Blue-grass and Broadway

rrett Theater on West Forty-sixth Street; that is, it was unanimous except for the presence of the author and the angel-Miss Adair and Mr. Farraday-and Miss Viole

of a table placed in the center of the stage just beyond the footlights. Mr. Rooney marched to a place beside him, and rapped with a lar

without in any way acknowledging Mr. Vandeford's introduction to the company. Mr. Rooney's voice was low and rich, and had the pre

seat left after she had wedged herself as far to one side as possible. Mr. Kent obeyed immediately, though he had just placed a rickety, stuffed chair beside the gold one occupied by Miss Blanche Grayson, the glowerer. Miss Lindsey sat on the end of an overturned box hedge before a drop cur

lared at Mr. Vandeford as though that gentleman must be con

center, and stood directly in front of the table at which sat the producer and his stage-manager. Mr. Vandeford rose imm

he said with an edge

in an apologetic tone, which bent under the cold edge of the assault, as Mr. Vandef

the Hawt

off and he had won, much to Mr. Vandeford's delight. For "Miss Cut-up" he had had to hire, pay for, and fire, three successive stage-managers, and she had managed all three. Mr. Rooney's boast was that no star had eve

to it, Betty!" he commanded as Fido took a seat at the end of the t

Miss Blanche Grayson was beginning to read from he

Farraday entered

ey, and muttered under his breat

ild undertone, though he glared at t

d made the introductions as rapidly as possible and in a voice of such coolness that Miss Adair looked at him in astonishment and then at the assembled company with great timidity. With special t

e same tone of voice with which he had quelled Miss Hawtry

h to the left stage-box, and paused with them out of sight of Mr. Rooney. Then the h

Tartar. How are you both?" As he asked the question he held out a hand to eac

I've got to take the car around to the garage," Mr. Farraday apologized,

at it had not been withdrawn forever, as she had feared from the coolness of

imself searching for a certain expression with the eagerness with which he always looked for it after even a brief

ed the author and the angel. He seated Miss Adair at the front edge of the box and took the chair close at her left

lay instead of the paraphrase Mr. Howard had made of it, and he was surprised to find how deeply grateful he was to himself for having given her this bit as he watched the home-made color rise under the gray eyes as the author sat and heard her written words come to life in a little bit of re

to hear smart babble after their seats are all down. They want to see the star and get going. Cut in Miss Hawtry at the second se

ss Hawtry was agreeing complacently, when

y, not gab," Mr.

g annotations upon his manuscript with strokes that spelled finality to the

w. Later you can-" but the author's attention was caught by the dialogue between Miss Hawtry and Bébé, which wa

rank against Mr. Vandeford's strength of mind, if not against the

d we will talk it over afterward. You know I-I warned you," he whispered wit

f an inch as he had suspected her of doing in his car on the night of her début on Broadway. The charm of Kentucky gir

to last page by the people who were to present it to the public; and Mr. Vandeford found his heart bleeding for the thrusts into hers. Not a protest did she make, but the roses f

e and Fido followed the company in their hurried exit toward the stage-door

d stage in the cool dusk of the box, producer

all up!" were the first words the author of "The Purple Slipper" gave utte

coolness in his voice that restored her mental balance, as he had int

ar!" the author stormed, with lightning

have not decided whether I think it is a good play or not. If I think it isn't, you may have it and burn it up. I don't know what Rooney thinks yet. If he doesn't want t

ty apt to go a pace before curbed. "What was that scene in the last act just before the dinner-party? She read so fast and he had his back to me, so I suppose that is the reason I didn't get it." Mi

to an elucidation of the scene, which was mostly of the cleverest innuendo. "She is a miserable study, and she and Height rehearse the big scenes alone. She just walks through

is killed-and dead, and murdered." Miss Adair

what it will mean to the actors in the company. Miss Lindsey was hungry when she got her first advance on your play, and Bébé Herne

ford's skilful appeal to her generosity, which he made when he saw that his attempt to bluff her about calling off the play had failed. Mr. William Rooney came into the box. His hat was til

n and yet rings true. Did any old dame really have the spunk to put that dinner-party across on both lover and husband that you've got in your play, miss

aid haughtily to the thick-skinned genius. "

mp can doll up the actors in costumes, and one actor can put the ideas across pretty near as good as any other, if he's directed all right; but when it's done,

lling Miss Adair," Mr. Va

'Only Annie' for E. and K., I told that author if he came on my stage any more at rehearsals I would biff hi

air was beginning to say to Mr. Rooney with kind patience,

s he spat on the carpet of the box with no sign of compunction. "The sta

through that sort of-of illiteracy?" Miss

y to get across to-humanity in the gross, which pays to see it. If a scholar writes and produces a play scholars go to see it all right, but all the scholars in America only fil

nterest that was fast becoming impersonal, for she had the wit to see that in some wa

er brutality enough to put the vision that he gets from his conception of the play he is producing into twenty other mentalities and make them present the play as a harmonious whol

oduce his own plays," Miss

oks until he knows costuming of thousands of periods in hundreds of lands and how to sketch it, then gives himself to the studying of stagecraft and the writing of half a hundred plays until he writes one that is really great; after which, if he has the strength and the nerves to produce that pl

t you say makes me see that the-the producer-you are the whole thing. You get it all-me and M

r surely has some claim to draw the huge royalties, and the location of his theater makes the theater-owner know that any play in that theater will go. Yes, the producer will always claim the whole show if it a

Miss Adair exclaimed, with

a panic as he realized that he was going so far in that curious thinking out loud to Miss Adair that he had been about to launch forth on "The Rosie Posie Girl" to her. It would have been like telling

ith the worshipful uplift of her gray eyes to his that had betrayed him in the first place to such a confusion of schemes. "If it added anything to it, I would even be willing to let you put the Adair name to the vulgar thing they read he

she has a-a kind of gutter drag that gets across to the multitude, and of course your play had to be-be fitted to her. Hawtry, to be Hawtry, has to do and say things that you couldn't write at all, that you couldn't very well understand; but they'll get the crowd goin

ss Adair answered him, with a lift to her proud little head. "I am going to stay right here and help if

out loud-"because I've got you in my heart, poor kidd

theater and the tragedy of the situation. He was

't you tell me that you are old R

u mean about Rog

been handing you around on a silver salver for two weeks!" He the

lle, Ke

r D

a play she has written for one Mr. Godfrey Vandeford. She is the greatest girl ever, and you stay right on the job seeing that things go right for her while I plant these potatoes to keep you from starving. She will be at the Y. W. C. A. and will sleep and eat safe

always an

ge

Nantucket, back to my office, and finally arrived this morning. I've just sent Roger a thousand-word telegram, and I hope he never knows that I was off the job ten days. Give that child h

s to that curious little flutter that was like a nestling of which he felt he

oung lady? Why have you side-stepped me?" Mr. Farraday de

nny hadn't come to take care of me because-because I was afraid he'd leave his work and come up to look

ater until past luncheon time when she must be both tired and hungry. Come out to Claremont to luncheon, both of you, this minute," Mr. Farraday both questioned and comma

ark coolness, with his hands clasped over his eyes, when

toeing past his open door, through which the southern sea-b

I sent read, '

ompetent t

a

d-ni

e dotted-muslin-curtained cells at the Y. W. C. A. Miss Adair was telling Miss Lindsey "all about it," and spar

pping, but it is not at all like-like what I thought i

somebody to fit it to Miss Hawtry," replied Miss Adai

demanded Miss Lind

everybody put in anything they wanted to, instead of what I wrote. He left in a little of mine to compliment me. It's all right, because nobody would have gone

emembered her main chance, which was the favor of Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, and said ins

produced a copy of "The Purple Slipper," which bore the unexpurgated title of "The Renunciation

s before midnight, and Miss Lindsey

ou think?" dema

y as it stands, but there is a dandy one to be worked up from it that you-you-that would be lik

ay will be a success?" asked Miss

ft than you realize, and the turns that-that Mr. Vandeford's playwright has given it are very clever. Lots of times he's just paraphrased

confess, and there then ensued a downpour, which the hardier Western g

y myself," she finally sobbed, with returning courage, thus comforting herself with the resolve which every pl

hat is the way actors do to keep going during the awful grilling of the re

on her pillow, to sleep, while Miss Lindsey took

hen she sees Hawtry and Height really in action in so

ses she and Miss Lindsey and Mr. Farraday had purchased, and reported herself about an hour late at the rehearsals of "The Purple Slipper," whose authorship she had repudiated. She seated herself in the dusk of the left stage-box and bared her breast for blows. They ca

lady like she was the last ham sandwich extinct and you knew you were going to be fed on alfalfa the rest of your life. Get her going, man, get her going! She's an old foo

of my own black boys. Is my hand not ever ready for your service and my wit-and also my hea

ng entirely from behind the table. "You are the fool of

th, and I will rest me content in-'" Miss Herne answered in a mo

the sister and only in the play to swell the list of actors on the program, so grab and keep a-grabbing if you want

ind bids me say

we'll have to begin to feed the audience the hugging by a quarter to ten or they will go

as nowhere in sight, and she decided to walk around the block and see if the sun at ninety degrees would warm her chill. After this journey she returned to her post and found the box

h the scenes, Miss Hawtry, do it awak

heart warmed to her as she noted the contemptuousn

like you were begging her to go with you over to Ligget's for an ice-cream soda with crushed strawberries. Say it this way." And as she sat astounded Miss Adair heard a line that she had written in a sympathetic fervor of imagination and which was perhaps her favorite in the whole play, uttered by Mr. William

e bit of high art that had flashed upon her, "it is in my contract with Mr. Vand

d her with a blow straight from his shoulder. "Give little sister her

Hawtry came to the center to continue her tir

the enraged star. "Take it up, Kent, with Miss Herne at 'I will w

le Slipper" was set in motion, and swept Miss Hawtr

r plexus-wherever "The Renunciation of Rosalind" had been conceived. Miss Adair did not know what it was that thus affected her, but she had got hold of her end of the psychic cord alon

rd sat in his big chair in his office and fought a battle for "The

g, with trouble settled in a cloud upon his broad brow. "I have it fairly good for the road for 'The Purpl

Weiner's New Carnival Theater," Mr. Vandefo

r. Vandeford, sir, it is always failures that leave

ckets that any show, no matter how rotten, that gets in a Broadway theater plays to capacity and stays. They'd go t

re to give you a place. It is that he will always give you a pref

Pops; and I don't blame the fellows who do own them for filling them with their own cheap companies and play

at New Carnival with a Hilliard show, name not given," Mr. Mey

ie Girl' until I get good and ready to let her play it. Then I'll produce it to the tune of a half-million dollars and not Mr. Weiner. I've never been squeezed, and I'm not going to have this rotten gam

oking king, as he and Mr. Vandeford smoked leisurely cigars in his big, cool office. "You should worry! E. and K

ry if I don't present her on B

on't have any show to jump into, and

down to Atlantic City to see 'The Purple Slipper'

says little genius amateur wrote it an

s.

of The Monks, Mr. Vandeford was imparting his predicament to hi

'll have to loaf on the road or even close while waiting for the New York opening?"

d Mr. Vandeford, over a tall glass of iced tea he was drinking; h

t for those few indefinite weeks?" suggest

got us and she'll keep us guessing up to the last minute, and then put some kind of

now she will," said Mr. Farraday, with both faith and c

r, Denny. I can't," said Mr. Vandeford, as he

ith pained sympathy in his big voice.

day. "But I wish you wouldn't, Denny," he added, with a sudden glow of affection in his eyes. Then he was restrained from further remonstrance with Mr. Farraday by the thought of the author of "The Purple Sl

ay, "The Purple Slipper," that very evening, out on the veranda of the Beach Inn, where he had motored her by re

s going to stick by?" she asked, wi

p for indefinite weeks," said Mr. Farraday, c

as little of

k by us, and I said so!" Mr. Farr

rm and began to weep softly. They were in a secluded corner of the veranda of the Inn, and the Violet raged at herself for having closed the complete

ed his wide, silk-garbed shoulder to the rain of her tears, which were not really raining. In his big heart there was the same comforting for this conspirato

was heard calling to them from around the veranda, and an oath rose in the Violet with suc

she promised, and the hurried pressure of their lips in th

t fall the purple letter on the purple manuscript and gone o