Green Fancy | Page 8

get it
if you gave me time. As you may have observed, my dear sir, I am not
what you would call an experienced waiter. As a matter of fact, I--"
"I told him you were an actor," interrupted his friend. "Run along now
and give the order to Mother Jones. Mr. Barnes is hungry."
"I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Barnes," said Mr. Bacon, extending
his hand. As he did so, his coat sleeve receded half way to the elbow,
revealing the full expanse of a frayed cuff. "So delighted, in fact, that it
gives me great pleasure to inform you that you have at last encountered
a waiter who does not expect a tip. God forbid that I should ever sink
so low as that. I have been a villain of the deepest dye in a score or
more of productions--many of them depending to a large extent upon
the character of the work I did in--"
"Actor stuff," inserted Mr. Dillingford, unfeelingly.
"--And I have been hissed a thousand times by gallery gods and kitchen
angels from one end of this broad land to the other, but never, sir, never
in all my career have I been obliged to play such a diabolical part as I
am playing here, and, dammit, sir, I am denied even the tribute of a
healthy hiss. This is--"
The bell downstairs rang violently. Mr. Bacon departed in great haste.
While the traveller performed his ablutions, Mr. Dillingford, for the
moment disengaged, sat upon the edge of the bed and enjoyed himself.
He talked.
"We were nine at the start," said he, pensively. "Gradually we were
reduced to seven, not including the manager. I doubled and so did Miss
Hughes,--a very charming actress, by the way, who will soon be heard
of on Broadway unless I miss my guess. The last week I was playing
Dick Cranford, light juvenile, and General Parsons, comedy old man.
In the second act Dick has to meet the general face to face and ask him
for his daughter's hand. Miss Hughes was Amy Parsons, and, as I say,
doubled along toward the end. She played her own mother. The best

you could say for the arrangement was that the family resemblance was
remarkable. I never saw a mother and daughter look so much alike.
You see, she didn't have time to change her make-up or costume, so all
she could do was to put on a long shawl and a grey wig, and that made
a mother of her. Well, we had a terrible time getting around that scene
between Dick and the general. Amy and her mother were in on it too,
and Mrs. Parsons was supposed to faint. It looked absolutely
impossible for Miss Hughes. But we got around it, all right."
"How, may I ask?" enquired Barnes, over the edge of a towel.
"Just as I was about to enter to tackle the old man, who was seated in
his library with Mrs. Parsons, the lights went out. I jumped up and
addressed the audience, telling 'em (almost in a confidential whisper,
there were so darned few of 'em) that there was nothing to be alarmed
about and the act would go right on. Then Amy and Dick came on in
total darkness, and the audience never got wise to the game. When the
lights went up, there was Amy and Dick embracing each other in plain
view, the old folks nowhere in sight. General Parsons had dragged the
old lady into the next room. We made our changes right there on the
stage, speaking all four parts at the same time."
"Pretty clever," said Barnes.
"My idea," announced Mr. Dillingford calmly.
"What has become of the rest of the company?"
"Well, as I said before, two of 'em escaped before the smash. The low
comedian and character old woman. Joe Beckley and his wife. That left
the old man,--I mean Mr. Rushcroft, the star--Lyndon Rushcroft, you
know,--myself and Bacon, Tommy Gray, Miss Rushcroft, Miss Hughes
and a woman named Bradley, seven of us. Miss Hughes happened to
know a chap who was travelling around the country for his health,
always meeting up with us,--accidentally, of course,--and he staked her
to a ticket to New York. The woman named Bradley said her mother
was dying in Buffalo, so the rest of us scraped together all the money
we had,-- nine dollars and sixty cents,--and did the right thing by her.

Actors are always doing darn-fool things like that, Mr. Barnes. And
what do you suppose she did? She took that money and bought two
tickets to Albany, one for herself and another for the manager of the
company,-- the lowest, meanest, orneriest white man that ever,--But I
am crabbing the old man's part. You