The San Francisco call., 1909-12-26

+ were sentimental 1 could tell
story that would catch the feeting
fancy of the reader of dramatic
pages and fasten it and hold it TO
the ultimate period OF this writing.
II I could tell this tale as it should be
told, ungarnished with even so much
ss a spray of fancy, but simply and
truly and directly. there would be tears
on the page and a very turmoil OF
tender recollections in the heart l
should sweep as if by magic fifth oi
a century into the waters of Lethe.
Twenty years would roll back to give
MS q glimpse of gay, careless, happy
san Francisco, when this good old town
was just a boy. naive in its pleasures
and care free.
Twenty years. They shriveled. curled'
shrank and collapsed; the sands ran up
through the hourglass instead of down.
and time turned backward on itself
when TilIie Salinger and Phil Branson
said come in" to me as I tapped on
the door Of their apartments at the ST
James the other day.
We are told by those competent IN
such matters that the brain entertains
but one thought at a time; that ideas
troop through ii in regular order ike
soldiers battered or tattered or bravely
accoutered. one after the other, step
ping heel for heel. but never tripping
nor jostling Marshaled one at a tine
they pass in and out, from nowhere to
nowhere. Something like that we are
told. No doubt it is true. but when the
heart is stirred then there's anarchy
in the army, you may be sure, and
thoughts and memories become a reg
ular rout a rabble, disorderly and tu-
multuous. That's what happened to me-
and if those memories that rushed
about were not such fragile things and
could here be Strengthened out and PIN
toned to the page, the tear would come
at the contemplation of what is past
and gone; at the city that was the gay
but lovely mother TO this, and at the
spirit that animated il: and those mem
ories would troop like ghosts up Eddy
street and cIamor about the wrath Of
that wooden palace the Tivou where
were in former time Alice Gaillard.
Francis Gailard. Oracle Plaisted. Belle
Thorne. Adolph Bauer. Kate Marchi, and
the other associates of Tillie Salinger,
THE prima donna, and Phil Branson.
THE tenor.
xvOrrTD have known either of them
in z minute, though Phil has grown
! slightly-how shall 1 say it and not
fail in respect? Phil has become the
possessor of an expansive vest; his
figure. as the saying goes, is not lost,
but gone before, and he parts fewer
hairs and whittier than he did in those
brave days and nights when he was
the. Tivom hero of the Gypsy Baron"
and sang high tenoric. roundelays into
the listening and understanding ear
p of Tinie. sly Phil. While he was only
pretending 10 pretend, as comic opera
stars have to do to make their living,
he was actually making real love to
the pretty Tillie, for were they not soon
sfterward married. and haven't they
lived happily ever afterward?
And Tnlie. I will not affirm it to
be gently rallied against or to invite
,odious remarks about my veracity. but
simply as matter of demonstrable
fact, as susceptible of proof as any
other rniracle-Tilie isn't a day older.
From 1880 to 1909 has been with her,
apparently, merely a matter of arith-
metic; an abstraction, a syllogism the
major premise of which is the symbol
1850. the minor 1909. and the con-
.clusion just I9. Time has nothing to
do in the matter. Perhaps one who
does not gaze stupidity through glasses
might not agree with me, or maybe
the impertinent might stare at her
long enough to discern a line or two
indicative Of times touch; but I. for
one, beheld no such thing. and Tillie
herself afirms my observations by her
+ buoyancy and grace. and by the same
merry laugh that used, once upon a
~ time, to add conviction to my certainty,
that she was the greatest woman in
the world. the most beautiful, the fin
est singer and altogether the most
adorable OF the Tivoli's fair family.
NTOU do not say. in salutation,
What's the news?' to Mr.. and Mrs.
Branson. You say Wen. what do
you know?" There's a deal of differ
ence in those two greetings. What's
new isn't nearly OF such consequence
as what's old. The present isn't nearly
so engaging a topic as the past and
in that past, which they behold through
the soft haze Of 20 years. they see San
Francisco that used to be, and its most
characteristic institution, the like of
which never was before nor will be
q sgain-the Tivoli. The silhouette of