San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1926-04-25
DOOR, innocent Fern Rogers, the
r. pretty musical comedy prima donna
who trusts everybody, has been i'm

pretty musical comedy prima donna
= who trusts everybody, has been i'm
posed on again. Trustful Fern has been
swindled, abused and bamboozled all her
life, but this last is the meanest trick of
ALT NAV undermine her beautiful faith
in human nature and teach her lesson.
Miss Rogers was nicely settled, with
nothing to worry about all last Winter,
in a star role of Ed Wynn's Grab Bag
when it came to Columbus, Ohio. In that
town there had been working for some
weeks, as humble rubber, in Turkish
bath at $25 a week, man named Roy
Bowman. Some instinct like that Of the
vulture and the buzzard told this man that
an easy mark had arrived in town. He
resigned his job, borrowed a dress suit,
silk hat, Prince Albert and few other
things and appeared at the Neil House,
disguised as a gentleman.
With a perfectly manicured hand he
registered for thc most expensive suite in
the hotel, which made the clerk hate to 20
through the formaity of asking about his
baggage That would arrive shortly he
told them and it did, bought and filled on
credit from local merchants impressed by
that expensive hotel suite. When the
"Grab Bag" company reached the hotel
they soon wondered who the distinguished
looking foreigner might he who demanded
so much service and got it.
It was whispered that he was wealthy
German physician, graduate of Hcidel-
berg, owner of German castles and a
Long Island estate, information that
ought to be accurate because "Dr." Bow
man had given it out himself. Without
hesitation, Bowman singled out Fern
Rogers and had the hotel manager intro
duce him. Then started two days of whirl-
wind courtship and such romantic hokum
and bunk as one used to see in the early
moving pictures when some foreign adj
venturer deceived an unsophisticated little
country maiden.
Fern Rogers was no un5OphstlCated
maiden, but Broadway actress who had
played all over the United States and Eu-
rope and been married and divorced. A
person with all that experience usually
rates as a fve-minute egg which few con-
fidence men would try to beat. How did
this man guess that she was one of those
people whom Abraham Lincoln said could
he fooled all the time? It would seem
that man with such intuition could get
rich without breaking the law.
That he was smitten with love at first
sight she could easily believe because he
was so frank and honest and always looked
her in the eye and he had wasted no time.
The stories Of his wealth we're good, con-
vincing ones as the yarns Of confidence
men always arc His German castles were
real enough and like his Long Island
estate existed just as he described them.
He made no slips or contradictions, be-
cause all he said was true except that he
had never been at those places as owner,
but probably as butler or valet.
"Oh, I've always wanted to live in big
stone castle on the Rhine" said Fern, her
arms on his shoulders and her admiring
eyes on his shoulders and feeling the thrill
that comes but once in lifetime, "and
how wonderful it will be to spend our
Summers on our Long Island estaten'
Besides his boosted estates, he had such
Iordly, foreign manners and he knew how
to make the hotel flunkeys jump to atten-
ton. When he ordered dinner, he would