The Little Warrior Page 10

  CHAPTER TEN

  1.

  THE offices of Messrs Goble and Cohn were situated, like everythingelse in New York that appertains to the drama, in the neighborhood ofTimes Square. They occupied the fifth floor of the Gotham Theatre onWest Forty-second Street. As there was no elevator in the buildingexcept the small private one used by the two members of the firm,Jill walked up the stairs, and found signs of a thriving businessbeginning to present themselves as early as the third floor, wherehalf a dozen patient persons of either sex had draped themselves likeroosting fowls upon the banisters. There were more on the fourthfloor, and the landing of the fifth, which served the firm as awaiting-room, was quite full. It is the custom of theatricalmanagers--the lowest order of intelligence, with the possibleexception of the _limax maximus_ or garden slug, known to science--toomit from their calculations the fact that they are likely every dayto receive a large number of visitors, whom they will be obliged tokeep waiting; and that these people will require somewhere to wait.Such considerations never occur to them. Messrs Goble and Cohn hadprovided for those who called to see them one small bench on thelanding, conveniently situated at the intersecting point of threedraughts, and had let it go at that.

  Nobody, except perhaps the night-watchman, had ever seen this benchempty. At whatever hour of the day you happened to call, you wouldalways find three wistful individuals seated side by side with theireyes on the tiny ante-room where sat the office-boy, thetelephone-girl, and Mr Goble's stenographer. Beyond this was the doormarked "Private," through which, as it opened to admit some careless,debonair, thousand-dollar-a-week comedian who sauntered in with ajaunty "Hello, Ike!" or some furred and scented female star, the rankand file of the profession were greeted, like Moses on Pisgah, with afleeting glimpse of the promised land, consisting of a large desk anda section of a very fat man with spectacles and a bald head or ayounger man with fair hair and a double chin.

  The keynote of the mass meeting on the landing was one of determined,almost aggressive smartness. The men wore bright overcoats with bandsround the waist, the women those imitation furs which to theuninitiated eye appear so much more expensive than the real thing.Everybody looked very dashing and very young, except about the eyes.Most of the eyes that glanced at Jill were weary. The women werenearly all blondes, blondness having been decided upon in the theatreas the color that brings the best results. The men were all so muchalike that they seemed to be members of one large family,--anillusion which was heightened by the scraps of conversation, studdedwith "dears," "old mans," and "honeys," which came to Jill's ears. Astern fight for supremacy was being waged by a score or so of livelyand powerful young scents.

  For a moment Jill was somewhat daunted by the spectacle, but sherecovered almost immediately. The exhilarating and heady influence ofNew York still wrought within her. The Berserk spirit was upon her,and she remembered the stimulating words of Mr Brown, of Brown andWidgeon, the best jazz-and-hokum team on the Keith Circuit. "Walkstraight in!" had been the burden of his inspiring address. Shepushed her way through the crowd until she came to the smallante-room.

  In the ante-room were the outposts, the pickets of the enemy. In onecorner a girl was hammering energetically and with great speed on atypewriter: a second girl, seated at a switchboard, was having anargument with Central which was already warm and threatened todescend shortly to personalities: on a chair tilted back so that itrested against the wall, a small boy sat eating candy and reading thecomic page of an evening newspaper. All three were enclosed, likezoological specimens, in a cage formed by a high counter terminatingin brass bars.

  Beyond these watchers on the threshold was the door marked "Private."Through it, as Jill reached the outer defences, filtered the sound ofa piano.

  Those who have studied the subject have come to the conclusion thatthe boorishness of theatrical managers' office-boys cannot be theproduct of mere chance. Somewhere, in some sinister den in thecriminal districts of the town, there is a school where small boysare trained for these positions, where their finer instincts arerigorously uprooted and rudeness systematically inculcated bycompetent professors. Of this school the candy-eating Cerberus ofMessrs Goble and Cohn had been the star scholar. Quickly seeing hisnatural gifts, his teachers had given him special attention. When hehad graduated, it had been amidst the cordial good wishes of theentire faculty. They had taught him all they knew, and they wereproud of him. They felt that he would do them credit.

  This boy raised a pair of pink-rimmed eyes to Jill, sniffed--for likeall theatrical managers' office-boys he had a permanent cold in thehead--bit his thumb-nail, and spoke. He was a snub-nosed boy. Hisears and hair were vermilion. His name was Ralph. He had sevenhundred and forty-three pimples.

  "Woddyerwant?" enquired Ralph, coming within an ace of condensing thequestion into a word of one syllable.

  "I want to see Mr Goble."

  "Zout!" said the Pimple King, and returned to his paper.

  There will, no doubt, always be class distinctions. Sparta had herkings and her helots, King Arthur's Round Table its knights and itsscullions, America her Simon Legree and her Uncle Tom. But in nonation and at no period of history has any one ever been so brutallysuperior to any one else as is the Broadway theatrical office-boy tothe caller who wishes to see the manager. Thomas Jefferson held thesetruths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that theyare endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; thatamong these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.Theatrical office-boys do not see eye to eye with Thomas. From theirpinnacle they look down on the common herd, the _canaille_, anddespise them. They coldly question their right to live.

  Jill turned pink. Mr Brown, her guide and mentor, foreseeing thissituation, had, she remembered, recommended "pushing the office-boyin the face": and for a moment she felt like following his advice.Prudence, or the fact that he was out of reach behind the brass bars,restrained her. Without further delay she made for the door of theinner room. That was her objective, and she did not intend to bediverted from it. Her fingers were on the handle before any of thosepresent divined her intention. Then the stenographer stopped typingand sat with raised fingers, aghast. The girl at the telephone brokeoff in mid-sentence and stared round over her shoulder. Ralph, theoffice-boy, outraged, dropped his paper and constituted himself thespokesman of the invaded force.

  "Hey!"

  Jill stopped and eyed the lad militantly.

  "Were you speaking to me?"

  "Yes, I _was_ speaking to you!"

  "Don't do it again with your mouth full," said Jill, turning to thedoor.

  The belligerent fire in the office-boy's pink-rimmed eyes wassuddenly dimmed by a gush of water. It was not remorse that causedhim to weep, however. In the heat of the moment he had swallowed alarge, jagged piece of candy, and he was suffering severely.

  "You can't go in there!" he managed to articulate, his iron willtriumphing over the flesh sufficiently to enable him to speak.

  "I am going in there!"

  "That's Mr Goble's private room."

  "Well, I want a private talk with Mr Goble."

  Ralph, his eyes still moist, felt that the situation was slippingfrom his grip. This sort of thing had never happened to him before.

  "I tell ya he _zout!_"

  Jill looked at him sternly.

  "You wretched child!" she said, encouraged by a sharp giggle from theneighborhood of the switchboard. "Do you know where little boys gowho don't speak the truth? I can hear him playing the piano. Now he'ssinging! And it's no good telling me he's busy. If he was busy, hewouldn't have time to sing. If you're as deceitful as this at yourage, what do you expect to be when you grow up? You're an ugly littleboy, you've got red ears, and your collar doesn't fit! I shall speakto Mr Goble about you."

  With which words Jill opened the door and walked in.

  "Good afternoon," she said brightly.

  After the congested and unfurnished discomfort of the landing, theroom in which Jill fou
nd herself had an air of cosiness and almost ofluxury. It was a large room, solidly upholstered. Along the furtherwall, filling nearly the whole of its space, stood a vast andgleaming desk, covered with a litter of papers which rose at one endof it to a sort of mountain of play-scripts in buff covers. There wasa bookshelf to the left. Photographs covered the walls. Near thewindow was a deep leather lounge: to the right of this stood a smallpiano, the music-stool of which was occupied by a young man withuntidy black hair that needed cutting. On top of the piano, takingthe eye immediately by reason of its bold brightness, was balanced alarge cardboard poster. Much of its surface was filled by a pictureof a youth in polo costume bending over a blonde goddess in abathing-suit. What space was left displayed the legend:

  ISAAC GOBLE AND JACOB COHN PRESENT THE ROSE OF AMERICA (A Musical Fantasy)

  BOOK AND LYRICS BY OTIS PILKINGTON MUSIC BY ROLAND TREVIS

  Turning her eyes from this, Jill became aware that something wasgoing on at the other side of the desk: and she perceived that asecond young man, the longest and thinnest she had ever seen, was inthe act of rising to his feet, length upon length like an unfoldingsnake. At the moment of her entry he had been lying back in anoffice-chair, so that only a merely nominal section of his upperstructure was visible. Now he reared his impressive length until hishead came within measurable distance of the ceiling. He had a hatchetface and a receding chin, and he gazed at Jill through what sheassumed were the "tortoiseshell cheaters" referred to by her recentacquaintance, Mr Brown.

  "Er . . . ?" said this young man enquiringly in a high, flat voice.

  Jill, like many other people, had a brain which was under thealternating control of two diametrically opposite forces. It was likean automobile steered in turn by two drivers, the one a dashing,reckless fellow with no regard for the speed limits, the other atimid novice. All through the proceedings up to this point the dasherhad been in command. He had whisked her along at a break-neck pace,ignoring obstacles and police regulations. Now, having brought her tothis situation, he abruptly abandoned the wheel and turned it over tohis colleague, the shrinker. Jill, greatly daring a moment ago, nowfelt an overwhelming shyness.

  She gulped, and her heart beat quickly. The thin man towered overher. The black-haired pianist shook his locks at her like Banquo.

  "I . . ." she began.

  Then, suddenly, womanly intuition came to her aid. Something seemedto tell her that these men were just as scared as she was. And, atthe discovery, the dashing driver resumed his post at the wheel, andshe began to deal with the situation with composure.

  "I want to see Mr Goble."

  "Mr Goble is out," said the long young man, plucking nervously at thepapers on the desk. Jill had affected him powerfully.

  "Out!" She felt she had wronged the pimpled office-boy.

  "We are not expecting him back this afternoon. Is there anything Ican do?"

  He spoke tenderly. This weak-minded young man--at school his coarsecompanions had called him Simp--was thinking that he had never seenanything like Jill before. And it was true that she was looking verypretty, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling. She touched achord in the young man which seemed to make the world aflower-scented thing, full of soft music. Often as he had been inlove at first sight before in his time, Otis Pilkington could notrecall an occasion on which he had been in love at first sight morecompletely than now. When she smiled at him, it was as if the gatesof heaven had opened. He did not reflect how many times, in similarcircumstances, these same gates had opened before; and that on oneoccasion when they had done so it had cost him eight thousand dollarsto settle the case out of court. One does not think of these thingsat such times, for they strike a jarring note. Otis Pilkington was inlove. That was all he knew, or cared to know.

  "Won't you take a seat, Miss . . ."

  "Mariner," prompted Jill. "Thank you."

  "Miss Mariner. May I introduce Mr Roland Trevis?"

  The man at the piano bowed. His black hair heaved upon his skull likeseaweed in a ground swell.

  "My name is Pilkington. Otis Pilkington."

  The uncomfortable silence which always follows introductions wasbroken by the sound of the telephone-bell on the desk. OtisPilkington, who had moved out into the room and was nowhere near thedesk, stretched forth a preposterous arm and removed the receiver.

  "Yes? Oh, will you say, please, that I have a conference at present."Jill was to learn that people in the theatrical business nevertalked: they always held conferences. "Tell Mrs Peagrim that I shallbe calling later in the afternoon, but cannot be spared just now." Hereplaced the receiver. "Aunt Olive's secretary," he murmured in asoft aside to Mr Trevis. "Aunt Olive wanted me to go for a ride." Heturned to Jill. "Excuse me. Is there anything I can do for you, MissMariner?"

  Jill's composure was now completely restored. This interview wasturning out so totally different from anything she had expected. Theatmosphere was cosy and social. She felt as if she were back inOvington Square, giving tea to Freddie Rooke and Ronny Devereux andthe rest of her friends of the London period. All that was needed tocomplete the picture was a tea-table in front of her. The businessnote hardly intruded on the proceedings at all. Still, as businesswas the object of her visit, she felt that she had better approachit.

  "I came for work."

  "Work!" cried Mr Pilkington. He, too, appeared to be regarding theinterview as purely of a social nature.

  "In the chorus," explained Jill.

  Mr Pilkington seemed shocked. He winced away from the word as thoughit pained him.

  "There is no chorus in 'The Rose of America,'" he said.

  "I thought it was a musical comedy."

  Mr Pilkington winced again.

  "It is a musical _fantasy!_" he said. "But there will be no chorus.We shall have," he added, a touch of rebuke in his voice, "theservices of twelve refined ladies of the ensemble."

  Jill laughed.

  "It does sound much better, doesn't it!" she said. "Well, am Irefined enough, do you think?"

  "I shall be only too happy if you will join us," said Mr Pilkingtonpromptly.

  The long-haired composer looked doubtful. He struck a note up in thetreble, then whirled round on his stool.

  "If you don't mind my mentioning it, Otie, we have twelve girlsalready."

  "Then we must have thirteen," said Otis Pilkington firmly.

  "Unlucky number," argued Mr Trevis.

  "I don't care. We must have Miss Mariner. You can see for yourselfthat she is exactly the type we need."

  He spoke feelingly. Ever since the business of engaging a company hadbegun, he had been thinking wistfully of the evening when "The Roseof America" had had its opening performance--at his aunt's house atNewport last Summer--with an all-star cast of society favorites andan ensemble recruited entirely from debutantes and matrons of theYounger Set. That was the sort of company he had longed to assemblefor the piece's professional career, and until this afternoon he hadmet with nothing but disappointment. Jill seemed to be the only girlin theatrical New York who came up to the standard he would haveliked to demand.

  "Thank you very much," said Jill.

  There was another pause. The social note crept into the atmosphereagain. Jill felt the hostess' desire to keep conversationcirculating.

  "I hear," she said, "that this piece is a sort of Gilbert andSullivan opera."

  Mr Pilkington considered the point.

  "I confess," he said, "that, in writing the book, I had Gilbertbefore me as a model. Whether I have in any sense succeeded in . . ."

  "The book," said Mr Trevis, running his fingers over the piano, "isas good as anything Gilbert ever wrote."

  "Oh come, Rolie!" protested Mr Pilkington modestly.

  "Better," insisted Mr Trevis. "For one thing, it is up-to-date."

  "I _do_ try to strike the modern tone," murmured Mr Pilkington.

  "And you have avoided Gilbert's mistake of being too fan
ciful."

  "He was fanciful," admitted Mr Pilkington. "The music," he added, ina generous spirit of give and take, "has all Sullivan's melody with anewness of rhythm peculiarly its own. You will like the music."

  "It sounds," said Jill amiably, "as though the piece is bound to be atremendous success."

  "We hope so," said Mr Pilkington. "We feel that the time has comewhen the public is beginning to demand something better than what ithas been accustomed to. People are getting tired of the brainlesstrash and jingly tunes which have been given them by men like WallaceMason and George Bevan. They want a certain polish. . . . It was justthe same in Gilbert and Sullivan's day. They started writing at atime when the musical stage had reached a terrible depth of inanity.The theatre was given over to burlesques of the most idioticdescription. The public was waiting eagerly to welcome something of ahigher class. It is just the same today. But the managers will notsee it. 'The Rose of America' went up and down Broadway for months,knocking at managers' doors."

  "It should have walked in without knocking, like me," said Jill. Shegot up. "Well, it was very kind of you to see me when I came in sounceremoniously. But I felt it was no good waiting outside on thatlanding. I'm so glad everything is settled. Good-bye."

  "Good-bye, Miss Mariner." Mr Pilkington took her outstretched handdevoutly. "There is a rehearsal called for the ensemble at--when isit, Rolie?"

  "Eleven o'clock, day after tomorrow, at Bryant Hall."

  "I'll be there," said Jill. "Good-bye, and thank you very much."

  The silence which had fallen upon the room as she left it, was brokenby Mr Trevis.

  "Some pip!" observed Mr Trevis.

  Otis Pilkington awoke from day-dreams with a start.

  "What did you say?"

  "That girl . . . I said she was some pippin!"

  "Miss Mariner," said Mr Pilkington icily, "is a most charming,refined, cultured, and vivacious girl, if you mean that."

  "Yes," said Mr Trevis. "That was what I meant!"

  2.

  Jill walked out into Forty-second Street, looking about her with theeye of a conqueror. Very little change had taken place in the aspectof New York since she had entered the Gotham Theatre, but it seemed adifferent city to her. An hour ago, she had been a stranger, driftingaimlessly along its rapids. Now she belonged to New York, and NewYork belonged to her. She had faced it squarely, and forced from itthe means of living. She walked on with a new jauntiness in herstride.

  The address which Nelly had given her was on the east side of FifthAvenue. She made her way along Forty-second Street. It seemed thejolliest, alivest street she had ever encountered. The rattle of theElevated as she crossed Sixth Avenue was music, and she loved thecrowds that jostled her with every step she took.

  She reached the Fifth Avenue corner just as the policeman out in themiddle of the street swung his Stop-and-Go post round to allow theup-town traffic to proceed on its way. A stream of automobiles whichhad been dammed up as far as the eye could reach began to flowswiftly past. They moved in a double line, red limousines, bluelimousines, mauve limousines, green limousines. She stood waiting forthe flood to cease, and, as she did so, there purred past her thebiggest and reddest limousine of all. It was a colossal vehicle witha polar-bear at the steering-wheel and another at his side. And inthe interior, very much at his ease, his gaze bent courteously upon amassive lady in a mink coat, sat Uncle Chris.

  For a moment he was so near to her that, but for the closed window,she could have touched him. Then the polar-bear at the wheel, notinga gap in the traffic, stepped on the accelerator and slipped neatlythrough. The car moved swiftly on and disappeared.

  Jill drew a deep breath. The Stop-and-Go sign swung round again. Shecrossed the avenue, and set out once more to find Nelly Bryant. Itoccurred to her, five minutes later, that a really practical andquick-thinking girl would have noted the number of the limousine.