The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-11-15

ute for intellect Without memory her &C., cent and idiomatlc vulgarisms would have broken through into some of her brief speeches on the stage, and then even her beauty could not have saved her from ridicule; but as 1t was, her unvexed mem- ory enabled her to repeat every word just as it had been drilled Into her with the phonograph.
 Yet once Studheim leaned too heavily upon the prop of Brendas stolid memory; and his fall was bad All this time we were playing summer stock in Schenec- tady, where Studheim had leased thea ire and engaged his own company for the express purpose of being able when he liked to introduce himself to the public in Shakespearean roles. Morris was a ! good actor of splendid gifts, but Shakes peare always went him one better than he had. The easy-tempered public kindly put up with his fortnightly tragedies for the sake of the good old melodrama he al- ways gave them the week after. Not but that Morris was losing money hand over fist But he never let us lose; our salary never failed to get into the week. ly envelope, even though Morris's bank account grew slim to fill it. That is why we liked him immensely and tried to do the best we could for him. The day after payday we often told him what fine Hamlet he was. That was the only day we could do it, though
 But about Brenda Swensons slip. We were doing Macbeth that week. 'doing him good and plenty" Nina said; and at the last moment Studheim recalled the fact that he was short on "apparitions'' for the caldron scene. Previously, on the road, little Jane Duke had done them all, one after the other, shooting up through the trap and letting off her small speeches as nonchalantly as child. You couldn't scare Jane Duke. That is one reason, though, why Morris let her go He liked reasonable bit of awe from his troupe; and the rest of us, we fed it to him, but Jane didn't As a consequence, we now lacked Jane and had no separations" So Brenda, with 8 splash of gore on her brow. was given the task of appearing in the Nitch-fire. Studheim hated to trust her with luckless combination like "the Thane of Fife" but had to-therefore drilled her and gave her intonations, even on the word beware.
 Lille this" he hissed to the stold Venus, trying to masnetize her with his magnificent eyes, Macbeth, beware! be- warei bewarer
 'All right" whispered Brenda stoicalIy The performance was under way, and they dared not to be too vocal She glanced out to the stage in order to fix locations. "i say be where?' and where iss it you will be. Mir. Studheim?"
 Right in front of you (You cold-stor- age swab--) And it's beware. It means look out, look out, look out-(and God help us all if we don'tD"
 "Oh, dank you, MT. Studheim, for your explaining kindness" murmured Brenda
 He shot her an alert look to detect pos sible sarcasm, but of course saw none, because there was none. With a tragic tsupplica ton to the helpful powers above Morris went to his doom.
 For the wabbly passage up the trap, the glare of fire. the boodshot agony in the eyes of the tortured Thane. all proved un- settling to the "second apparition," who sutturally walled:
 "Ach, look oudt. Macbeth; look oudt two dimes, and look oudt some more yet"
 Strange to say. not a word jared on the audience. They really did not get much of it. for Macbeth raved with a most quick and saving sanity, the witches in- canted unduiy, but with commendable dis erection, and we rattled a thing or two in tho wings. Then we sank upon props and laughed in whispers till we ached,
 Brenda took her scoring from Studheim with lovely. blond equability in spite of the fact that two torrents of easy tears poured down her face. But they dried as soon as his back was turned.
 "If look oudt iss beware, it makes small matter which," she explained with one of her soft, wide, radiant smiles. She had the smile of a boy baby-a sudden, cheer fu1 widening of the mouth, with no more couuetry in it than there is in canned clam.
 We none of us ever got far in our love- making with Brenda. We all of us tried it. one after another, several times over, esrecially while traveling-one gets very tired on train-and Brenda would help us along to the best of her ability, even taking pins ostentatiously out of her belts if our arms wandered around that way, but she did 1t with such hearty mother liness that we became comfortably dis colraged We were all her big brothers. nd she plainly thought the world of us. singlv or punched. So We mostly punched ara gave il up.
 Not even Morris Studheim's facile cred ulity was strong enough to tempt him into making siege of her heart, even