Strictly Business | Page 7

show a Skye terrier or an automobile as a
guarantee of eligibility.
Goaded beyond imprudence (as before said), Helen says to Jack
Valentine: "Robber and thief--and worse yet, stealer of trusting hearts,
this should be your fate!"
With that out she whips, of course, the trusty 32-caliber.
"But I will be merciful," goes on Helen. "You shall live--that will be
your punishment. I will show you how easily I could have sent you to
the death that you deserve. There is her picture on the mantel. I will
send through her more beautiful face the bullet that should have pierced
your craven heart."
And she does it. And there's no fake blank cartridges or assistants
pulling strings. Helen fires. The bullet--the actual bullet--goes through
the face of the photograph--and then strikes the hidden spring of the
sliding panel in the wall--and lo! the panel slides, and there is the
missing $647,000 in convincing stacks of currency and bags of gold.
It's great. You know how it is. Cherry practised for two months at a
target on the roof of her boarding house. It took good shooting. In the
sketch she had to hit a brass disk only three inches in diameter, covered
by wall paper in the panel; and she had to stand in exactly the same
spot every night, and the photo had to be in exactly the same spot, and
she had to shoot steady and true every time.
Of course old "Arapahoe" had tucked the funds away there in the secret
place; and, of course, Jack hadn't taken anything except his salary
(which really might have come under the head of "obtaining money
under"; but that is neither here nor there); and, of course, the New York
girl was really engaged to a concrete house contractor in the Bronx; and,
necessarily, Jack and Helen ended in a half-Nelson--and there you are.
After Hart and Cherry had gotten "Mice Will Play" flawless, they had a
try-out at a vaudeville house that accommodates. The sketch was a
house wrecker. It was one of those rare strokes of talent that inundates
a theatre from the roof down. The gallery wept; and the orchestra seats,
being dressed for it, swam in tears.

After the show the booking agents signed blank checks and pressed
fountain pens upon Hart and Cherry. Five hundred dollars a week was
what it panned out.
That night at 11:30 Bob Hart took off his hat and bade Cherry good
night at her boarding-house door.
"Mr. Hart," said she thoughtfully, "come inside just a few minutes.
We've got our chance now to make good and make money. What we
want to do is to cut expenses every cent we can, and save all we can."
"Right," said Bob. "It's business with me. You've got your scheme for
banking yours; and I dream every night of that bungalow with the Jap
cook and nobody around to raise trouble. Anything to enlarge the net
receipts will engage my attention."
"Come inside just a few minutes," repeated Cherry, deeply thoughtful.
"I've got a proposition to make to you that will reduce our expenses a
lot and help you work out your own future and help me work out
mine--and all on business principles."
"Mice Will Play" had a tremendously successful run in New York for
ten weeks--rather neat for a vaudeville sketch--and then it started on the
circuits. Without following it, it may be said that it was a solid drawing
card for two years without a sign of abated popularity.
Sam Packard, manager of one of Keetor's New York houses, said of
Hart & Cherry:
"As square and high-toned a little team as ever came over the circuit.
It's a pleasure to read their names on the booking list. Quiet, hard
workers, no Johnny and Mabel nonsense, on the job to the minute,
straight home after their act, and each of 'em as gentlemanlike as a lady.
I don't expect to handle any attractions that give me less trouble or
more respect for the profession."
And now, after so much cracking of a nutshell, here is the kernel of the
story:
At the end of its second season "Mice Will Play" came back to New
York for another run at the roof gardens and summer theatres. There
was never any trouble in booking it at the top- notch price. Bob Hart
had his bungalow nearly paid for, and Cherry had so many
savings-deposit bank books that she had begun to buy sectional
bookcases on the instalment plan to hold them.
I tell you these things to assure you, even if you can't believe it, that

many, very many of the stage people are workers with abiding
ambitions--just the same as the man who wants to be president, or the
grocery clerk who