Side-stepping with Shorty Part 12

"Well, well, well! Here we are!" he yells through the megaphone. "The only original Sagawa show on the road, remember! Come early, gents, and bring your lady friends. The doors of the big tent will open at eight o'clock--eight o'clock--and at eight-fifteen Mlle. Peroxide, the near queen of comedy, will cut loose on the c.o.o.n songs."

"My word!" says the d.u.c.h.ess, as she squints through her gla.s.ses at the aggregation.

But the rest of the guests was just ripe for something of the kind.

Mrs. Curlew Bra.s.sett, who'd almost worried herself sick at seein' her party put on the blink by a shop-worn exhibit on the inside and rain on the out, told Pinckney he could have the medicine tent pitched in the middle of her Italian garden, if he wanted to. They didn't, though.

They stuck up the round top on the lawn just in front of the stables, and they hadn't much more'n lit the gasolene flares before the folks begins to stroll out and hit up the ticket waggon.

"It's the first time I ever had the nerve to charge two dollars a throw for perches on the blue boards," says Leonidas; "but that friend of yours, Mr. Pinckney, wanted me to make it five."

Anyway, it was almost worth the money. Mlle. Peroxide, who did the high and lofty with a job lot of last year c.o.o.n songs, owned a voice that would have had a Grand-st. banana huckster down and out; the monologue man was funny only when he didn't mean to be; and the black-face banjoist was the limit. Then there was a juggler, and Montana Kate, who wore buckskin leggins and did a fake rifle-shootin'

act.

I tried to head Leonidas off from sendin' out his tent men, rigged up in red flannel coats, to sell bottled Sagawa; but he said Pinckney had told him to be sure and do it. They were birds, them "gentlemanly ushers."

"I'll bet I know where you picked up a lot of 'em," says I.

"Where?" says Leonidas.

"Off the benches in City Hall park," I says.

"All but one," says he, "and he had just graduated from Snake Hill.

But you didn't take this for one of Frohman's road companies, did you?"

They unloaded the Sagawa, though. The audience wasn't missin'

anything, and most everyone bought a bottle for a souvenir.

"It's the great Indian liver regulator and complexion beautifier," says Leonidas in his business talk. "It removes corns, takes the soreness out of stiff muscles, and restores the natural colour to grey hair.

Also, ladies and gents, it can be used as a furniture polish, while a few drops in the bath is better than a week at Hot Springs."

He was right to home, Leonidas was, and it was a joy to see him. He'd got himself into a wrinkled dress suit, stuck an opera hat on the back of his head, and he jollied along that swell mob just as easy as if they'd been factory hands. And they all seemed glad they'd come.

After it was over Pinckney says that it was too bad to keep such a good thing all to themselves, and he wants me to see if Leonidas wouldn't stay and give grand matinee performance next day.

"Tell him I'll guarantee him a full house," says Pinckney.

Course, Leonidas didn't need any coaxin'. "But I wish you'd find out if there isn't a butcher's shop handy," says he. "You see, we were up against it for a week or so, over in Jersey, and the rations ran kind of low. In fact, all we've had to live on for the last four days has been bean soup and pilot bread, and the artists are beginning to complain. Now that I've got a little real money, I'd like to buy a few pounds of steak. I reckon the aggregation would sleep better after a hot supper."

I lays the case before Pinckney and Sadie, and they goes straight for Mrs. Bra.s.sett. And say! before eleven-thirty they had that whole outfit lined up in the main dinin'-room before such a feed as most of 'em hadn't ever dreamed about. There was everything, from chilled olives to hot squab, with a pint of fizz at every plate.

Right after breakfast Pinckney began warmin' the telephone wires, callin' up everyone he knew within fifteen miles. And he sure did a good job. While he was at that I strolls out to the tent to have a little chin with Leonidas, and I discovers him up to the neck in trouble. He was backed up against the centre pole, and in front of him was the whole actorette push, all jawin' at once, and raisin' seven different kinds of ructions.

"Excuse me for b.u.t.tin' in," says I; "but I thought maybe this might be a happy family."

"It ought to be, but it ain't," says Leonidas. "Just listen to 'em."

And say, what kind of bats do you think had got into their belfries?

Seems they'd heard about the two-dollar-a-head crowd that was comin' to the matinee. That, and bein' waited on by a butler at dinner the night before, had gone to the vacant spot where their brains ought to be.

They were tellin' Leonidas that if they were goin' to play to Broadway prices they were goin' to give Broadway acts.

Mlle. Peroxide allowed that she would cut out the rag time and put in a few choice selections from grand opera. Montana Kate hears that, and sheds the buckskin leggins. No rifle shootin' for her; not much! She had Ophelia's lines down pat, and she meant to give 'em or die in the attempt. The black-face banjoist says he can impersonate Sir Henry Irving to the life; and the juggler guy wants to show 'em how he can eat up the Toreador song.

"These folks want somethin' high-toned," says Mlle. Peroxide, "and this is the chance of a lifetime for me to fill the bill. I'd been doin'

grand opera long ago if it hadn't been for the trust."

"They told me at the dramatic school in Dubuque that I ought to stick to Shakespeare," says Montana Kate, "and here's where I get my hooks in."

"You talk to 'em, Shorty," says Leonidas; "I'm hoa.r.s.e."

"Not me," says I. "I did think you was a real gent, but I've changed my mind, Mr. Dodge. Anyone who'll tie the can to high-cla.s.s talent the way you're tryin' to do is nothin' less'n a fiend in human form."

"There, now!" says the blondine.

Leonidas chucks the sponge. "You win," says he, "I'll let you all take a stab at anything you please, even if it comes to recitin' 'Ostler Joe'; but I'll be blanked if I shut down on selling Sagawa!"

Two minutes later they were turnin' trunks upside down diggin' out costumes to fit. As soon as they began to rehea.r.s.e, Leonidas goes outside and sits down behind the tent, holdin' his face in his hands, like he had the toothache.

"It makes me ashamed of my kind," says he. "Why, they're rocky enough for a third-rate waggon show, and I supposed they knew it; but I'll be hanged if every last one of 'em don't think they've got Sothern or Julia Marlowe tied in a knot. Shorty, it's human nature glimpses like this that makes bein' an optimist hard work."

"They're a bug-house bunch; all actors are," says I. "You can't change 'em, though."

"I wish I wasn't responsible for this lot," says he.

He was feelin' worse than ever when the matinee opens. It had stopped rainin' early in the mornin', and all the cottagers for miles around had come over to see what new doin's Pinckney had hatched up. There was almost a capacity house when Leonidas steps out on the stage to announce the first turn. I knew he had more green money in his clothes that minute than he'd handled in a month before, but he acted as sheepish as if he was goin' to strike 'em for a loan.

"I wish to call the attention of the audience," says he, "to a few changes of program. Mlle. Peroxide, who is billed to sing c.o.o.n songs, will render by her own request the jewel song from 'Faust,' and two solos from 'Lucia di Lammermoor.'"

And say, she did it! Anyways, them was what she aimed at. For awhile the crowd held its breath, tryin' to believe it was only a freight engine whistlin' for brakes, or somethin' like that. Then they began to grin. Next some one touched off a giggle, and after that they roared until they were wipin' away the tears.

Leonidas don't look quite so glum when he comes out to present the reformed banjoist as Sir Henry Irving. He'd got his cue, all right, and he hands out a game of talk about delayed genius comin' to the front that tickled the folks clear through. The guy never seemed to drop that he was bein' handed the lemon, and he done his worst.

I thought they'd used up all the laughs they had in 'em, but Montana Kate as Ophelia set 'em wild again. Maybe you've seen amateurs that was funny, but you never see anything to beat that combination.

Amateurs are afraid to let themselves loose, but not that bunch. They were so sure of bein' the best that ever happened in their particular lines that they didn't even know the crowd was givin' 'em the ha-ha until they'd got through.

Anyway, as a rib tickler that show was all to the good. The folks nearly mobbed Pinckney, tellin' him what a case he was to think up such an exhibition, and he laid it all to Sadie and me.

Only the d.u.c.h.ess didn't exactly seem to connect with the joke. She sat stolidly through the whole performance in a kind of a daze, and then afterwards she says: "It wasn't what I'd call really clever, you know; but, my word! the poor things tried hard enough."

Just before I starts for home I hunts up Leonidas. He was givin'

orders to his boss canvasman when I found him, and feelin' the pulse of his one-lunger, that Mrs. Bra.s.sett's chauffeur had tinkered up.

"Well, Leonidas," says I, "are you goin' to put the Shakespeare-Sagawa combination on the ten-twenty-thirt circuit?"

"Not if I can prove an alibi," says he. "I've just paid a week's advance salary to that crowd of Melbas and Booths, and told 'em to go sign contracts with Frohman and Hammerstein. I may be running a medicine show, but I've got some professional pride left. Now I'm going back to New York and engage an educated pig and a troupe of trained dogs to fill out the season."

The last I saw of Montana Kate she was pacin' up and down the station platform, readin' a copy of "Romeo and Juliet." Ain't they the pippins, though?