Mariner, I take that neat script
which I've prepared and I tear it into a thousand fragments. Or nine
hundred. Anyway, I tear it. Miss Manner opens in New York, or I pack
up my work and leave."
Mr Goble's green eyes glowed.
"Oh, you're stuck on her, are you?" he sneered. "I see!"
"Listen, dear heart," said Wally, gripping the manager's arm, "I can
see that you are on the verge of introducing personalities into this
very pleasant little chat. Resist the impulse! Why not let your spine
stay where it is instead of having it kicked up through your hat?
Keep to the main issue. Does Miss Mariner open in New York or does
she lot?"
There was a tense silence. Mr Goble permitted himself a swift review
of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally,
beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence
restrained him. He wanted Wally's work. He needed Wally in his
business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal
feelings.
"All right!" he growled reluctantly.
"That's a promise," said Wally. "I'll see that you keep it." He
looked over his shoulder. The stage was filled with gayly-colored
dresses. The mutineers had returned to duty. "Well, I'll be getting
along. I'm rather sorry we agreed to keep clear of personalities,
because I should have liked to say that, if ever they have a
skunk-show at Madison Square Garden, you ought to enter--and win the
blue ribbon. Still, of course, under our agreement my lips are
sealed, and I can't even hint at it. Good-bye. See you later, I
suppose?"
Mr Goble, giving a creditable imitation of a living statue, was
plucked from his thoughts by a hand upon his arm. It was Mr Miller,
whose unfortunate ailment had prevented him from keeping abreast of
the conversation.
"What did he say?" enquired Mr Miller, interested. "I didn't hear
what he said!"
Mr Goble made no effort to inform him.
