New Faces | Page 3

Myra Kelly
I guess they're just
scared somebody like us will come along an' do 'em better than they do
an' bust their market. Actresses," she went on, "is all jest et up with
jealousy of one another. Is there anythin' except the minister the matter
with 'Ghosts?'"
"Everything else is the matter with it," said Miss Masters. "To begin
with, I might as well tell you, it never was a Broadway success. It's a
play that is read oftener than it's acted and last year, Jennie, when you
saw the posters, it only ran for a week."

"Cut it," said the President. "We ain't huntin' frosts."
The brows of the Hyacinths grew furrowed and their eyes haggard in
the search. Everyone could tell them of plays but no one knew where
they could be found in printed form and whenever the librarian found
something which might be suitable Miss Masters was sure to know of
something to its disadvantage.
And then the real stage, the legitimate Broadway stage intervened.
Albert Marsden produced Hamlet and the Lady Hyacinths determined
to follow suit.
"It's kind of old," the President admitted, "but there must be some style
left to it. They're playin' it on Broadway right now. An' we'll give it on
East Broadway just as soon as we can git ready. Me and Mamie went
round to the library last night an' got it out. It's got a dandy lot of parts
in it: more than this club will ever need. An' it's got lots of murders an'
scraps, an' court ladies an' soldiers an' kings. It's our play all right!"
The sea of troubles into which the Lady Hyacinths plunged with so
much enthusiasm swallowed them so completely that Miss Masters
could only stand on its shore, looking across to Denmark and wringing
her hands over the awful things that were happening in that unhappy
land. Fortunately she had a friend to whom she could appeal for
succour for the lost but still valiant Hyacinths. He was the sort of
person to whom appeals came as naturally as honors come to some men
and, since he had nothing to do and ample time and money with which
to do it, he was generally helpful and resourceful. That he had once
loved Miss Masters has nothing to do with this story. She was now
engaged to be married to a poorer and busier man, but it was to Jack
Burgess that she appealed.
"Of course I know," said he when he had responded to her message and
she had anchored him with a tea-cup and disarmed him with a smile,
"of course I know what you want to say to me. Every girl who has
refused me has said it sooner or later. You are saying it later--much
later--than they generally do, but it always comes. 'You have found a
wife for me.'"

"I have done much better than that," she answered, "I have found work
for you." And she sketched the distress of the Hyacinths in Denmark
and urged him to go to their assistance.
"But, my dear Margaret," he remonstrated, "What can I do? You have
always known that 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark,' and
yet you have let these poor innocents stir it up. I have often thought that
poor Shakespeare added that line after the first performance. I intend to
write that hint to Furniss one of these days."
"You will write it," said Margaret Masters, "with more conviction after
you have seen my Denmark."
"Very well," said he, "I'll visit Elsinore to-night, but I insist upon a
return ticket."
"You will be begging for a season ticket," she laughed. "They have
reduced me to such a condition that I don't know whether they are
amusing me or breaking my heart. Tell me, come, which is it? Did you
ever hear blank verse recited with tense and reverent earnestness and a
Bowery accent?"
"I never did," said he.
* * * * *
"Shakespeare was right," whispered Burgess to Miss Masters. "There is
something rotten in Denmark. I've located it. It's the Prince." They were
sitting together in a corner of the kindergarten room of the settlement: a
large and spacious room all decked and bright with the paper and
cardboard masterpieces of the babies who played and learned there in
the mornings. Casts and pictures and green growing things added to its
charm and the Lady Hyacinths so trim and neat and earnest did not
detract from it.
The sewing-machines and the cutting-table had been cast into corners
and well in the glare of the electric light the President was exclaiming
in a voice which would have disgraced an early phonograph, "Oh that

this too too solid flesh would melt."
It was not a dress rehearsal but the
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