Blue-grass and Broadway

ter with his property-man and his electrician, bu

up, and beat it," he said to the old gentleman who had

the old keeper answered, as he leered at Mr. Roo

ith the show?" Mr. Roon

mitted the

ut either special interest or malice,

curtains to adjust over costume-racks and windows, with covers to match to be slipped over the couple of rough chairs usually supplied dressing-rooms. A fillet covering large enough for any dressing-table, the silver and ivory of the make-up outfit, and lights shaded with the fillet over rose were about all the equipment that the French girl carried in the top of o

. Dennis Farraday entered with the great hesitation of a first appearance in a stage dressing-room. His face was pale and serious. Miss Hawtry had seen that her Maggie Murphy insult to Mr. Vandeford ha

s she turned to him and expelled two sparkling tears from her great blue eyes, and held ou

tnessing "The Purple Slipper" as played by Miss Hawtry in her compelling animality, and his angry eyes suddenly blazed with another light than anger, as wit

nd the question on his lips made them co

, and his face was dead white while his eyes blazed in a great terror. He seemed not to notice t

he took with a trembling hand while Miss Hawtry shrank back against her lace-covered dressing-table and gathered her forces to annihilate Mr. Vandeford. This was the n

Mil

theater program. I have branded the annals of my family, and I never

ric

rraday gasped, as he looked in abject terror at

iss Hawtry, both men departed with all the rapidity possible. There must be some reason that all bond

Purple Slipper" into her normal raiment and character. Then she called a wheel-chair and had herse

he is?" Mr. Farraday questioned Mr. Vandeford as they st

eight that's killed her, and she is right. I felt her

waiting for an answer, he began to run toward the entrance of the hotel half a block ahead. Just as he was turning into the doors with Mr. Vandeford closely following,

ch other's faces; then entirely to the surprise of them both, they went into each other's arms and clung together like two frightened child

was about her own grandmother," Miss Lindse

st the racing heart, which was beginning to slow down and pound against hers with a slightly differen

as saying, and in the absorption of their terror they failed to notic

k in an incredibly short time. Their conversation was almost as incredibly short in view of its portentousness, but while it lasted, Mr. Gerald Height and Mr. William Rooney had been ad

open in it. As I am under no contract to him since Saturday night, I am motoring back to New York to-night to begin rehearsals to-morrow in 'The Rosie Posie Girl' for Mr. Weiner. Good-night!" With a stately curtsy to the assembled principals of "The P

he New Carnival Theater with 'The Purple Slipper,'" Mr. Farraday gaspe

ss Adair, too," Mr. Gerald Height exclaimed, and

e right and spat into the vines. "I've made a pretty good play out of 'The Purple Slipper.' It w

d Height, gloomily. "I always had a hunch

Miss Lindsey in the part and play it refined for a winner.

Height and Mr. William Rooney. And what it lighted in the hearts of both of those gentlemen was nothing to the blaze it fanned in the heart of Mr. Dennis Farraday, where it had been

cut out hers until we get a girl. We'll get the little author busy right no

ness, which had been drugged by hearing and seeing "The Purple Slipper" and Mr.

is lugging her from the railroad station right now," Mr. Rooney said with easy conviction. "Course she'd dodge back to the Christian

, who had that evening made his individual fortune, in which sat Mr. Vandeford and the author of "The Purple Slipper." Without comman

as thrown up the part and gone back to New York, and I am going to act it for you just as you and I have talked about it all

as he came to the other side of the wicker retreat of the hunted author. Something in his voice made Mr. Denn

ay that we produce at the New Carnival October first," Mr. Farra

f Mr. Rooney's whip that br

rybody and have 'em all at the theater to rehearse in a hour; that'll be three o'clock. Mr. Vandeford, you'd better get in a press story over long distance befo

d spoken since he had coolly and silently picked Miss Adair up off a bench in the little

on Broadway for six months-if I'm let alone," answered Mr. Rooney, with the assurance that moves mountains. "Tha

lephone booths with which all Atlantic City keeps up its intimate relations with New York. It was also astonishing how quickly he got his

.

Godfrey Vandef

.

City. Can you get a note a

.

star, Mildred Lindsey. Hawtry handed it to Denny and me rotten, but put that under pretty deep, with Lin

.

, old m

beside his author in the little Atlantic City Theater, which Mr. Rooney had induced the old night watchman door-keeper to open up at the hour when all teeming Atlantic City is in the

but with a boudoir jacket serving for blouse. Also two kid curlers showed at the nape of her neck. "I can feed Miss Grayson into Miss Lindsey's part enough to get by to-

ft when I call for 'em, and I'll take 'em or leave 'em as suits me. Then you smooth the ones I hand you into good talk, and we'll have a show here by sun-up that you'll be proud to invite your Christ

oiled with never a let-up on anybody, and beside him sat the author, with her head up and the bit in her mouth. For every line that rang untrue in the reconstruction she had a true on

m, again put forth bud and bloom on the branches of Grant Howard's tight-knit, well-constructed, and well-rounded drama. The highly-colored flowers of Hawtry personality Mr. Rooney pru

the abhorred scene, being acted along about six o'clock in the morning, to demand that it be played in the proper key, up to which he had succeeded in wringing lines from Miss Adair for the first act and most of the second. "What do hear

y heart; guard the fire in yours

the other kind. Remember, she lives at the ladies Christian home." The laugh that greeted this sally was an uproar that added to

nd Fido had the result in his prompt copy and was beginnin

aid, with the callousness of a slave-driver. "Then if you run through again fa

e motioned Mr. Farraday to come to her. After his degrading the night before at the hands of Miss Hawtry, he felt that he

s Lindsey in his arms and bear her away to immediate nourishment. In the excitement of the last few hours a domesticity had grown up betwe

iss Lindsey stood in the wings waiting for a moderated, impassioned cue from Mr. Height, and

ll you m

le Slipper' goe

for a reminiscent beefsteak and mushrooms during the only free half hour she would hav

e in providing refreshment to restore the author during the precious half hour respite when "the chaff in his heart" caught fire and beg

y," she demanded. "I'm dead, but I'll come alive again if I go to sleep a minute. Sh

as he and the young Italian rushed to the hotel and back with a waiter and a tray of the

to be repeated several times by Mr. Vandeford, as he almost as literally fed his exhausted author

pper" show, and at eleven o'clock Mr. Rooney dismissed his jaded cast with this stri

between now and night, and then come

Adair to a hotel maid, who accepted five dollars from him as a fee for

Due importance was to be given in all the notices that "The Purple Slipper" was to open the New Carnival Theater and in his heart the young advertiser put away the intention of making the fact tha

l' for the time being," he explained to Mr. Vandeford. "You see, it is a kind of double-cross that acts both ways. If it goes, people will think it was worth

that the smart man?uver, which would once hav

o condition to go to the train with good Dennis Farraday to meet Mrs. Farraday, Mrs. and Mr. and Miss Van Tyne, who arrived at five o'clock from big Manha

rraday questioned, with greater anxiety in her face than she had had at any other ope

the board-walk and tell you all about it while I locate and make comfortable the rest

y girls?" sh

as if deeply happy to be able to

Mildred Lindsey sat crouched by her window, with her eyes looking far out over the Atlantic Ocean, wa

Italiana squatting on his heels out of hearing and basking in inactivity, from the moment of the beefsteak episode in his and Miss Lindsey's acquaintance up to the moment in which Miss Hawtry had established herself in his

p loving you, and now she's lost both Van a

was Mr. Farraday's explic

and-and-Dennis, I'll tell you something that I never expected to tell you-I've always wanted to be an actress. I simply adore that Lindsey girl, and I kn

d her in a way that made the sympathetic and now wea

y the fact that Rosalind went upon the stage for her first appearance as a

em. The eminent author sat in the left stage box with Mrs. Justus Farraday of New York and Mr. and Mrs. Derick Van Tyne, and at her side was a chair into which at times dropped Mr. Dennis Farraday, but which had been reserved for the producer. Things had gone brilliantly from the start, from the moment the curtain went up with polished, interesting Miss Herne man?uvering the frightened and sub

ted prompt copy. "Now watch out for Lindsey; she's doing forty sides of new stuff in twenty hours. Me for the stock company to train 'em young. Let her rip, Rosalind!" And with

e led the intrigued audience from one brilliant scene to another, in which she reincarnated before their eyes a very flower of the old Southern chivalry with dash, finish, and lucidity, he felt as if he had done his best and now had a right to be allowed to depart in peace from the world of tinsel and illusion. As Lindsey and Height held the audience spell-bound while the tempted wife dueled with her might against the tender and desperate lover, placing, with a combined art that was as great as any he had ever witnessed, the "big scene" of "The Purple Slip

she asked him, in pro

ll the rest, but-it-is-you," he answered. "You lost it a

the last scene in a mist of tears. The onrush of applause that raised the curtain half a dozen times w

he heard the young press-agent decl

e hay." Miss Adair had gone back of the footlights to cast her gratitude into his arms, and he had failed to notice her appearance in any way at all,

two o'clock in the morning, but when it was over neither the moon, which was as full that night as Mr. Kent had become by coffee and cigars, nor D

which he was inflicting agony on himself by recounting to Miss Adair, when she raised her gray eyes to his

calmness. "Mr. Height explained it all to me the other day. Actors and actresses have peculiar temperaments that fly to

ed face, and he gave her a savage shake. "The whole crazy bunch will have to have law and order shot into 'em or the theatrical profession will follow horse-racing to

d Miss Adair, pressing so close to him that it w

nt to hear it. I'm afraid to

ry when I got to you and we had begun to produce our play together. It's different when men and

ly tried to open his arms for herself. "I'm punished. I've taught you myself! Whe

re?" Miss Adair pleaded as she tugged at his folded arms, with such

Mr. Vandeford answered with grim words, a

ame 'broad standards' I judge you by, like

road standards

to me, only I didn't u

ou had never l

there is fo

ha

'em for ourselves when we come back, because we did it knowing what we know, but let other people be broad wher

and bewilderment, as he took the "white flame" to his breast and drew it past her lip

opeful maid, waiting up for another greenback, he met Mr. R

e's got a hunch for me. If you fail, their show goes in in your place; if you win, Weiner shunts John Drew or Arliss out to one of his other theaters on the road, and puts in 'The Rosie Pos

, and not even thinking of his lost thousands. "It

s. Everybody on Broadway is out to stab everybody els

ndeford murmured, as he fell asleep with his cheek pillowed on t

ds themselves, and interested and distinguished men and women from many outer worlds. In the box facing the one occupied by Mrs. Justus Farraday, in a blaze of both the Farraday and Justus jewels and prestige, and the beautiful young author of the play, with her son Mr. Dennis Farraday, and the producer, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford, sat Miss Violet Hawtry with Mr. Wein

ood luck to both of you, and the little author-oh, there you are, my dear! All of you shake hands with Mr. Weiner. He's s

ity within her that a month later put "The Rosie Posie Girl" up as high and as brilliant in electric lights as "The Purp

attering party of Christian ladies, who, as his guests, had sat in a group, fifth row center, in the New Carnival Theater that evening, off up-stairs. With his talisman key

efore we leave for the Klondike. My commission has arrived from Washington, and the Secretary of the Navy wants qui

nscious volition. "There ought to be a great play out of the Klondike. Jack London could have

answering flame, Mr

me day we'll come back and t

E

riber'

anges have been

chino" changed

ffles" changed to "

nee" chang

ical" changed t

g bird" changed

liffe" changed

rford" changed

iselle" changed

iselle" changed

nkle" changed

liffe" changed

yer's" changed to

Gerald" changed t

s coproducer" changed to

nberger" changed

ing to" changed t

ng along" changed to

Christian" changed

useled" chang

envelop" changed t

erford" changed

yout" changed

quimo" change