flanders was a constant visitor at seawood. in the fortnight immediately following the all-important christmas eve, he appeared at the bingle home on no less than ten separate occasions.
"i see that mr. and mrs. force are sailing for europe to-morrow," said he on his most recent visit.
"you don't say so!" exclaimed mr. bingle. "it's news to me."
there was every reason in the world why it should be news to him. he had neither seen nor heard from force since that christmas morning ultimatum. purposely mr. bingle had stayed away from the bank, where, as its first vice-president, he was wont to spend much of his time looking after the comfort and advancement of the bookkeepers and clerks. he never overlooked an opportunity to help his old comrades in the "galleys." the board of directors were compelled to fight him constantly in order to keep him from putting through his plan to raise all wages, and there came near to being a catastrophe when they voted down his ridiculous scheme for providing fresh air for the lungs of the workers in the "pen." he made certain comparisons in which russia was frequently mentioned and three or four of the directors afterwards referred to him as an "undignified little ass."
but now he hesitated about going to the bank. somehow, he could not quite bring himself to the point of encountering the president of the bank in his capacity as head of the great and reputable concern. never again would he be able to look upon sydney force as the right man for the place. he could only think of him as "a man called hinman." being a charitable soul, however, he stood ready to overlook much that was obnoxious in the character of the man if the time ever came when he openly revealed a contrite heart and a disposition to make amends in the proper way.
"to be gone for three months, i hear," said flanders, looking at his watch. "i say, mr. bingle, doesn't it seem to you that the afternoon lessons are a little longer than usual? it's five o'clock. i have to be back in town before half-past six."
mr. bingle did not reply. a sudden cause for rejoicing had sprung up, occupying all of his attention. for three months, at least, he would be free to call kathleen his own, and for three months he could go to the bank without being disturbed by the workings of his own conscience—for after all, a visible mr. force would be something of a tax upon his sense of honour.
flanders waited for a moment and then began winding his watch.
"ahem!" he coughed.
"news to me," repeated mr. bingle, rising above his reflections.
"by the way, sir, it may interest you to know that i'm getting along nicely with the play."
"good! i'm glad to hear it. they tell me there is a great deal of money to be made out of a good play."
"there's a lot to be made out of a successful play. it doesn't follow that it has to be a good one, you know," said flanders, didactically. "i am terribly keen on finishing it and getting a production as soon as possible. it means a—well, you know what it means to me, sir. these managers are a rum lot. four-fifths of them don't know a good play from a bad one. i suppose i'll have a hard time placing it, because i don't believe it will be bad enough at the outset for them to accept it on sight. i understand it is a theory among managers that if a play is unspeakably bad they can hire some one else to rewrite it from beginning to end, and make a success of it. adversely, if it should happen to be a good play, they don't know what it's all about and will have nothing to do with it."
"i'm sure your play will be a dandy," said mr. bingle warmly. "the plot is tip-top. even a manager ought to be able to tell what it's all about."
"i can't tell you how much i appreciate your kindness in listening to all i've had to say about the piece. i'm afraid i've bored you terribly."
"not at all, not at all. i've always been interested in the theatre. i'll confess to you that i've always wanted to know a real actor or actress. now that our dear miss fairweather turns out to be—er—to have been on the stage for some time before she came to us, my interest in the profession is intensified. i really am quite thrilled over knowing a real, flesh and blood actress."
"we were a little afraid you wouldn't look at it so generously, mr.
bingle."
"i know. miss fairweather has told us of her sleepless nights, worrying over the supposed deception. she might just as well have slept comfortably, dick. she may have been a bad actress but she wasn't a bad woman, so no harm has come of it. do you think she is qualified to play the leading part in your show? it strikes me that it is a very difficult part. i should think it would take some one like modjeska or julia marlowe to play it properly. she is—" "my dear mr. bingle, amy is just the woman for the part of deborah. i am sure of it—positively. the trouble is that i'm afraid the managers will insist on putting in somebody with a name—like ethel barrymore or nazimova or maude adams. that's going to be the rub, you see. of course, i shall not give in to them. it is amy colgate or no one." he looked very rueful despite this firm and dauntless speech.
mr. bingle stared at the fire for a few minutes, his lips pursed in an expression that spoke of calculation.
"i have been thinking, dick," he said at last; "thinking very seriously of taking a little flyer in the—er—theatrical business." immediately upon uttering this astonishing remark he became very red in the face and shifted his gaze to the remote upper left-hand corner of the room.
figuratively speaking, mr. flanders fell upon his neck. inside of thirty minutes, mr. thomas singleton bingle was in a position to regard himself as a producing manager and miss amy colgate, one of america's most promising young leading women, was on her way to become a star, to say nothing of the ascendency of richard sheridan flanders as a playwright. the difficulties were all swept away. a broadway theatre was no longer a hope; it was a certainty. mr. bingle could buy all the "time" he wanted in any house along the great white way. it wouldn't be necessary to squabble over the relative drawing powers of ethel barrymore or maude adams, nor was it anybody's business who amy colgate was or where she came from—to use the words of the elated dramatist—and it didn't make a bit of difference whether the second week's "gross" was smaller than the first. mr. bingle was back of the play and that settled everything.
"i have great faith in the play," admitted mr. flanders, with becoming modesty.
"so have i," agreed mr. bingle enthusiastically. he had been dazed, yet vastly impressed by the unintelligible phraseology of the stage as it ran from the glib lips of the eager young man. he was flattered by dick's assumption that he was perfectly familiar with the theatre from box office to "gridiron."
"and what's more," added the playwright, "i have faith in amy."
by this time mr. bingle had unbounded faith in the young actress, and said so with considerable fervour. whereupon, the jubilant author suggested that they send for miss fairweather at once and acquaint her with the glorious news. but mr. bingle shook his head.
"no, we can't do that," he said, looking at his watch. "lessons are not over yet. ten minutes left, i see. she's still a governess, dick. one job at a time. the stage can wait."
mr. flanders sighed but smiled. then, for no especial reason, he slapped mr. bingle heartily on the back and laughed aloud. he had no words to express his accumulative joy, so he laughed—and there were tears in his eyes.
"we'll have the best production that money can buy," said mr. bingle, swelling ever so slightly, after the manner of practised managers. "an all-star cast, and scenery by sargent."
later on, in the privacy of miss fairweather's schoolroom, the author and the star discussed the great sensation, and you may be surprised to learn that there were two sides to the discussion. miss fairweather was a sensible young woman, although amazingly beautiful, and she took a most extraordinary view of the situation.
"it isn't right, it isn't fair, it isn't playing the game, dick," she protested, resolutely releasing herself from his embrace after listening for a long time, with throbbing heart, to his song of triumph. "poor, dear mr. bingle! he is doing it out of the goodness of his heart. i am not a 'star' and i am not 'big' enough to be featured on broadway. it would be a sin to let him put his money into a certain failure. i will not listen to you, dick. much as i love you, i still have a conscience and it will not allow me to sacrifice that simple soul. why, don't you know what would happen? the critics would go into convulsions over the attempt to foist a silly little—"
"but, hang it all, amy, you've got it in you to surprise new york," he cried earnestly. "i know you can do it. good lord, i wouldn't take a nickel of mr. bingle's money if i didn't believe you could make good. why, i've got a conscience too, much as the confession may surprise you."
"you are carried away by excitement, dear," she said softly, patting his cheek. "just stop and think for a minute. who am i? what have i ever done? where have i—"
"but can't you see that the play will be the making of you? the part is a wonder. you can't help creating a sensation with such a role to carry you along. now, i'm not conceited—not a bit of it—but i do know this much: this play and this part are going to turn broadway upside down."
"i could agree with you, dear, if you had some one like—oh, well, if you won't allow me to talk, i—please let me say it, dick." his kisses had played havoc with her ideas. "now, do listen to me! it's all very well to say that i am qualified to turn broadway—"
"of course, we don't have to 'star' you at the outset," he interrupted, suddenly resorting to reason. "we needn't feature any one at the start. if you make good—and i know you will—why, the papers will see to it that your name goes up in electric lights over the little old front door. i daresay you're right in going slow, dear. i am so excited that i don't know whether i'm on my feet or my head. now, let's talk it over calmly, sensibly, sanely. the upshot of the whole matter is this: my play is to be produced and you are to play the part of deborah. we don't have to ask any beastly theatrical manager to read the play and we don't have to go down on our knees to get a job for you. mr. bingle is going into this thing with his eyes, open. he tells me he has faith in the play and in you, and as he happens to have a great many millions of dollars we ought to have faith in him. he will put the piece on in bang-up style. he realizes that there is a chance for failure, but so does every man who puts his money into a theatrical production. it is part of the game. it is up to you and me, amy, to see that mr. bingle comes out of this thing a winner. he—"
"wait, dear," she interrupted, her fair brow-clouding. "what of mrs.
bingle? what will she say to this exploit of his?"
"isn't he the master in his own house?" demanded dick loftily. still, a spark of dismay leaped into his eyes.
"he is a good man, dick. he never permits himself to forget that she is its mistress. she will have something to say on the subject, you may be sure of that. i am not quite certain that she approves of the stage, and i've heard her say that actresses must be dreadful creatures if one believes all one hears about them smoking cigarettes and stealing young boys out of college. that was before she knew of my late lamented past. she has been perfectly lovely to me since, however, and i believe she is pleasantly excited by my 'gossip of the footlights,' as she calls it. she asked me the other day if it is true that chorus girls are more sinned against than sinning."'
"she did?" he cried, grinning. "and what did you say to that?"
"i said it was quite true," she said flatly.
"well, it won't hurt her to think that they'd all be angels if they had their way about it. now, let's get back to facts, dear. i've told mr. bingle that the play can be finished in a month or six weeks. he is for putting it on at once, but i don't believe it's good business to risk trying it out at the tail end of a very bad season. things are bound to be better in the fall. my idea is to begin rehearsals late in the summer, play a couple of weeks in the tank towns to whip the thing into shape, and then go into new york some time in september. i'll begin getting a cast together this spring—none but the best, you understand—and that will give us a fair chance to go into broadway with a corking production. who do you consider to be the best leading man in the business to-day?"
now, mr. bingle was having quite a time of it with the mistress of the house. in his new-found enthusiasm, he went to her at once with the word that he had decided to make a subrosa invasion of the mimic world to help out poor flanders and to lay his hand against the prejudice and ignorance that seemed to be throttling the theatre.
she listened to him in speechless amazement, not quite sure of her ears.
"of course, i sha'n't permit my name to be mentioned in the matter," he explained hastily. "that would be foolish, my dear. i shall have it clearly understood that dick is backing the thing himself—on borrowed money, if needs be. now, you see, miss colgate is a very clever young leading woman and—"
"leading woman?" queried mrs. bingle, blinking. she had laid down her embroidery.
"stage expression," said he loftily. "it means one who plays—er—plays leads. ahem! that is to say, one who takes a principal part in the show. miss colgate is regarded as—"
it was then that mrs. bingle found her voice. after ten minutes, he succeeded in changing the subject. in all his acquaintance with his wife, he had never known her to be so scathing in the matter of words. she succeeded in causing him to feel extremely small and sheepish, for after all there was a world of justice and common sense in what she had to say concerning his inspired offer to engage in an enterprise that was as far from his understanding as the north pole is from the south.
"but," he managed to insert, weakly, "it's only to help dick out, to encourage genius, to—"
"genius your granny!" she exclaimed. "don't you suppose that these regular theatre managers know genius when they see it?"
"some of the best plays ever written have never seen the light of day," said he.
"then how does any one know that they were good plays, if they never were played? tell me that, thomas bingle."
"my dear, i am only repeating what history tells—"
"well, answer this question then: what do you know about a play? where do you get your wonderful knowledge of dramatic composition?"
"i think you will acknowledge that i know my shakespeare pretty well," he said stiffly.
"but richard flanders isn't shakespeare, thomas. he's a reporter on a daily paper. now, for goodness' sake, be sensible. don't make a fool of yourself, dear. i know what's best for you. i—"
"i'm merely proposing to finance the thing, mary," he argued. "i'm doing it because i like dick and i want him to succeed. i do not set myself up as a real manager. i'm what dick calls an 'angel.' he says—"
"well of all the—do you mean to say that big, strapping fellow called you an angel?"
"theatrical expression," he said.
"i shouldn't have been surprised if you'd said that miss fairweather called you an angel, but when it comes to—oh, dear, what an awful thing for one man to call another!"
"now, see here, mary, you don't under—"
but she interrupted him again and he sat back limply to wait for an opportunity to get in the statement that he wanted most of all to make to her—which, when the time came for him to speak, was this:
"well, well, dear, we'll let the matter rest for a day or two. i only thought you'd be interested in the experiment—you and i together, you know—something new and thrilling. we could have a lot of fun planning and secretly watching the play grow from day to day, and discussing costumes and scenery, and meeting real actors and actresses, and seeing the inside workings of the stage, and the green room—and the dressing-rooms, and all that, you know. it's something we used to talk about and wonder about, don't you remember? remember how we used to sit up in the balcony and wonder what was really happening behind the—"
"indeed i do!" she cried, and her eyes sparkled. "i've always wanted to have a peep behind the scenes and—" she had the good sense to stop before she compromised herself beyond recovery—but she looked extremely guilty.
"we'll talk it over to-morrow," said he. "it might be a relief to us to have something like this to occupy our thoughts in case we—we actually have to give kathleen up to—by the way, dick tells me he is sailing for europe to-morrow. i wonder what it means."
"mr. force? is she going with him?"
"yes. for three months."
she reflected. "i'll tell you what it means, tom," she said, leaning forward to lay her hand upon his knee. "he has told her everything."
"i don't believe it!"
"you mark my words, tom. he has told her. they are going abroad to thrash it all out, that's the long and short of it."
"i wonder," said mr. bingle, wide-eyed and sober. long afterward he came out of his reverie, and said: "i forgot to tell you that swanson spoke to me yesterday about his sister's latest. i was awfully sorry for the poor chap, my dear. he seemed most anxious to see the child comfortably settled. his sister is a scrub-woman in the metropolitan life building. it appears that she has been supplying families with children for the past ten or twelve years. her husband is a most unfeeling brute. he says that the babies interfere with her work, and so she has to either give them up altogether or let the charity institutions take care of 'em for her. she goes on faithfully having 'em every year, and he goes on objecting to them. swanson says she has managed to keep two of the older ones, but the last five or six she has been obliged to dispose of. now, this new one is a bright little thing, he says—quite the flower of the flock. the woman's husband, it seems, has been out of work for seven years, and curses dreadfully about the child. the poor woman spoke to swanson last week, asking him to see if we wouldn't take this one to raise. swanson is sure that if we took it now we could be practically certain that it would never acquire the swedish dialect. of course—"
"you did not give him any encouragement, did you, tom?" she cried sharply.
"well, not—er—exactly," he said, looking away.
"well, don't!" she exclaimed. "you know i have my heart set on having a
french baby next."
"so you have," he said brightly. "i'll not forget it, my dear. as a matter of fact, i spoke to rouquin, our foreign exchange manager, about it not long ago. he is quite french, my dear. he says there will be no trouble about it. it will be no trick at all to get a french baby. he says he already knows of a half-dozen actual descendants of the nobility, aged from one year up to ten, any one of which we can call our own by simply saying the word."
"he shall be called richelieu. dick for short," mused mrs. bingle.
"i thought we contemplated a girl," said he.
"it is always possible for us to change our minds, isn't it, tom?"
"certainly, my dear. we'll have a boy if you like. in a pinch, we can always change the gender at the last minute. let's not give it another thought. i'll take it up with rouquin the first time i'm in town. as for swanson's sister's child—well, never mind. we sha'n't have it. he says its name is ole at present but i suppose it could be called richelieu if taken in time. still that's neither here nor there. i've been thinking lately, my dear, that we ought to call our next boy joseph—after his grand-uncle, don't you see. we owe that much to poor old uncle joe. will you bear it in mind?"
"we could call the next one josephine," she said.
he grinned. "uncle joe would turn over in his grave," said he.
that evening mr. force telephoned to seawood.
"that you, bingle?" came in rather muffled tones over the wire.
"yes, this is mr. bingle."
"this is force. we are sailing to-morrow for—"
"i can't hear you. stand a little closer to the 'phone, please."
"i say we are sailing to-morrow for europe. i'm standing close to it,
bingle. there's some one in the next booth. i can't yell, you know. i—"
"where are you?"
"at the plaza. i just wanted to tell you that i've fixed everything up with the detective agency. not a word of that little matter will ever become public. their lips have been sealed."
mr. bingle's heart swelled. "do you mean that the matter is—er—permanently closed? are you going to let me keep her?"
"certainly not! what kind of a father do you think i am? now i'll tell you what i want you to do. i want you to be particularly careful about that child while i'm away. don't let anything happen to her. take the best of care of her, bingle. i shall hold you personally responsible. and see here, there's another point on which i want to be especially firm. i don't want her to be thrown with the other children any more than can be helped. i—what's that?"
"nothing. go on."
"some of those kids of yours are not precisely what i would call thoroughbred. see what i mean? no reflection, of course, bingle. i wouldn't say this if they were your own, understand, but—well, they're not, so that's all there is to it. i shall have to ask you to engage a special companion for kathleen, and i have arranged with a madame dufresne to—"
"see here, force, i—"
"—to call on you this week. she is an excellent woman, refined and a lady of very good family in france. she is a friend of rouquin's, in the bank. he knew the family in paris. i took the liberty of telling him that you wanted to engage a french lady to act as companion to your eldest child. i trust you will see to it that kathleen is not allowed to romp about with the rest of those—er—the other children. this madame dufresne will—what's that?"
mr. bingle had recovered his breath. his voice was high and shrill with indignation.
"you will oblige me, force, by permitting me to run my household as i see fit. if this madame what's-her-name comes out here to see me, i shall pack her off to town again so quick her head will swim. we have brought kathleen up as if she was our own child, sir, and i don't care to have any suggestions from you, sir. what's more, i must say—although it's against the rules of the telephone company—you are a damned fine man to be giving advice to me about the raising of your child. you—"
"sh! for heaven's sake, bingle, don't shout like that! be careful, man!"
"well, you leave kathleen to me, that's all i've got to say. she shall play with the rest of the children as much as she likes, force. so far as we are concerned, she's no better than the rest of them, understand that, sir. she isn't going to be contaminated a darned bit more than she was before you discovered that she was yours. and, as for that, she isn't yours until i see fit to give her up. understand that, too. now, if—wait a minute! i'm still talking. now, if you think you can give me any pointers on how to bring up children i want to say to you that you are barking up the wrong tree. don't you dare to send that woman here, and don't you dare to dictate to me how—"
"wait a minute, wait a minute, bingle," came mr. force's agitated voice through the transmitter. "for heaven's sake, don't fly off the handle like this. i—i thought i was acting for the best interests of every one. i was only trying to help you out in—"
"i don't need any help," said mr. bingle crisply. "have you told your wife?"
"yes, i have," said force. "that's—that's why we are going abroad for a few months. she—"
"mrs. bingle was right, then. she usually is. what is her attitude?"
"devilish bad, bingle—devilish, that's all i can say. i can't talk to you over the telephone about it. i'll—i'll write you from paris. i'm—i'm working with her, that's all i can do at present. i believe she'll come around all right in the end. i'm sure she will. i'll—i'll let you know."
"says she won't have the brat in her house, is that it?" said mr.
bingle, with a queer rasp in his voice.
"i can't talk to you over the telephone. didn't you hear me say so a minute ago?"
"you can say yes or no, can't you?"
"she's pretty much upset over the business."
"speak up! i can't hear you."
"i'll drop you a line in the morning. now, bingle, you will take good care of the child, won't you. she—"
"i shall take good care of all of them, force."
"and now about this madame du—"
"she is out of the question, force. good night!"
"just as you say, old man. i sha'n't insist if you are opposed to—"
"good night!"
"but i will feel a great deal easier in my mind if she isn't allowed to come in contact with the rest—"
mr. bingle hung up the receiver.
