Strictly Business | Page 5

other part. I
thought I'd see you about it."
"Come in the parlor," said Miss Cherry. "I've been wishing for
something of the sort. I think I'd like to act instead of doing turns."
Bob Hart drew his cherished "Mice Will Play" from his pocket, and
read it to her.
"Read it again, please," said Miss Cherry.
And then she pointed out to him clearly how it could be improved by
introducing a messenger instead of a telephone call, and cutting the
dialogue just before the climax while they were struggling with the
pistol, and by completely changing the lines and business of Helen
Grimes at the point where her jealousy overcomes her. Hart yielded to
all her strictures without argument. She had at once put her finger on
the sketch's weaker points. That was her woman's intuition that he had
lacked. At the end of their talk Hart was willing to stake the judgment,
experience, and savings of his four years of vaudeville that "Mice Will
Play" would blossom into a perennial flower in the garden of the
circuits. Miss Cherry was slower to decide. After many puckerings of
her smooth young brow and tappings on her small, white teeth with the
end of a lead pencil she gave out her dictum.
"Mr. Hart," said she, "I believe your sketch is going to win out. That

Grimes part fits me like a shrinkable flannel after its first trip to a
handless hand laundry. I can make it stand out like the colonel of the
Forty-fourth Regiment at a Little Mothers' Bazaar. And I've seen you
work. I know what you can do with the other part. But business is
business. How much do you get a week for the stunt you do now?"
"Two hundred," answered Hart.
"I get one hundred for mine," said Cherry. "That's about the natural
discount for a woman. But I live on it and put a few simoleons every
week under the loose brick in the old kitchen hearth. The stage is all
right. I love it; but there's something else I love better--that's a little
country home, some day, with Plymouth Rock chickens and six ducks
wandering around the yard.
"Now, let me tell you, Mr. Hart, I am STRICTLY BUSINESS. If you
want me to play the opposite part in your sketch, I'll do it. And I
believe we can make it go. And there's something else I want to say:
There's no nonsense in my make-up; I'm on the level, and I'm on the
stage for what it pays me, just as other girls work in stores and offices.
I'm going to save my money to keep me when I'm past doing my stunts.
No Old Ladies' Home or Retreat for Imprudent Actresses for me.
"If you want to make this a business partnership, Mr. Hart, with all
nonsense cut out of it, I'm in on it. I know something about vaudeville
teams in general; but this would have to be one in particular. I want you
to know that I'm on the stage for what I can cart away from it every
pay-day in a little manila envelope with nicotine stains on it, where the
cashier has licked the flap. It's kind of a hobby of mine to want to
cravenette myself for plenty of rainy days in the future. I want you to
know just how I am. I don't know what an all-night restaurant looks
like; I drink only weak tea; I never spoke to a man at a stage entrance in
my life, and I've got money in five savings banks."
"Miss Cherry," said Bob Hart in his smooth, serious tones, "you're in
on your own terms. I've got 'strictly business' pasted in my hat and
stenciled on my make-up box. When I dream of nights I always see a
five-room bungalow on the north shore of Long Island, with a Jap
cooking clam broth and duckling in the kitchen, and me with the title
deeds to the place in my pongee coat pocket, swinging in a hammock
on the side porch, reading Stanleys 'Explorations into Africa.' And
nobody else around. You never was interested in Africa, was you, Miss

Cherry?"
"Not any," said Cherry. "What I'm going to do with my money is to
bank it. You can get four per cent. on deposits. Even at the salary I've
been earning, I've figured out that in ten years I'd have an income of
about $50 a month just from the interest alone. Well, I might invest
some of the principal in a little business--say, trimming hats or a beauty
parlor, and make more."
"Well," said Hart, "You've got the proper idea all right, all right,
anyhow. There are mighty few actors that amount to anything at all
who