"Rotten!" said Freddie, and returned to his National Geographic Magazine.
Otis Pilkington tottered into his cab. He was shattered by what he had heard. They had massacred his beautiful play, and, doing so, had not even made a success of it by their own sordid commercial lights. Business at Baltimore had been rotten! That meant more expense, further columns of figures with "frames" and "rehl" in front of them! He staggered into the station.
"Hey!" cried the taxi-driver.
Otis Pilkington turned.
"Sixty-five cents, mister, if you please! Forgetting I'm not your private shovoor, wasn't you?"
Mr Pilkington gave him a dollar. Money—money! Life was just one long round of paying out and paying out.
2.
The day which Mr Pilkington had selected for his visit to the provinces was a Tuesday. "The Rose of America" had opened at Rochester on the previous night, after a week at Atlantic City in its original form and a week at Baltimore in what might be called its second incarnation. Business had been bad in Atlantic City and no better in Baltimore, and a meager first-night house at Rochester had given the piece a cold reception, which had put the finishing touches to the depression of the company in spite of the fact that the Rochester critics, like those of Baltimore, had written kindly of the play. One of the maxims of the theatre is that "out-of-town notices don't count," and the company had refused to be cheered by them.
It is to be doubted, however, if even crowded houses would have aroused much response from the principals and chorus of "The Rose of America." For two weeks without a break they had been working under forced draught, and they were weary in body and spirit. The new principals had had to learn parts in exactly half the time usually given for that purpose, and the chorus, after spending five weeks assimilating one set of steps and groupings, had been compelled to forget them and rehearse an entirely new set. From the morning after the first performance at Atlantic City, they had not left the theatre except for sketchy half-hour meals.
Jill, standing listlessly in the wings while the scene-shifters arranged the second act set, was aware of Wally approaching from the direction of the pass-door.
"Miss Mariner, I believe?" said Wally. "I suppose you know you look perfectly wonderful in that dress? All Rochester's talking about it, and there is some idea of running excursion trains from Troy and Utica. A great stir it has made!"
Jill smiled. Wally was like a tonic to her during these days of overwork. He seemed to be entirely unaffected by the general depression, a fact which he attributed himself to the happy accident of being in a position to sit back and watch the others toil. But in reality Jill knew that he was working as hard as any one. He was working all the time, changing scenes, adding lines, tinkering with lyrics, smoothing over principals whose nerves had become strained by the incessant rehearsing, keeping within bounds Mr Goble's passion for being the big noise about the theatre. His cheerfulness was due to the spirit that was in him, and Jill appreciated it. She had come to feel very close to Wally since the driving rush of making over "The Rose of America" had begun.
"They seemed quite calm tonight," she said. "I believe half of them were asleep."
"They're always like that in Rochester. They cloak their deeper feelings. They wear the mask. But you can tell from the glassy look in their eyes that they are really seething inwardly. But what I came round about was—(a)—to give you this letter …"
Jill took the letter, and glanced at the writing. It was from Uncle Chris. She placed it on the axe over the fire-buckets for perusal later.
"The man at the box-office gave it to me," said Wally, "when I looked in there to find out how much money there was in the house tonight. The sum was so small that he had to whisper it."
"I'm afraid the piece isn't a success."
"Nonsense! Of course it is! We're doing fine. That brings me to section (b) of my discourse. I met poor old Pilkington in the lobby, and he said exactly what you have just said, only at greater length."
"Is Mr Pilkington here?"
"He appears to have run down on the afternoon train to have a look at the show. He is catching the next train back to New York! Whenever I meet him, he always seems to be dashing off to catch the next train back to New York! Poor chap! Have you ever done a murder? If you haven't, don't! I know exactly what it feels like, and it feels rotten! After two minutes conversation with Pilkington, I could sympathize with Macbeth when he chatted with Banquo. He said I had killed his play. He nearly wept, and he drew such a moving picture of a poor helpless musical fantasy being lured into a dark alley by thugs and there slaughtered that he almost had me in tears too. I felt like a beetle-browed brute with a dripping knife and hands imbrued with innocent gore."
"Poor Mr Pilkington!"
"Once more you say exactly what he said, only more crisply. I comforted him as well as I could, told him all for the best and so on, and he flung the box-office receipts in my face and said that the piece was as bad a failure commercially as it was artistically. I couldn't say anything to that, seeing what a house we've got tonight, except to bid him look out to the horizon where the sun will shortly shine. In other words, I told him that business was about to buck up and that later on he would be going about the place with a sprained wrist from clipping coupons. But he refused to be cheered, cursed me some more for ruining his piece, and ended by begging me to buy his share of it cheap."
"You aren't going to?"
"No, I am not—but simply and solely for the reason that, after that fiasco in London, I raised my right hand—thus—and swore an oath that never, as long as I lived, would I again put up a cent for a production, were it the most obvious cinch on earth. I'm gun-shy. But if he does happen to get hold of any one with a sporting disposition and a few thousands to invest, that person will make a fortune. This piece is going to be a gold-mine."
Jill looked at him in surprise. With anybody else but Wally she would have attributed this confidence to author's vanity. But with Wally, she felt, the fact that the piece, as played now, was almost entirely his own work did not count. He viewed it dispassionately, and she could not understand why, in the face of half-empty houses, he should have such faith in it.
"But what makes you think so? We've been doing awfully badly so far."
Wally nodded.
"And we shall do awfully badly in Syracuse the last half of this week. And why? For one thing, because the show isn't a show at all at present. That's what you can't get these fatheads like Goble to understand. All they go by is the box-office. Why should people flock to pay for seats for what are practically dress rehearsals of an unknown play? Half the principals have had to get up in their parts in two weeks, and they haven't had time to get anything out of them. They are groping for their lines all the time. The girls can't let themselves go in the numbers, because they are wondering if they are going to remember the steps. The show hasn't had time to click together yet. It's just ragged. Take a look at it in another two weeks! I know! I don't say musical comedy is a very lofty form of art, but still there's a certain amount of science about it. If you go in for it long enough, you learn the tricks, and take it from me that if you have a good cast and some catchy numbers, it's almost impossible not to have a success. We've got an excellent cast now, and the numbers are fine. The thing can't help being a hit.
"There's another thing to think of. It so happens that we shall go into New York with practically nothing against us. Usually you have half a dozen musical successes to compete with, but just at the moment there's nothing. But the chief reason for not being discouraged by bad houses so far is that we've been playing bad towns. Every town on the road has its special character. Some are good show-towns, others are bad. Nobody knows why. Detroit will take anything. So will Washington. Whereas Cincinnati wants something very special. Where have we been? Atlantic City, Baltimore, and here. Atlantic City is a great place to play in the summer and for a couple of weeks round about Easter. Also at Christmas. But for the rest of the year, no. Too many new shows are tried out there. It makes the inhabitants wary. Baltimore is good for a piece with a New York reputation, but they don't want new pieces. Rochester and Syracuse are always bad. 'Follow the Girl' died a hideous death in Rochester, and it went on and played two years in New York and one in London. I tell you—as I tried to tell Pilkington, only he wouldn't listen—that this show is all right. There's a fortune in it for somebody. But I suppose Pilkington is now sitting in the smoking-car of an east-bound train, trying to get the porter to accept his share in the piece instead of a tip!"