“Song and dance. This is Si; he wants to get in touch with them. Si, that’s John, the talkative one. And this is Ben. He’s an acrobat, they can’t talk.” They grinned, reaching out to shake my hand. “I’m going up to change,” Maude said. “Stick around if you want. There’ll be others out here: somebody must know Tessie and Ted. I’m beginning to feel I do.” She went up the stairs, and John, the old one, said, “Take a load off your feet, Si,” and I sat down halfway up the steps.
“That Variety?—he nodded at my coat pocket. “Mind if I borrow it?”
I gave it to him, and to Ben he said, “You seen this yet?” Ben shook his head. “Well, you know LaMont, LaMont’s Cockatoos?”
“Yeah, I played with LaMont. In Des Moines. Bird act. Noisy, squawking damn things. Not like Maude’s.”
“Well, he’s got a squawk himself here in Variety.” John took a pair of old-style specs with narrow oval lenses from his shirt pocket, flicked out the thin wire sidepieces, and put them on with one hand. A young good-looking woman in slippers and a long patterned kimono with wide Japanese sleeves came out of the house, sat down on an upper balustrade, pulling out a square of knitting from her kimono pocket, and began to knit. John said, “Dolores, this here’s Si,” and she smiled beautifully at me, and I nodded back, trying to equal her smile. John raised paper and chin high, turning his back to the streetlamp to bring its light fully on the page. “ ‘New York, New York,’ ” he read aloud. “ ‘In last week’s Variety George M. Young wrote a review of Keith’s bill, Philadelphia, wherein he made mention of an act playing the Victoria there that was either a copy of LaMont’s Cockatoos, or there was difficulty in understanding how the routine of both bird acts could be so much alike. I think Mr. Young has made a big mistake in comparing any other act with LaMont’s Cockatoos. LaMont’s Cockatoos do back somersaults, giant swings, and so forth, which other bird acts are not on record as exhibiting. LaMont’s birds, fifty in number, are all trained, where the other act has but three birds, and features one trick like LaMont’s; i.e., the bell trick. But LaMont does not make the bell trick constitute the entire act as the other act does. In fact, the act spoken of is nothing like LaMont’s. It is like all other acts that are in the same line. They try the bluff of putting it over, but fail to accomplish the results of LaMont’s Cockatoos. Signed, LaMont.’ ” As he folded the paper to hand it back to me, I smiled and nodded to show I appreciated the humor of the letter he’d read. But none of the others smiled; they glanced at me quickly, then looked away, and I felt my face go hot. Dolores reached down to touch my shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t blame you, Si. LaMont’s letter does sound funny. All that fuss. But his act is all he’s got, you see. It’s everything, it’s his livelihood, it’s him, he’s nothing without it. None of us are. And he has to protect that. Bookers read the goddamn reviews, you can bet on that, bookers. So LaMont can’t let his fifty-bird act get confused with anything less.” She smiled at me. “Verstehen?”
I nodded, and so did the old man, who said, “You got to fight for your act. Hell, they’ll even steal it from the thief who stole it from you. Listen to this one.” He took the paper from my lap, opened it to the same page of letters, and read aloud. “ ‘Chicago. January 8. Editor Variety. Re: the letter accusing James Neary of stealing Mike Scott’s act, that of wearing dress coat, green tights, with medals on. I wish to state that I and Tom Ward produced it originally at the Odeon Theatre, Baltimore, Maryland, February 13, 1876. I can refer you to Steve Finn and Jack Sheean. Signed, W. J. Malcolm.’ ” John grinned at me, letting me know he agreed this was kind of funny. “Knew a guy once,” he said, “claimed he thought up the line ‘Beautiful but dumb.’ ” Got mad every time he heard anyone else use it.” He lifted Variety to his glasses again, and read, “ ‘London, December 19. Editor Variety. I desire to call your attention to an injustice which artists often have to suffer in the use by other artists of an expression or form of advertisement. For instance, with my daughter, Alice Pierce, who presents a series of “impressions” of stars, I find that the word “impression” is now being used for the first time by several artists. Signed, M. Pierce.’ ”
I nodded, not smiling now, at this little glimpse of an old man fighting for his daughter. “Steal your act,” Dolores said as a young man in shirtsleeves, no attached collar, appeared in the doorway behind her. “Worst thing they can do.”
“Oh, there’s worse than that,” the new man said; then Dolores interrupted to introduce us. His name was Al, and he’d never heard of Tessie and Ted. He sat down beside Dolores, and continued his story. “You know Noble and Henson? Songs and crossfire?” They all nodded, murmuring yes. “Well, I saw Pat last week at the Hoffman House. He’s not working now, but he says they’re booked. Well, Pat says last summer he was offered the Orpheum Circuit for the team at a salary of two hundred per week. He was to sign the contract next day. Well, he told people about it, and that night he runs into a fellow name of Burt Bender; you know him?” Nobody seemed to. Maude Boothe came out in a dark blue bathrobe and slippers; she sat down opposite Dolores and Al. “Well,” said Al, “Burt was the male member of another team not quite as good as Noble and Henson.”
“I remember them,” Maude said. “Played with them once in San Francisco.”
“Well, Burt meets Pat Henson, and came in like a million dollars. Says, ‘What do you think of Beck: wants me to sign for the Orpheum at two hundred and fifty. I been fighting him for the other fifty for six months.’ ” Two very tiny women, not quite dwarfs, came out, and sat down next to Maude. I’d become aware that, two houses to the west, a similar gathering had formed; and several more across the street. “Well, Pat said that after this gink left, he thought about that for the rest of the evening. Here’s The Benders, not as good as they were and everyone knew it. But the Orph Circuit offers them fifty bucks more!” The street before us stood empty, motionless; not a car had passed since I’d come here, and none were parked in the entire block. “So Pat talks the whole thing over with his partner, and next day they turn down the Orpheum Circuit at two hundred. Well, they laid off all winter, and he spent his savings. This last spring Pat finds out what happened. Somebody told Burt Bender about Pat’s offer, and Burt hotfoots it over to the Orpheum booking office. He tells the Orpheum he and his partner will work for one fifty. So they took him and his partner ’stead of Noble and Henson. Burt says he’s been layin’ for that guy ever since.”
Maude Boothe said, “Anybody ever hear of an act Tessie and Ted? Si down there is looking for them.” The two tiny women thought, then shook their heads. “Well, stick around,” Maude said to me. “Eventually somebody’ll know.” Later Maude told me who everyone out here was. Al and Dolores were married, and had an act together: they were magnificent dancers, the tango especially. They were on at the Victoria. Upstairs they had a year-old baby, and Dolores always sat where she could hear it if it cried. The two tiny women were twins, though not identical, born in Toledo to a pair of English music hall performers in the States on a tour, who never went home. Their twins became teenagers, and their parents taught and rehearsed them in the act they still used—the act was their inheritance. In it, one of them, heavily rouged and powdered, acted as a ventriloquist’s dummy for the other. Presently the dummy would rebel, and they’d trade places: audiences loved that, it was the high point of their act. They’d sing a little then, dance a little, not badly but not especially well. Didn’t matter because audiences always took them to their hearts, and the pair was always booked, and always in big time. They were shy, never went out, at ease only with vaudevillians. Old John was long retired. Like many vaudevillians, though by no means all, Maude told me later, he’d saved money, owned property, had several bank accounts: for safety. And a diamond ring he could hock if he had to. He lived in theatrical boarding houses like this one, moving occasionally for a change or because he got mad at somebody. Everything tangible he owned was in his old dome-topped trunk, professionally lettered with his name and his agent’s address. Ben was a fairly new arrival and Maude didn’t know much about him. “Yet,” she added, smiling. She thought he had or once had had a family somewhere. There were other boarders, either up in their rooms or not at home. Nothing about herself.