Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-04-23
BUSY PRESS AGENTS

1.-THE two busiest press agents that
know anything about" said tired news
paper man who went down to Atlantic CITY
to see 'em parade on the boardwalk on
Easter Sunday, "are the ingenious and
overworked chaps who do the rain-making
for the pair of big piers down there.
You see there's an Italian band on each
of these piers-both of which bands have
something to do with Italian royalty, to
judge from their names-and of course
these two bands are deadly rivals Any
how, the press agents of the piers and OF
the bands on the piers are deadly rivals.
Both bands are corking good ones, at that,
but the quality of music furnished by the
bands isn't the thing that gets the money.
The money thing is embodied wholly in the
personalities of the leaders.
''They are hairy leaders, all right. Gre
atore is a bullet-head with close-cropped
hair compared to the one working on the
Atlantic City pier with the inky mop, and
the other leader has a name of reddish
hirsute that would make Mrs. Carter in
her widest emotional moments feel as II
she had never succeeded in growing any. =
1.-THE one with the midnight mop is
mighty cute and fetching, too. with big
brown eyes the size and shape Of horse
chestnuts and way of running his long
tapering fingers through his Zimmerman
tresses that's all the coin, first, place and
show, across the board. He's slender and
willowy, too. and with the loveliest natural
pallor you ever saw or heard tell of. and
the Ouida-reading girls have got 1t all
framed up that there's some deep and dark
secret alta ched to that pallor.
The other leader-the one with the bron-
zey mane-is more robust and squatty and
Masculine, but he, too, when 1T comes to
the slow stuff with the wood wind. has got
way of raising his lamps toward the ze-
NTH that causes the skirted young persons
in front to wonder what kind of a looking
woman it could have been to make him
just all soul, so to speak.
well, a few months ago-tOward the
close of the fall season at the beach, be-
lieve-the press agent of the pier wherein
the young man with the Stygian-dark locks
performs doped it out that something nd
have to be done to cut under that other
band. So he promptly engaged the band
leader with the blue-black mop to young
miilion-heiress somewhere up in Pennsyl-
vania-daughter of a steel and coke king,
you know, whose four millions, or some
such trifie, is going to belong to- her solely
and in her own right, and who, consequent
ly had the privilege to engage herself to
anybody that she wanted to. Press agent
did all the engaging himself. Natural-born
matchmakers. some Of these press agents.
anyhow, and he made the story ripper.
Said that the girl was listening to the band
one evening, when she suddenly hankered
to hear 'Violets. So she scrubbed little
note preferrfng this request, and sent 1t to
the leader by messenger He got by with
the 'Vfolets' tune In glorious shape, the eff
feet OF which was so enhancing upon the
young million-heiress that she promptly got
some properly credentfaled person to bring
about meeting between her and the
moppy-locked conductor-and of course,
they were engaged almost while you wait
when the thing had gone far as that.
or course, her parents developed dispo-
sition to insist upon their daughters chop
ping out this matrimonial venture, on the
ground that the moppy conductor was an
unknown and all that but when the con-
ductor was able to prove tia: he was really
the Due de Cantscratchmyesrini or some
thing like that and the owner of two or
three Farnese Understandable mortgag-
ed-and extensive vine growing estates
somewhere at the base of the Apennines.
why, 1T was all right and the marriage Is
going to come off just soon the young
leader gets through with his engagement
on the pier.
after this one had been sprung the
press agent of the other pier, wherein the
leader with the Titan name cavorts. felt
That his reputation was at stake. The go
ing-to-marry-an-he iress gag had been used,
of course, and so he went that story one
better Announced in a detailed story in
the Atlantic City and Philadelphia papers
that the leader with the sunny name was
already married to a Russian princess, who
had been compelled by the great white tsar
10 renounce her princess rank for marry
ing a commoner. After her marriage, in
order to keep her mind diverted the ex-
princess had got herself mixed up with 4
bunch of ST. Petersburg nihilists, and, upon
being found out at that, the tSar had per-
emptorily baniShed her to a far corner of
the most miserable end of Siberia where
she had been languishing for five years.
The story went on to hint darkly that the
fed-maned leader was only running a band
long enough to get enough money to buy a
cast-on man-o'-war, SO that he could fit
out an expedition and go to the relief OF
his banished bride Pretty glowy stuff. eh?
ha CT ,rnltx L..
time that he got it into circulation the
girls went to that pier in droves to take
long peek at the man with the princess
bride, and to wonder how he felt while
gal wife working in quicksilver mine. Or
some disagreeable old thing up near the
rim of the Arctic ocean. .-
The red-maned leader had Just got
through conducting the Carmen overture
one evening when 1 was down there, wher
a dark-eyed beauty, who from rocking
chair well up toward the front had been
listening enraptured to the gurgly strains,
lean Beauty rose from her C, rsage, and
tossed 1t at the leader. The leader picked
1t up with fine air of surprise smelt it,
gazed throbbingly into its deep heart and
then stuck it into his buttonhole making
the audience a sweepy bow. The enthu-
siastlc young beauty with an air of en-
barrassment over her understandable en-
thusiasm, quickly rushed out, her cheeks
aii@,iiie~'iie press agent dIterWard SAID that
they We're afame, anyhow-and disappeared
in the madding boardwalk throng That
same evening at the far end Of the boa I'd
walk l saw the dark-eyed beauty doing
her little trapeze stunt with the vaudeville
show. The press agent had fixed uD the
rose-tossing thing mighty WELL and it had
been gone through with perfectly More
over not many of the people who saw it
had any idea that it had been pulled off
by the girl doing the trapeze act but de-
rived the romantic impression that the
young woman had simply been carried
away by the magical conducting of the
squatty leader with the sunset locks
The two press agents were still at it
when l quit Atlantic City. How they're
going to keep the pace up all summer,
though. is worrying me. 1 wouldn't be a
conscientious press agent of an Atlantic
City Italian band for 50 the minute, bad as
l need the money. 1t takes too much think
ing and conniving and continuing"