Harlequin and Columbine Part 3

"What girl?" Canby was shampooing himself feverishly and had little interest in girls. "I made it a disagreeable character because--"

"I mean the one he's letting out on--Malone," said Tinker. "Didn't you notice her voice? Her laugh reminds me of f.a.n.n.y Caton's--and Dora Preston's--"

"Who?" Canby asked vaguely.

"Oh, n.o.body you'd remember; some old-time actresses that had their day--and died--long ago. This girl's voice made me think of them."

"She may, she may," said Canby hurriedly. "Mr. Tinker, the play is ruined. He's tangled the whole act up so that I can't tell what it's about myself. Instead of Roderick Hanscom's being a man that people dislike for his conceit and selfishness he's got him absolutely turned round. I oughtn't to allow it--but everything's so different from what I thought it would be! He doesn't seem to know I'm here. I came prepared to read the play to the company; I thought he'd want me to."

"Oh, no," said Tinker. "He never does that."

"Why not?"

"Wastes time, for one thing. The actors don't listen except when their own parts are being read."

"Good gracious!"

"Their own parts are all they have to look out for," the old man informed him dryly. "I've known actors to play a long time in parts that didn't appear in the last act, and they never know how the play ended."

"Good gracious!"

"Never cared, either," Tinker added.

"Good gr--"

"s.h.!.+ He's breaking out again!"

A shriek of agony came from the stage. "Pack-e-r-r-! Where did you find this Missmiss understudy? Can't you get me people of experience?

I really cannot bear this kind of thing--I can not!" And Potter flung himself upon the chair, leaving the slight figure in black standing alone in the centre of the stage. He sprang up again, however, surprisingly, upon the very instant of despairing collapse. "What do you mean by this perpetual torture of me?" he wailed at her. "Don't you know what you did?"

"No, Mr. Potter." She looked at him bravely, but she began to grow red.

"You don't?" he cried incredulously. "You don't know what you did? You moved! How are they going to get my face if you move? Don't you know enough to hold a picture and not ruin it by moving?"

"There was a movement written for that cue," she said, a little tremulously. "The business in the script is, 'Showing that she is touched by Roderick's n.o.bleness, lifts handkerchief impulsive gesture to eyes.'"

"Not," he shouted, "not during the SMILE!"

"Oh!" she cried remorsefully. "Have I done that again?"

"'Again!' I don't know how many times you've done it!" He flung his arms wide, with hands outspread and fingers vibrating. "You do it every time you get the chance! You do it perpetually! You don't do anything else!

It's all you live for!"

He hurled his ma.n.u.script violently at the table, Packer making a wonderful pick-up catch of it just as it touched the floor.

"That's all!" And the unhappy artist sank into the chair in a crumpled stupor.

"Ten o'clock to-morrow morning, ladies and gentlemen!" Packer called immediately, with brisk cheerfulness. "Please notice: to-morrow's rehearsal is in the morning. Ten o'clock to-morrow morning!"

"Tell the understudy to wait, Packer," said the star abysmally, and Packer addressed himself to the departing backs of the company:

"Mr. Potter wants to speak to Miss--Miss--"

"Malone," prompted the owner of the name, without resentment.

"Wait a moment, Miss Malone," said Potter, looking up wearily. "Is Mr.

Tinker anywhere about?"

"I'm here, Mr. Potter." Tinker came forward to the orchestra railing.

"I've been thinking about this play, Mr. Tinker," Potter said, shaking his head despondently. "I don't know about it. I'm very, very doubtful about it." He peered over Tinker's head, squinting his eyes, and seemed for the first time to be aware of the playwright's presence. "Oh, are you there, Mr. Canby? When did you come in?"

"I've been here all the time," said the dishevelled Canby, coming forward. "I supposed it was my business to be here, but-"

"Very glad to have you if you wish," Potter interrupted gloomily. "Any time. Any time you like. I was just telling Mr. Tinker that I don't know about your play. I don't know if it'll do at all."

"If you'd play it," Canby began, "the way I wrote it--"

"In the first place," Potter said with sudden vehemence, "it lacks Punch! Where's your Punch in this play, Mr. Canby? Where is there any Punch whatever in the whole four acts? Surely, after this rehearsal, you don't mean to claim that the first act has one single ounce of Punch in it!"

"But you've twisted this act all round," the unhappy young man protested. "The way you have it I can't tell what it's got to it. I meant Roderick Hanscom to be a disagr--"

"Mr. Canby," said the star, rising impressively, "if we played that act the way you wrote it, we'd last just about four minutes of the opening night. You gave me absolutely nothing to do! Other people talked at me and I had to stand there and be talked at for twenty minutes straight, like a blithering ninny!"

"Well, as you have it, the other actors have to stand there like ninnies," poor Canby retorted miserably, "while you talk at them almost the whole time."

"My soul!" Potter struck the table with the palm of his hand. "Do you think anybody's going to pay two dollars to watch me listen to my company for three hours? No, my dear man, your play's got to give me something to do! You'll have to rewrite the second and third acts. I've done what I could for the first, but, good G.o.d! Mr. Canby, I can't write your whole play for you! You'll have to get some Punch into it or we'll never be able to go on with it."

"I don't know what you mean," said the playwright helplessly. "I never did know what people mean by Punch."

"Punch? It's what grips 'em," Potter returned with vehemence. "Punch is what keeps 'em sitting on the edge of their seats. Big love scenes!

They've got Punch. Or a big scene with a man. Give me a big scene with a man." He ill.u.s.trated his meaning with startling intensity, crouching and seizing an imaginary antagonist by the throat, shaking him and snarling between his clenched teeth, while his own throat swelled and reddened: "Now, d.a.m.n you! You dog! So on, so on, so on! Zowie!" Suddenly his figure straightened. "Then change. See?" He became serene, almost august. "'No! I will not soil these hands with you. So on, so on, so on. I give you your worthless life. Go!'" He completed his generosity by giving Canby and Tinker the smile, after which he concluded much more cheerfully: "Something like that, Mr. Canby, and we'll have some real Punch in your play."

"But there isn't any chance for that kind of a scene in it," the playwright objected. "It's the study of an egoist, a disagree--"

"There!" exclaimed Potter. "That's it! Do you think people are going to pay two dollars to see Talbot Potter behave like a cad? They won't do it; they pay two dollars to see me as I am--not pretending to be the kind of man your 'Roderick Hanscom' was. No, Mr. Canby, I accepted your play because it has got quite a fair situation in the third act, and because I thought I saw a chance in it to keep some of the strength of 'Roderick Hanscom' and yet make him lovable."

"But, great heavens! if you make him lovable the character's ruined.

Besides, the audience won't want to see him lose the girl at the end and 'Donald Grey' get her!"

"No, they won't; that's it exactly," said Potter thoughtfully. "You'll have to fix that, Mr. Canby. 'Roderick Hanscom' will have to win her by a great sacrifice in the last act. A great, strong, lovable man, Mr. Canby; that's the kind of character I want to play: a big, sweet, lovable fellow, with the heart of a child, that makes a great sacrifice for a woman. I don't want to play 'egoists'; I don't want to play character parts. No." He shook his head musingly, and concluded, the while a light of ineffable sweetness shone from his remarkable eyes: "Mr. Canby, no! My audience comes to see Talbot Potter. You go over these other acts and write the part so that I can play myself."

The playwright gazed upon him, inarticulate, and Potter, shaking himself slightly, like one aroused from a pleasant little reverie, turned to the waiting figure of the girl.

"What is it, Miss Malone?" he asked mildly. "Did you want to speak to me?"

"You told Mr. Packer to ask me to wait," she said.

"Did I? Oh, yes, so I did. If you please, take off your hat and veil, Miss Malone?"