Blue-grass and Broadway Part 6

"Oh, in that case--" murmured the boy, almost, but not quite, unleas.h.i.+ng his eagerness.

"Just leave your telephone number with Mr. Meyers in the outer office, please. Good-morning, Mr. Leigh," was the answer his concession got along with the dismissal in the "good-morning," which was spoken in such a tone that it was obeyed in short order.

"That is a find," said Mr. G.o.dfrey Vandeford to the gasping Mr. Dennis Farraday. "Handsome young chaps who have any kind of manliness are hard to find these days. Too busy to be actors."

"Why didn't you engage him?" further gasped his partner in the adventure of "The Purple Slipper."

"I'll let him cool his heels, to get some of the know-it out of his system. Dolph will make him come around and beg in less than twenty-four hours."

"See here, Van, these people are artists to whom you are trusting your money and reputation as a producer, and you treat them like--"

"The foolish children that they are," interrupted Mr. Vandeford. "Next!"

and he pressed a b.u.t.ton under his desk that buzzed for Mr. Meyers's ears alone.

The next three applicants were girls, who respectively giggled, glowered, and simpered. Mr. G.o.dfrey Vandeford chose the two who glowered and simpered and got rid of the giggler by referring her telephone number to Mr. Adolph Meyers.

"That second that you sent away was the prettiest of the bunch,"

commented Mr. Dennis Farraday, with interest that had survived to that point with undiminished intensity.

"Not at home under that little c.o.c.ked hat. That giggle was the whole bag of tricks," instructed Mr. Vandeford. "Got any men out there, Pops?" he asked through the telephone to Mr. Adolph Meyers.

Immediately there entered a debonair, very handsome, and sleek gentleman of uncertain age.

"h.e.l.lo, Kent, want to support Bebe in a costume play for a hundred a week?" asked Mr. Vandeford, with not an instant's greeting in answer to that gentleman's cordial good-morning.

"In New York or on the road?" questioned Mr. Kent, with an a.s.surance that he tried to make bold.

"To the devil if I send you there," was the answer he got straight off the bat.

"A hundred with costumes?"

"With costumes."

"Done."

"See Dolph; but not over ten-dollar advance to save your hide."

"He's giving fifty."

"To whom?"

"Bebe."

"He did that because he knew that you'd get half of what he gave her.

Ten's your limit."

"All right. Good-morning!"

"Barrett on Monday morning."

"All right!"

With which Mr. Kent rapidly made his exit.

"Old reprobate! But he does feed the lines to his opposite, and Bebe happy is worth twice Bebe in a grouch. You see what the whole blamed thing is like and--" Mr. Vandeford was interrupted by the tinkle of the telephone at his elbow.

"G.o.dfrey Vandeford speaking."

"When did you get in?"

"Not busy at all."

"The Claridge?"

"Right away."

"Haven't seen or heard from him in two days."

"Right over. By!"

From overhearing, as he was forced to do, this one-sided conversation, how could Mr. Dennis Farraday imagine that Violet Hawtry had come into sultry New York seeking him to devour and that his keeper was rus.h.i.+ng away from his presence to his defense?

"You and Pops engage the rest, Denny. You see the trick now. Nothing left important but what Dolph puts down on this paper as 'woman support for character parts with looks.' Try your hand, old man, and if you pick a flivver there are plenty more to cast in and her out. By!" And before Mr. Farraday could protest he was left alone in the inquisition-room.

And as Mr. G.o.dfrey Vandeford went down in an elevator on his way to the Claridge to deliver the next instalment of the spanking of Miss Violet Hawtry, he pa.s.sed a live wire going up opposite him and met one walking down Forty-second Street, neither of which he could be expected to recognize, as he had never seen either.

The first of the two dynamos walked into the office of the Vandeford Producing Company and failed to thrill Mr. Adolph Meyers in the least, a fact for which he could never afterward account. He motioned her into the inner office, and left her to her fate and Mr. Dennis Farraday.

"Good-morning, Mr. Vandeford," she said in a queer, throaty kind of voice that had in it a "come hither" of unusual quality, which suggested that in her production a Romney woman might have loved a Greek dancer well. She stood at ease before the long desk with a grace that was unmistakably that of complete a.s.surance.

"I'm not Mr. Vandeford, but his--his partner, Dennis Farraday. Er--er, won't you be seated?" and with the happy, considerate manner of his that he had always used to all women, he offered her his own chair and appropriated the one of authority that Mr. Vandeford always occupied.

"Thank you," answered the young woman, with an ease equal to his own.

And then they both waited while regarding each other seriously. Finally the tension relaxed and Dennis Farraday gave a big, jovial laugh while he made his admission: