# McHenry and Dillingham: Angels

From The Popular Magazine, Jul 23, 1915
McHenry and Dillingham: Angels
By Holworthy Hall Author of "Pepper," "The Terrible Freshman" Etc.
In which James P. McHenry begins bis career as a theatrical promoter. Once in a hundred times there is money in the "angel" business. It looked to "Pepper" McHenry that this was the hundredth time
SEATED at the window of their new office on Fifth Avenue, both officers of the Cambridge Company were so deeply absorbed in contemplation of the traffic that at first they paid no attention to the stenographer, who was trying to announce a client.
"Fives full of fours!" said Dillingham, noting the license number of an expensive automobile. "That's another for me!"
"You wait a while. The bus is mine. Four sevens! It's 71777!"
"Only limousines count, Pepper," his partner reminded him. "A bus isn't a limousine!"
"Why isn't it? Don't you call it a closed car?"
"But look here! Suppose a truck came along with the sides boarded up. Would that be a limousine?"
"Sure it would. I guess you saw it coming, didn't you?"
They peered eagerly for the number of the approaching truck.
"Well, I don't think I'd call it one," said Dillingham. The number was 1605.
"Decision stands—you've got six high. Mine—mine's 98576—a straight! That's four dollars and a half you owe me.
"Mr. Westervelt to see you," repeated the stenographer for the third time. The partners turned simultaneously and made for their desks.
"Send him in!" commanded McHenry, grabbing a fountain pen and setting himself to write furiously on a memorandum pad. Dillingham, less energetic, contented himself with opening half a dozen volumes of the business library, and spreading them out on his blotter. Mr. Westervelt, entering briskly from the tiny reception room, naturally gathered the impression that they were busy young men with not much time to spare.
Mr. Westervelt sat down, carefully arranged his trousers to prevent bagging at the knees, crossed his neatly spatted ankles, threw open his coat to display an angora waistcoat of vigorous pattern, and introduced himself.
"I'm H. Payson Westervelt," he said. "You've probably seen me play."
"Oh, certainly," agreed McHenry hospitably. "Hundreds of times."
Dillingham scribbled hastily on a scrap of paper, and held up to the president's scrutiny the question:
"Baseball, piano, or movies?" but Pepper heeded him not.
"Well," continued the-client, "somebody told me you're looking for investments, so I thought I'd come in and hand you a tip. First off, am I right? Are you in the market?"
"That's our business—what's the idea?"
"The idea is this." He hitched his chair nearer McHenry, and began to tap him affectionately on the arm. "I've got an option on the theater in Middleburgh, Connecticut, for ten weeks, beginning February. Stock, you know. Now stock's always been a flivver in Middleburgh, because they tried to play twenty weeks. The people got tired of it. Ten weeks is just about right. I can pick my company in half an hour after I get the backing, and I've got a schedule of expenses right here." He laid it on the desk, bowed to it, and to McHenry. "Rent five thousand, company a thousand a week, royalties and scenery fifteen hundred, advertising a thousand, incidentals one thousand. Eighteen five total—call it twenty. That's twenty thousand dollars for a ten weeks' season, or two thousand a week. The house seats about fifteen hundred, and is worth about eight hundred dollars, at regular prices.
"That's eight hundred, if we play to capacity in the evening, and half price for matinee every day makes twelve hundred a day, or seventy-two hundred a week. Which is to say, that we make money if only one seat out of three is taken! What do you think of it?"
"If it didn't cost anything, it would be a wonder," said McHenry. "But what's the rest of the narrative?"
H. Payson Westervelt hitched still nearer, and tapped McHenry over the lungs.
"You put up five thousand in cash," he said, "and we'll split! Five thousand would carry us nearly three weeks if we didn't take in a cent. If we play to a third of the house, we'll make four hundred a week, two hundred apiece, and that would give you forty per cent for a ten weeks' investment, which is at the rate of two hundred per cent a year. But we'll do better than that. We ought to clear nine or ten thousand apiece, easy! Why, think what other producers have done! Look at the money there is in it! If you get the crowd coming—why, it's a cinch!"
"The scheme is for us to put up five thousand? What do you put up?"
"Character," said Mr. Westervelt, tapping his own chest as a diversion. "Individuality; prestige; experience; acquaintance. I manage, and play heavy parts. I draw only a nominal salary. I'll gamble with you. Do you think I'd stake my professional reputation in stock if I wasn't sure of it?"
"It's rather out of our line," observed Pepper thoughtfully. "To tell the truth—well, what do you think of it, Pierce?"
"I'm not keen on it," said Dillingham promptly.
Mr. Westervelt turned his head, and offered the secretary of the Cambridge Company a glance of mingled pain and solicitude. Then, beginning slowly, but throwing in the high speed as soon as he was under good headway, he hitched his chair across to Dillingham's desk.
"You claim to be promoters," he remarked blandly. "Every time you promote anything you take a chance, don't you? Well, unless you take all your capital and bet it on the ponies, can you get any quicker action than this? Ten weeks, and it's all over. You lose five, or you make ten. You haven't had any experience in this game, so you don't think it's on the square. Well, I'll tell you just what I'll do with you. I'll take a salary of twenty-five—just enough to live on. I'll gamble the whole way with you."
"The salary isn't important——"
"You bet it is! And I know what you were thinking; you were thinking that I'd probably draw down a couple of hundred a week, whether the company makes any money or not. Weren't you?"
Dillingham flushed.
"The point," interposed McHenry, "isn't whether this particular scheme is any good; it's whether we want to get mixed up in any theatrical scheme. Ordinarily, Mr. Westervelt, we like to know what we're getting into."
The client retreated from his intrenchment in front of Dillingham to a similarly strategic position in front of Pepper.
"I don't want you to put up a nickel without getting a receipt for it," he stated. "I don't want you to make up your minds until you've talked it over with somebody—anybody. Find out about Middleburgh—look over the population, and see what business the theater had last year. Ask about me—but don't ask an agent! Ask anybody else. And if you want to come through with five of 'em, you can have your own lawyer draw up a contract, and I'll sign it. Before we go any farther why don't you look me up? I'll give you three days, and then if you don't want to sit in the game, I'll talk to somebody else. That's reasonable, isn't it?" He rose, and put on his crushed velvet hat. "You scout around, and find out if you think there's a possibility in it; so when I come back on Thursday, you can say yes or no—or listen to some more details. Is that all right?"
"That sounds fair enough," agreed McHenry. "We'll expect to see you Thursday, then?"
"Thursday is right. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"
Dillingham waited until he heard the outer door close.
"Look here, Pep!" he said. "Why didn't you turn him down now? What's the use of waiting for three days? We don,'t want to get tangled up in a stock company in Middleburgh, or any other place!"
"Take your time, old top!" soothed McHenry. "Once in a hundred times there's money in the angel business. I thought I'd call up a real actor I know, and quiz him about the general scheme. If he says it's logical, then we'll get busy and get a report on this Westervelt man."
"You're not going out now, are you?"
"I am," said Pepper. "It's four o'clock, and I can estimate within ten feet of where I can find this lad. To save your breath, I'll tell you that it's only ten feet between the bar and the opposite wall. Wait for me, will you?"
Dillingham promised to wait; and he was pleasantly astonished when his partner returned within the hour.
"Well," he demanded, "what's the story?"
"Westervelt left his name, didn't he? Let's call him, and have dinner together somewhere."
"Your friend said it's all right?"
"He as much as told me that it's the best scheme he ever heard in his life."
"Did he actually say that?"
"Why, no," admitted McHenry. "But he said the same thing. He said enough to convince that we're going to it hook, line, and sinker. If I'm any good as a mind reader, we're going to clean up a fortune. My friend the actor says it's rotten!"

### II.

They were to open on Saturday afternoon. On Thursday, Dillingham left his partner to consummate a little deal in real estate, and journeyed over to Middleburgh to look over the ground and calculate the profits. On Friday, he wired McHenry to take the first available train, and McHenry took it. It brought him to Middleburgh at seven o'clock in the evening. Dillingham was waiting at the station.
"What's the matter?" he demanded. "Why didn't you come sooner?"
"I did," said Pepper. "That is, I came sooner than I thought I could. What's eating you?"
"Nothing at all," said Dillingham bitterly. "This is a fine proposition, this is. If we only had an animal act and a few bags of peanuts we could hire a vacant lot and call it a circus! Why—your young friend Westervelt had a party this afternoon with a couple of reporters, and bought 'em a glass or two of beer. Then he got to figuring how much money we'd make, and switched to high balls. Then he got to figuring how much we might make, and the reporters made him see the logic of setting up the champagne. That accounts for Westervelt."
"You don't mean he's passed out!" gasped Pepper.
"Not a bit of it. I wish he had. He's bright and happy and full of bubbles of friendship, and he's out calling on the community."
"Is that all?"
"Nearly all," said Dillingham, with some caution. "The leading lady says she won't play in the same company with him for a million dollars a minute."
"Gosh!" said McHenry.
"And the juvenile lead says Westervelt promised him sixty a week, and he'll take the six-forty-two to-morrow morning if we don't write him a new contract."
"Fine! How about the sceneshifters?"
"They went out on strike yesterday afternoon. It's national. And the mayor has had a row with the owner of the theater, and to get even he says he's going to close up our show on the grounds that it's immoral—even if it's 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'!"
"Altogether," said McHenry placidly, "it begins to look like a gilt-edged investment."
"Don't waste any time fooling, Pep; what are we going to do?"
"That's simple; the first thing is to get the crowd together. I'll try to tame this Westervelt person, and you take charge of the leading lady——"
"A lot of good that'll do! Don't you get it? We haven't a theater, Pep, and we haven't any scenery, and we haven't anybody to handle it!"
"Well, even if we had we couldn't give a show without the actors," said Pepper. "You can melt the heart of the lady, can't you?"
"I'm not so sure about that."
"I am. You pretend you're an idiotic freshman, and she's senior president at Wellesley. I'll bet you a hat she falls for it!"
"Well, of course she does think I'm a pretty regular scout——"
"That's enough. Go to it! Er—kiss her if you have to! Offer to buy her a yacht, and a rope of pearls—or I'll tell you something better yet! Offer to get out some new posters with her name a foot higher. For the love of Pete, Pierce, I can't do everything!"
Dillingham halted, and pointed to the street.
"If you think you're so blamed clever," he said dispassionately, "see what you can do with that!"
McHenry looked. He saw a dilapidated barouche, drawn by two rheumatic horses, and driven by an aged pirate with flowing black whiskers. In the barouche sat Westervelt, nonchalantly bowing right and left to the populace.
"Leave him to me!" said McHenry grimly.
"With pleasure," said Dillingham.
"On, Stanley, on!" intoned Westervelt to the general public. "Loose the fiery and untamed steeds! My kingdom for a horse! Two kingdoms for two horses! Three kingdoms for three—why, there's the angel!"
"You rush ahead to the hotel and calm the lady," said Pepper hastily. "Here—take my bag with you!" And to the great edification of the bystanders, he sallied forth into the street, and climbed up beside his manager.
"I bid you welcome in the name of the king," greeted Mr. Westervelt. "In the name of the Continental Congress! In the name of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!"
"Hello, old top!" said Pepper cheerfully. "Don't you want to go home now?"
"Home? There is no place like home to me—that's why I stay away. I care not whither I goest, as long as I goest with thou—thee. Driver, let go their heads!"
"Come on, Westervelt—let's go home and have something to eat. This open-air stuff gives me a fearful appetite."
"Say not so," returned the manager briskly. "I fain would linger. Linger longer, Lucy. Let the droschke proceed!"
"All right. Let it!"
Here a motor truck curved around the corner, and gave warning of its presence by a croupy cough from the horn.
"Curse them!" ejaculated the actor. "They're hooting me!"
"I can't drive no farther with them horses," protested the charioteer. "They ain't been fed yet."
"Await me, await me!" said Westervelt, preparing to disembark. "Never shall it be said that I, Hostetter P. Westervelt, countenance the suffering of damn animals—I mean dumb animals! Await me!"
"Hold on, there!" cried Pepper.
He was too late. Westervelt had dodged through a procession of motors and delivery wagons, and disappeared through the swinging doors of the nearest cafe. When McHenry caught him, he had completed his arrangements for the refreshment of the horses. He had bought two buckets of seltzer and a package of shredded wheat biscuit.
"Now, look here, old top——"
"Avaunt!" said Mr. Westervelt. "Begone! Beyond the Alps lies—lie a couple of hungry Pomeranian Percherons thirsting. Mr. Bartender, will you take the banquet to the horses, or shall I bring the horses to the banquet?"
"Look out, old man—you'll be pinched!"
"Pinched! Pinched! By who? By whom? By yon fell captain, strict in his arrest? Nay, nay—Mr. McHenry—I—I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to die in the house!"
"I'll take care of him," said Pepper to the amazed bartender. "All I want is a closed hack, or a taxicab. Can't you scare up one for me?"
"Sure," agreed the man. "Say, I'll take back that there shredded wheat, but the seltzer's no good now——"
"L-let me pay," stammered Mr. Westervelt. "Only—only I'm afraid—I'm afraid I'll have to b-borrow the money from somebody—all I've g-got is sixteen cents and—and a cigar certificate——"
Five minutes later, McHenry escorted his manager to a taxicab, and propped him carefully in one corner. The Thespian, somewhat revived by spirits of ammonia, kindly volunteered a free reading, which went about like this:
"Friends, Romans, countrymen; lend me your ears— I shall return them next Saturday.
The evil that men do lives after them— In the shape of progeny to reap the benefit
Of their life insurance. So let it be
With the deceased.
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him;
Brutus hath told you that Cæsar was ambitious,
But this is none of Brutus' funeral— Would that it were!
Cæsar hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Who broke rock on the streets until their ransoms did the general coffers fill;
When the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept,
Because it didn't cost anything, and made him
Solid with the masses. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which thrice he did refuse—because it didn't fit him;
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious!
Brutus is a horse thief of the deepest dye.
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now——
He paused, and after a moment prodded McHenry solidly in the ribs.
"P-pick up your cues!" he commanded aggrievedly. "When I say—tears—cry!"
And in this manner James P. McHenry passed the evening before the beginning of his career as a theatrical promoter.

### III.

Yet in spite of all the difficulties, they opened on Saturday afternoon. In the meantime, all that McHenry had done was to interview the stage hands and break the strike by the simple expedient of raising wages five dollars a week; to locate an excellent lawyer and obtain a temporary injunction to restrain the mayor from stopping the performance; to groom his manager into presentable shape, and to complete Dillingham's negotiations with the leading lady. It wasn't until past noon that he was certain that there would be a matinée at all; and it wasn't until a quarter to two that he was fairly confident of staging it without a riot. Nevertheless, they opened according to schedule; and they played to an enthusiastic audience. The audience numbered a hundred and sixty-one, mostly in the balcony.
Slightly disconcerted, but still trusting in the future, they repeated the same piece that evening. This time the audience was even more enthusiastic, and even larger. Fully two hundred people dotted the orchestra; and two parties adorned the boxes. One was managed by the chief of police; and the other consisted of the staff of a local newspaper; and both came in as guests of the promoters.
McHenry and Dillingham talked it over at great length after breakfast on Sunday. Each had a dozen reasons why the first day shouldn't be profitable; but neither would concede that the other's reasons had a basis of common sense. Then they summoned Westervelt, and heard his own reasons; and then they all disagreed violently.
"Anyway," said Pepper philosophically, "there's nothing to do till to-morrow. Let's wait and see what sort of houses we get after the criticisms."
All three drew some consolation from the fact that the criticisms were very good; and none of them observed that they were almost too good. Having read in cold type the statement that the company was the best seen in Middleburgh in a decade, and that Westervelt ought to be compared with Booth; and that the leading lady was more beautiful than Lillian Russell, and more talented than Sarah Bernhardt, they naturally expected to find the general public forming in line at the box office several hours before the curtain. To their horrified amazement, a line was formed only when some one stopped to count his change, and the man behind him had to wait.
They played on Monday to nearly two hundred dollars. Westervelt said it was because McHenry hadn't advertised properly; and the leading lady said it was because Westervelt was a poor actor; and Dillingham said it was because the girls of Middleburgh were jealous of the leading lady's looks; and McHenry said it was because they'd chosen a poor play; and the papers said that it was a great triumph, and that every one received a tremendous ovation, and that seats were selling six weeks in advance.
"Now," said McHenry, "it looks easier. You might as well run back to New York, Pierce, and hold down the office, and see if you can't scare up enough business to pay my board bill. I'm going to stay here and try to break even."
"What's the use?" mourned Dillingham. "Let's forget it and swallow the loss, and not waste any more time."
"I am going to break even," declared Pepper, "if it takes a leg! We've got to advertise."
"The free advertising the papers gave us did a lot of good, didn't it?"
"It was too rich for their blood—a different sort might put it over for us."
"As, for instance?" queried his partner.
"Well, we thought this was a classy town, and it isn't. We can't be highbrowish about it. The scheme's to get the crowd in any way, but get it in. I've been scouting around the shops—this is a great place for bargains. Everything you see on Main Street is a bargain sale, or some cut-price arrangement. Well, we'll meet the competition."
"Yes—seats for nineteen cents, marked down from a quarter," scoffed Dillingham.
"Worse than that—much worse. I think we'll give a free seat any day this week to any person named Smith."
Dillingham stared for a moment, and then laughed.
"Fine—fine! In other words, open the doors and let 'em all in!"
"But," said Pepper, "in order for any Smith to get a free seat, he—or she—must be accompanied by a Jones, who pays cash. Two seats for the price of one—get it?"
"I get it, all right. I think it's rotten!"
"I don't. Think it over a minute. It's a real bargain. Now two women can get together and——"
"Had you thought," asked Dillingham sardonically, "that there wouldn't be any way of proving whether their names were really Smith or Jones?"
"I hope they aren't—the worse liars they are, the better they'll please me. A couple waltzes up to the box office, claims to be one Smith and one Jones; the Jones buys a ticket, and the Smith gets one right next to it for nothing. Then next week we'll let the Joneses in free with the Smiths buying tickets."
"It's a fine stunt—then, instead of getting real money for the few people who would pay to get in, we land just half as much!"
"Not a bit of it—we'll draw hundreds of people who aren't coming now, and if they fill half the house, we'll make money. If you can think of any better idea, let's have it. Don't be so tight with your brilliant stunts."
"A few years ago, the mystery scheme used to work," mused Dillingham. "I wonder if these microbes would fall for it? Run a photograph of a man in the papers—the first fifty people who stop him on the street and call him by some funny name get a free ticket. It might stir up interest."
"That isn't bad," admitted McHenry. "Well, then, we might as well get in with both feet. We'll offer prizes for the best criticisms of the shows. Come in, see the show for half a dollar, and have a chance to make twenty-five by writing a criticism."
"Then you want to have a voting contest for the most popular member of the company—"
"The more I think of the bargain idea, the better I think it is. Pierce, we'll have a mark-down sale! Specials every day! Wednesday matinée we'll sell the fifty-cent seats for thirty-nine cents! Thursday we'll sell the first ten rows in the orchestra for fifty-three cents, marked down from seventy-five! We've got to get the women coming—it's the women that pay the rent bill!"
"All this depends on Westervelt——"
"No "
"Why, of course it does! If he has another one of those special professional public appearances, we'll be queered for good!"
"Mr. H. Payson Westervelt," said Pepper, "will be one of the modelest young men in Middleburgh for the next ten weeks—nine weeks and four days, to be exact. I've got it on him. Of course, he does have a reputation for carrying around the healthiest capacity ever known to the metropolitan stage, but I'll bet you a pair of shoe strings that if you nail him now and ask him what he'll have, he'll name a pleasant and familiar little decoction of two parts of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Call it a bet?"
"I'll bet I know where he is this minute. At the bar!"
"Right—drinking seltzer."
"That man," said "Dillingham heatedly, "invented alcohol! That's why, even with the advertising ideas, I'm not sold on the idea of wasting any more time with him. Let's cut it out and go home."
"I'll tell you what I'll do—we'll go down and find him. If you can make him take a drink on any pretext whatsoever, I'll quit and go home, and pay you twenty-five perfectly good seeds—and if you can't, you pay me twenty-five and go home yourself, and let me run this thing to a finish."
Dillingham reached for his hat.
"That's one bright spot," he said happily. "That means that you lose twenty-five more than I do! Come on!"
Accordingly they found Westervelt in the grill.
"Greetings, manager!" said Dillingham. "What's yours?"
"French vichy," said Westervelt promptly.
Dillingham looked hard at McHenry.
"I'll bet you ten dollars," he continued, "that you can't drink a Scotch high ball with a spoon while I'm eating a soda cracker."
"I'll do it with vichy," agreed Mr. Westervelt.
"No—Scotch. I'll make it twenty."
"It can't be done."
"Twenty-four dollars and seventy-five cents," said Dillingham, in desperation. McHenry chuckled.
"Hasn't he told you?" inquired Westervelt.
"Told me? What?"
"Well, if he hasn't, I'm hanged if I will! You said you wouldn't until it's over," he added accusingly to McHenry.
"I haven't told him—— Here, waiter! You'll have just time," he advised his partner, "to join us in a fudge sundae or something strong like that before your train leaves. What's yours, H. Payson?"
"French vichy," said the actor stolidly.

### IV

But, after all, the first shot of the new campaign was aimed not at future prospects but at present clients. As the curtain fell at the close of the Tuesday matinee, James P. McHenry appeared before the audience and granted that the leading man had a cold, the comedian was suffering from hay fever, and that the heavy hadn't had time to learn his part. Under the circumstances, he said there was nothing to do, but to announce a rebate. Any one who was dissatisfied with the performance could get half his money back by applying at the box office.
"These are the days," he said, in conclusion, "when all advertising is guaranteed. All right—when you come to a comedy in this theater, and don't laugh, you get your money back. To-night you can send all your friends. They'll either have a good time at the low price of fifty cents, seventy-five, or a dollar, or I'll give 'em free seats for a tragedy next week. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you."
Chiefly to test his good intentions, a few dozen of that audience actually did halt at the box office; and they found a young man waiting for them with coin of the realm at hand. The plan struck most of them as clever rather than businesslike; but they were sufficiently affected by the logic of it to give McHenry a little gratuitous publicity that night. The newspapers ran the story on the first page; directly above the announcement that the Smiths were finally coming into their own. The inevitable result was that the company played to good houses that day, and it was soon known that the Smiths weren't obliged to prove their right to the patronymic.
Before Middleburgh had recovered from the first two novelties, it was informed that on Fridays and Mondays any person with four children over the age of sixteen could get family tickets for two dollars, no matter whether the offspring numbered the minimum of four or a maximum of forty.
"Some of these folks may do a little quiet borrowing from the neighbors for the occasion," said McHenry sagely, "but the more the merrier! Now we'll get ready for the big bang!"
"What's that?" demanded Westervelt.
"During the last week of this run," explained the promoter, "the evening shows will be given by the regular company, but the matinées will be pulled off by local talent from the high school. They'll eat it alive! We'd better pick the show and begin rehearsing 'em, hadn't we?"
"Now, look here, if you try anything like that, you'll be sorry. I've seen those things work out. The youngsters you pick will be tickled to death, and so will their parents—but the candidates you reject will be sore as pups, and so will their parents. And you lose out in the ratio of about six to one!"
"Guess again," said McHenry. "I'm going to have an entirely different cast for every matinée! Every stage-struck girl in the whole high school will be on the boards! There won't be any sore-heads, and we'll have the whole town coming every day—to see their own friends, and then to see how much better they are than the other people's friends."
"We're picking up right along—I don't know that we'll need anything as drastic as that."
"We need every new twist we can think up."
"All right—but we're getting respectable houses, old man."
"We're breaking even—why not make a little money?"
"I never refuse," conceded the actor. "If you think we can separate any more of these hardware syndicates from their money by giving parts to the kindergarten pupils, I'm perfectly willing to buy a bib and begin rehearsals."
So McHenry visited the high school and addressed the pupils in a speech which sent more girls to their mirrors than any event since rice powder was invented. Subsequently he had the leading lady give a tea on the stage and invite all the girls who thought they would like to be actresses. They came in droves—the entire four classes of the school, a score of graduates, eleven clerks from local department stores, and the girl from the news stand at the railroad station. The leading lady was impossibly sweet to them; promised them all the benefit of her coaching—McHenry had to raise her salary for it—and suggested that they had better go in training by attending as many professional performances as possible during the next two months.
It was at about this period of the world's history that the spectators found themselves within speaking distance of each other. No longer could a timid person attend one of McHenry and Dillingham's mammoth productions and feel lonely and unprotected. The dead line flowed down from the fifty-cent seats to the seventy-five, down to the first ten- rows at a dollar, and finally, during the fifth week, into the boxes. It never happened that the company actually played to capacity, but they did have some splendidly profitable houses; and the sight of real money enraged McHenry as the official color of his Alma Mater is supposed to enrage the bull.
Promptly he instituted special performances, with a proportion of the receipts designed for local charities. The rival factions of Middleburgh rose to the bait like hungry trout; and for the sake of the two hundred dollars McHenry offered to a hospital, the hardware section spent six hundred for reserved seats; and for the hundred and fifty he considered appropriate to the boys' club, the mill division bought out the entire house.
On Saturdays, Dillingham ran over from New York; and invariably he was staggered by the improvement in the balance sheet. From an out-and-out loss of thirteen hundred dollars the first week, the venture had progressed to solvency by the sixth, and made a handsome profit in the seventh and eighth.
The stage hands shifted scenery with sober precision; the, mayor cut McHenry on the street and went to the movies; the leading lady found herself the pet of feminine society; and Westervelt consumed in two months more vichy and seltzer than the majority of men ever see in action.
This last was the only outcome which seemed to Dillingham unbelievable. From personal experience he knew that Pepper was capable of selling almost anything, tangible or intangible; but from what he knew of Westervelt, he couldn't comprehend how even Pepper could have tamed him overnight. Whenever he inquired about it, which wasn't seldom, McHenry assumed his most virtuous air and merely said that it was his well-known personal magnetism, coupled with his high principles and inherent righteousness, which had brought about the change. Dillingham didn't believe it, but that was one of the worst points about McHenry—you didn't believe half he said, but you could never tell which half to believe.
During the ninth week, they played on velvet; and the tenth—if the ninth was on velvet, the tenth was on radium. Six separate casts of high-school aspirants graced the boards of the theater during those afternoons. Their families and friends held every seat under the roof and stood ten deep in the rear. At night every one who had played that afternoon came to compare their own rendition with that of the professionals; and they fought for places with the cast which was to play to-morrow afternoon, and wanted to pick up a few last pointers.
It was Wednesday morning before McHenry conceived the idea of selecting from all these amateurs a representative group, composed of those who had done best, and giving them the grand climax Saturday night, the last event of the season. This didn't occur to him until Wednesday morning at eleven o'clock, but it wasn't ten seconds later that it occurred to him to double the prices for that evening.
Twenty minutes afterward he thought of presenting to each one of that final group an embossed certificate, signed by himself, Dillingham, Westervelt, and the leading lady, to certify to the world that the recipient was almost as good as a regular actor.
At half past eleven he decided to have a special program, with much advertising at ruinous rates; and at quarter of twelve he had hired four solicitors and set them to work.
The solicitors were hardly out of the door before he remembered that there was a street drop in the second act; so he hired another solicitor and sent him out to get advertising for signs on the stage buildings and on a hastily conceived billboard. At one-twenty-five he settled on refreshments and began telephoning, for bids for the concession; and as he went in to lunch he determined that since the program was special, he might as well charge a quarter for it.
And so, in the early hours of the morning after that last smashing success, McHenry and Dillingham and Westervelt sat in Pepper's room in the hotel, writing long lines of figures on hotel stationery. At length their arithmetic proved sound, and McHenry, as treasurer, stated the findings:
"Leaving out the thousand we'll give the athletic association of the high school—I've just thought of that; it'll make a wild hit, and we may come back here next season, you know—the expenses were a trifle over nineteen thousand, and the profits are a trifle over thirty. It's about sixty-five hundred apiece."
"Sixty-five hundred!" said Dillingham.
"Sixty-five hundred!" said Westervelt hungrily. He looked at McHenry and at the figures. "When do I get mine?"
"I'll write you a check in the morning
Westervelt got up and leaned over the back of his chair.
"Well," he said, "now that it's over, I'll tell you what I think of it. You said something about wanting to do it again next year. In the first place, I've got the option on the theater all by myself; and in the second place, I wouldn't play with a couple of bloodhounds like you again for the whole thirty thousand! Of all the inane, idiotic, asinine seasons I've ever seen, this was the limit! It may have been good business, but it wasn't art. I'm an actor; I'm not a cut-rate druggist, or a soda-fountain proprietor! I'm through with you! I've lived through ten solid weeks of unadulterated by and by! I've drunk so much charged water that I dream I'm a siphon! Money! What's money? Nothing compared with peace of mind! And I haven't had any—there won't be another season for this partnership, Mr. McHenry! You can't get out of our second contract, thank Heaven! I can say what I like now. And I say right to your face, you—you—you——" He bubbled impotently.
"I wouldn't care where you said that," said McHenry.
"Second contract?" puzzled Dillingham.
"On consideration that our manager wouldn't drink anything stronger than fizz for ten weeks," said McHenry, "I made another contract to let him out of the first one at the end of 'em. You see, Pierce, our lawyer in New York made a mistake——"
"Yes, a mistake," said Westervelt bitterly. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I'm going downstairs."
"They closed an hour ago," explained Pepper imperturbably. "You see, Pierce, as I was saying, this lawyer made a mistake. When I came to look over that contract the first night I was here, I found that Mr. Westervelt had agreed to work for us for ten years at twenty-five dollars a week! So we made this second agreement——" He perceived the expression on Westervelt's face and pitied him. "Oh, come on," he said, "it didn't do you any harm, and it helped us a lot. I'll tell you what I'll do. I've got a little private stock here in a closet——"
Mr. Westervelt sat down as quickly as he conveniently could.
"Bring it on," he said, "and I'll forgive you. Is it any good?"
"It's the best in the world for the present purpose——"
"You can't be too sudden about it, then. Why, you two young idiots have taken a year out of my life! Got any ice?"
"It's cold enough now," said Pepper. "I'll mix it up for you in the bathroom."
He was busily engaged with the mixing when Dillingham came to him and spoke soberly.
"Say, Pepper," he said, "don't you think it's pretty unreasonable to do anything like this "
"This?" McHenry indicated his materials. "It's nothing but French vichy and lemon juice."
"But, Pepper—it's a sort of joke, of course, but he'll be sore as a hound. Is it worth it?"
McHenry squeezed the juice of the last lemon into a glass.
"It's been worth sixty-five hundred apiece," he said finally. "Besides, it's up to us to be strictly moral. In fact, moraler than that." He poured the vichy on the lemon juice. "You know what we are, don't you?"
"Promoters?" guessed his partner.
"Good Lord, no!" said McHenry. "Angels!"
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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