第4章

We've got our chance now to make good and make money.What we want to do is to cut expenses every cent we can, and save all we can.""Right," said Bob."It's business with me.You've got your scheme for banking yours; and I dream every night of that bungalow with the Jap cook and nobody around to raise trouble.

Anything to enlarge the net receipts will engage my attention.""Come inside just a few minutes," repeated Cherry, deeply thoughtful."I've got a proposition to make to you that will reduce our expenses a lot and help you work out your own future and help me work out mine--and all on business principles.""Mice Will Play" had a tremendously successful run in New York for ten weeks--rather neat for a vaudeville sketch--and then it started on the circuits.Without following it, it may be said that it was a solid drawing card for two years without a sign of abated popularity.

Sam Packard, manager of one of Keetor's New York houses, said of Hart & Cherry:

"As square and high-toned a little team as ever came over the circuit.It's a pleasure to read their names on the booking list.

Quiet, hard workers, no Johnny and Mabel nonsense, on the job to the minute, straight home after their act, and each of 'em as gentlemanlike as a lady.I don't expect to handle any attractions that give me less trouble or more respect for the profession."And now, after so much cracking of a nutshell, here is the kernel of the story:

At the end of its second season "Mice Will Play" came back to New York for another run at the roof gardens and summer theatres.There was never any trouble in booking it at the top-notch price.Bob Hart had his bungalow nearly paid for, and Cherry had so many savings-deposit bank books that she had begun to buy sectional bookcases on the instalment plan to hold them.

I tell you these things to assure you, even if you can't believe it, that many, very many of the stage people are workers with abiding ambitions--just the same as the man who wants to be president, or the grocery clerk who wants a home in Flatbush, or a lady who is anxious to flop out of the Count-pan into the Prince-fire.And Ihope I may be allowed to say, without chipping into the contribution basket, that they often move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform.

But, listen.

At the first performance of "Mice Will Play" in New York at the Westphalia (no hams alluded to) Theatre, Winona Cherry was nervous.When she fired at the photograph of the Eastern beauty on the mantel, the bullet, instead of penetrating the photo and then striking the disk, went into the lower left side of Bob Hart's neck.

Not expecting to get it there, Hart collapsed neatly, while Cherry fainted in a most artistic manner.

The audience, surmising that they viewed a comedy instead of a tragedy in which the principals were married or reconciled, applauded with great enjoyment.The Cool Head, who always graces such occasions, rang the curtain down, and two platoons of scene shifters respectively and more or less respectfully removed Hart & Cherry from the stage.The next turn went on, and all went as merry as an alimony bell.

The stage hands found a young doctor at the stage entrance who was waiting for a patient with a decoction of Am.B'ty roses.The doctor examined Hart carefully and laughed heartily.

"No headlines for you, Old Sport," was his diagnosis."If it had been two inches to the left it would have undermined the carotid artery as far as the Red Front Drug Store in Flatbush and Back Again.As it is, you just get the property man to bind it up with a flounce torn from any one of the girls' Valenciennes and go home and get it dressed by the parlor-floor practitioner on your block, and you'll be all right.Excuse me; I've got a serious case outside to look after."After that, Bob Hart looked up and felt better.And then to where he lay came Vincente, the Tramp Juggler, great in his line.

Vincente, a solemn man from Brattleboro, Vt., named Sam Griggs at home, sent toys and maple sugar home to two small daughters from every town he played.Vincente had moved on the same circuits with Hart & Cherry, and was their peripatetic friend.

"Bob," said Vincente in his serious way, "I'm glad it's no worse.

The little lady is wild about you."

"Who?" asked Hart.

"Cherry," said the juggler."We didn't know how bad you were hurt; and we kept her away.It's taking the manager and three girls to hold her.""It was an accident, of course," said Hart."Cherry's all right.She wasn't feeling in good trim or she couldn't have done it.There's no hard feelings.She's strictly business.The doctor says I'll be on the job again in three days.Don't let her worry.""Man," said Sam Griggs severely, puckering his old, smooth, lined face, "are you a chess automaton or a human pincushion? Cherry's crying her heart out for you--calling 'Bob, Bob,' every second, with them holding her hands and keeping her from coming to you.""What's the matter with her?" asked Hart, with wide-open eyes.

"The sketch'll go on again in three days.I'm not hurt bad, the doctor says.She won't lose out half a week's salary.I know it was an accident.What's the matter with her?""You seem to be blind, or a sort of a fool," said Vincente."The girl loves you and is almost mad about your hurt.What's the matter with _you_? Is she nothing to you? I wish you could hear her call you.""Loves me?" asked Bob Hart, rising from the stack of scenery on which he lay."Cherry loves me? Why, it's impossible.""I wish you could see her and hear her," said Griggs.

"But, man," said Bob Hart, sitting up, "it's impossible.It's impossible, I tell you.I never dreamed of such a thing.""No human being," said the Tramp Juggler, "could mistake it.

She's wild for love of you.How have you been so blind?""But, my God," said Bob Hart, rising to his feet, "it's _too late_.

It's too late, I tell you, Sam; _it's too late_.It can't be.You must be wrong.It's _impossible_.There's some mistake.

"She's crying for you," said the Tramp Juggler."For love of you she's fighting three, and calling your name so loud they don't dare to raise the curtain.Wake up, man.""For love of me?" said Bob Hart with staring eyes."Don't I tell you it's too late? It's too late, man.Why, _Cherry and I have been married two years!_"