The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-05
From the New York Sun.


 1 HE curtain had not been up on the (lO first act at the Hackett theatre
 more than five minutes Thursday afternoon when MT. Algernon St. James McGillicuddy of Dunellen. N. J.. appeared at the box office and demanded admission upon the ground that he was a poet.
 Prove it." said the box office man.
 q don't have to-" retorted MT. Mo Gillicuddy with a touch of excusable asperity. ''The fact is well known. Be- side. I admit it. I once had piece printed in a regular magazine called The Every Other Friday in Lent
 But the box office man was stubborn and demanded visible proof. He ac- knowledged that long hair, an overworked collar and a hunted look about the eyes constituted corroborative evidence-but not enough whereupon MT. McGlllicuddy produced stub of pencil and after some thought wrote upon the back of declined with the editors thanks en- yelope the following stave:
 Out of the mystic Far Beyond
 l gaze with hopeless eyes
 With eyes that wonder where, oh, where,
 The fabled pathway lies.
 Within my hearts red crucible
 Is seething all-
 "Holdi Enough" said the box office man. Beat 1t inside for yours, quick. Accept Al and with the thanks of grateful management"
 So. MT. McGillicuddy passed inside, Of the play called '"The Vampire" was in progress. Now the chief character in this play is sort of intellectual vacuum cleaner. He just sucks ideas out of other folks brains and appropriates' them to his own use. The play was written by Columbia university dramatist named Woolf and young man named Viereck, who like MT. McGillicuddy of Dunellen, N. J., admits that he is poet. Conse- quently it was thought fitting that spe cial matinee should be given to which all the poets whose names MT. Viereck aud the press agent could think of should be invited. Some of them came, too.
 Every person who entered the theatre received pale pink slip on which was printed the query: Do you think The Vampire is true?' Among others MT. viereck handed himself one of these slips, read it thoughtfully. then unhesi- tatingly wrote upon it, ''Yes. do," signed his name in bold characters and handed 1t back to himself. MT. Woolf made no re- ply to the inquiry of the pale pink slip, but his is said to be cautious nature.
 There were a goodly number of persons present who not only said they were poets, but who looked the part. Conspic uous among these, with Virgilian front and ambrosial hair, was Dickie Le Gall lienne. MT. Le GaIlienne, it will perhaps be remembered, is the young man who thought so little of the Fitz Gerald yer ago he essayed to publish a new render ing of those famous stanzas just to show how the thing ought to be done.
 And then he went and hitched Pegasus to the water wagon and last summer he went up to East Aurora, where Dr. Mum yon and Ebert Hubbard enlighten the Philistines and took to the simple life and lived in an inexpensive tent, at the same time composing an up-to-date yer sion of Omar in which the Bard is repre- scented as repenting of his views regard ing the virtues of booze.
 In this version the bard is described as sitting in Raines law life saving station in New York and reasoning with a young man who is attached to the grape. To this one Omar says that the demon rum will surely get him if he doesn't watch out and that in fact the water wagon Is the only vehicle worthy of being en- shrined in verse or conduct.
 This being established let us pass on to the next person resembling poet, this being no less than Edwin Markham. who