gradually the company worked a zigzag passage to chicago, where it was booked for an indefinite stay. if the “business” were good, it would be announced that, “owing to the unprecedented success, it has been found necessary to extend the run originally contemplated.” if the business were not so good, it would be announced that, “owing to previous bookings, it would unfortunately be impossible to extend the run beyond the next two weeks.”
jaffer was saying as they rolled in: “there’s no telling in advance what chicago’s going to do to us. new york stood for this rotten show for a whole season; chicago may be too wise for us. i hope so. it’s a ghastly town. the lake winds are death to a delicate throat. i always lose my voice control in chicago.”
with jaffer the success he was in was always a proof of the stupidity of the public. in his unending reminiscences, which he ran serially in the smoking-room like another arabian nights, the various failures he had met were variously described. those in which he had had a good part were “over the heads of the swine”; those in which he had shone dimly were “absolutely the worst plays ever concocted, my boy—hopeless from the start. how even a manager could fail to see it in the script i can’t for the life of me imagine.”
old jim crumb said: “chicago is a far better judge of a play than new york is. chicago’s got a mind of her own. she’s the real metropolis. the critics have got a heart; they appreciate honest effort. if they don’t like you they say so fairly, without any of the brutality of new york.” crumb’s last appearance in chicago had been in a highly successful play.
tuell stopped groaning long enough to growl: “don’t you believe it! chicago’s jealous of new york, and the critics have got their axes out for anything that bears the new york stamp. if they don’t like you, they lynch you—that’s all, they just lynch you.” tuell’s last appearance there had been with a failure.
eldon felt little interest in the matter one way or another. he had been snubbed in his romance. the other r?le he played would never be dignified even by a tap of the critical bludgeon. he was tired of the stage.
and then the opportunity he had prayed for fell at his feet, after he had ceased to pray for it.
the play opened on a sunday night. it was eldon’s first performance of a play on the sabbath. he rather expected something to come through the roof. but the play went without a mishap. the applause was liberal, and the next morning’s notices were enthusiastic.
sheila was picked out for especial praise. the leading woman, miss zelma griffen, was slighted. she was very snappy to sheila, which added the final touch to sheila’s rapture.
old jaffer was complimented and remembered, and now he was loud in the praises of the town, the inspiring, bracing ozone from the lake, and his splendid hotel. jim crumb’s bit as a farmer was mentioned, and his previous appearance recalled with “regret that he had not more opportunity to reveal his remarkable gifts of characterization.”
this was too much for poor crumb. he went about town renewing former acquaintances with the fervor of a far voyager who has come home to stay. when he appeared at the second performance his speech was glucose and his gait rippling. in his one scene it was his duty to bring in a lantern and hold it over an automobile map on which sheila and mrs. vining were trying to trace a lost road. it was a passage of some dramatic moment, but crumb in his cups made unexpected farce of it by swinging the lantern like a switchman.
no comic genius from aristophanes via molière to hoyt has ever yet devised a scene that will convulse an audience like the mistake or mishap of an actor. poor, befuddled crumb’s wabbly lantern was the laughing hit of the piece. he was too thick to be rebuked that night. friends took him to his hotel and left him to sleep it off.
when the next morning he realized what he had done, what sacrilege he had committed, he sought relief from insanity in a hair of the dog that bit him. he was soon mellow enough to fall a victim to an hallucination that tuesday was a matinée day. he appeared at the theater at half-past one, and made up to go on. he fell asleep waiting for his cue, and was discovered when his dressing-room mate arrived at seven o’clock. then he insisted on descending to report for duty. he was still so befogged that batterson did not dare let him ruin another performance. he addressed to crumb that simple phrase which is the theatrical death-warrant:
“hand me back your part.”
with the automatic heroism of a soldier sentenced to execution, crumb staggered to his room and, fetching the brochure from his trunk, surrendered it to the higher power, revealing a somewhat shaky majesty of despair.
eldon was standing in the wings, and batterson thrust the document at him and growled: “you say you’re a great actor. i’m from missouri. get up in that and show me, to-night.”
if he had placed a spluttering bomb in eldon’s hands, and told him to blow up a czar with it, eldon could hardly have felt more terrified.
