Nat Goodwin's Book

Chapter LIV

IN THE LAND OF THE KANGAROO

We were to have opened our Australian engagement in Sydney—but we didn't. At the dock, awaiting us, was James C. Williamson, then and until his death the magnate of the Antipodes in theatrical affairs. I had known him back in New York in the eighties when he was just "Jimmy." I had played under his management and had always found him a likable, fair-minded man. We were to play in Australia under the management of Williamson and Musgrove. Mr. George Musgrove had made the contract with me before we started.

Well, as soon as I landed Williamson informed me we were not to open in Sydney but must go through to Melbourne that very night.

The sting of this disappointment was largely lessened by our finding on the pier, ready to greet us, two American girls, one of them little Sadie McDonald whom we all loved. Poor little Sadie McDonald! How she wanted to go back to God's country! She died before we finished our engagement in Australia.

That night we went to Melbourne was the coldest I ever lived through. It was like a December blizzard without the snow. And the date was July 24!

Forgetting that we were going to a land where the seasons are upside down I had no heavy clothing with me and almost froze.

We were billed to open the night of our arrival. In the forenoon I drove about trying to discover some announcements of the fact. What I found would have done injustice to a high school's graduating exercises. Then I remembered that Williamson had been opposed to my coming. I found him and asked why our attraction had not been billed.

"Well," replied Williamson, "Musgrove cabled me to announce you modestly and quietly."

"You've complied with the request," I said. "Why didn't you say Johnny Jones was coming? It would have meant just as much. Considering the years we've known each other I consider your treatment of me most unfair."

Musgrove's idea had been that I open in "The Prisoner of Zenda" and when he found Maxine and Gertrude Elliott were to be in my company he had wired instructions to San Francisco to have them measured for costumes and the figures were sent to him in London. Williamson consistently objected to my playing "Zenda." He thought the play strong enough to do without a star. So it happened, one night in Chicago where I was playing "David Garrick," that Musgrove changed his mind about our opening bill. I held out for "Zenda" firmly. But Musgrove insisted that no matter what my vehicle I was sure to be a success in Australia. In the week he watched my work I put on six different plays and after each one he was more enthusiastic. I couldn't make him realize that I was playing before a public I had grown up with, who came to see me in any play.

"In Australia," I argued with him, "I shall be a cold proposition hurled at them and I must have the best play possible for my introduction. As the prince in 'Zenda' I'm only part of the ensemble surrounded by beautifully gowned women, with splendid male opposing parts, playing a character almost any good actor would succeed in. After 'Zenda' I can spring my repertoire with some chance."

"You're the best actor I ever saw," replied Musgrove. "I know Australian audiences and you'll knock 'em dead."

I disagreed with him! Therefore I changed the terms of our agreement and instead of taking a gamble took fifteen per cent of the gross receipts and a guarantee of so much money weekly. McClellan signed the documents for me.

Our opening bill was "A Gilded Fool." You may imagine my amazement when I found we had a packed house. And it was a most kindly-disposed audience too. Every member of the company got a reception on his entrance and I came in for an ovation. The play went especially well, I thought. We went home assured we had made a hit. The papers the next day were fairly enthusiastic, with one exception, and that one criticized us unmercifully. The opening occurred on Saturday.

Monday night's house was $120 in our money—and that was the best we did any night in the week until Saturday when a change of bill drew another capacity audience. Williamson's local manager told me after this second Saturday night that we were "all right now." But Monday night came and with it a $150 house. Not until the next Saturday night and a change of bill did we do any business, then it was capacity again. I came to the conclusion that Melbourne was a one-night stand, to be played only on Saturday!

This was the story of the whole sixteen weeks I played in Australia. The last week in Sydney, however, we did do a trifle over $5,000 with "An American Citizen," its first production on any stage.

Personally I had a bully time, particularly on the race courses where I spent most of my time.

We played only Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Our business in Adelaide was wretched but the weather was worse! It was as hot as Melbourne was cold. I never suffered so with the heat. I am told that Australia has improved. There was plenty of room for improvement! Had it not been for the generosity of several bookies I certainly would have had an unhappy four months.

Williamson was heartless in his treatment of us. I learned from one of his staff that after our first week Musgrove cabled, "Put Goodwin on immediately in 'Zenda.'" Williamson stalled with Musgrove for almost the whole four months. Finally when Musgrove's ire had been aroused he expressed himself so emphatically in his cables that Williamson came to me and asked that I remain an additional ten weeks, appearing in "Zenda." Before this he had hardly spoken to me. And that very day I had sent dear old George Appleton, my personal manager at the time, on a steamship for America to book a tour for me opening in San Francisco in November. I listened to Williamson's proposition and made no reply.

"Shall I send you the script to read?" he asked.

"Jimmie," I replied, "we've been friends a great many years. There was no cause for your brutality towards my company and me. Now back of you is the Bank of Australia. For all the gold that bank contains you couldn't keep me here ten more weeks and I sail for America four weeks from to-day. Good afternoon. Kindly excuse me. I'm going to the races."

And that was the last conversation I ever had with James C. Williamson, Esquire.

An incident of our stay in Adelaide may serve to show the mental attitude of your average Antipodean. The local manager, one Goodi, was very friendly with me and I liked him immensely. He worried over our failure more than I did. One night he met me in the lobby of the theatre almost distracted.

"Think of these people!" he exclaimed. "They liked Mrs. Brown Potter and Kyrle Bellew! See what 'A Trip to Chinatown' is doing, packing 'em in! And an artist like you doing nothing! It's a blooming shame. We haven't a seat sold in advance for to-night's performance. Now, don't you think it's wise for me to paper the house?" (To "paper" is to give away tickets.)

"Do what you like, Goodi," I replied. "I'm satisfied."

Directly opposite the theatre lounging in chairs on the sidewalk was a gang of men, about sixty I should say. They were rather a rough looking lot but I thought they might be human. I suggested we invite them in. Goodi approached them. After a moment they silently slouched out of their chairs and shuffled into the lobby in a body. Here they gathered into little groups and held a consultation. Finally one of them approached Goodi and pulling off his cap asked, "It's all right, guv'nor, but what do we get for our time?"

One other incident of that Australian visit was not so humorous. It happened early in our stay. I had noticed for several days that McClellan was nervous and ill at ease. Finally I asked him to explain.

"Well," he began haltingly, "I guess I've got to tell you. It'll come out soon enough. I'm broke."

"That's all right, George. My guarantee of $1500 a week gives us a profit of $600. And you have the tickets back to San Francisco."

"That's it," wailed McClellan. "I haven't! I haven't even paid for the tickets that brought us over."

"How did you get them then?" I asked.

"I went to Adolph Spreckles," he replied, "and on the strength of your name got him to lend me the money and I signed notes for it. And the first one is due to-morrow."

I felt like pitching him out of the window. The tickets cost almost $9,000! And I was stung for it! That was the end of George B. McClellan so far as I was concerned, at least for many years. (Finally I made it up with him at a supper in London given by the Savage Club to the Lambs.) I never have thought George meant to do wrong. He simply took a gamble and lost out. It was fortunate for the company that it was I who was the goat. Had it not been so most of them would have been stranded in that awful land! As it was I got them all back to San Francisco.

In the previous chapter I referred casually to my becoming engaged to Maxine. It may be well to enlarge a bit. The divorce proceedings instituted by my attorneys against Nella Baker Pease had been quite forgotten by me. It was not until we had been in Australia four weeks that it was called to my attention and then as I have already described. The day it happened had been an especially profitable one for me at the track and I came back to the hotel buoyant and full of good spirits. I remember detached bits of our conversation following the hysterical entrance of Maxine and Gertrude.

"I'll never go back to that beastly country," wailed Maxine. "Just see what they say about you and me," and she thrust an armful of newspapers at me. "Never mind me," I replied. "Think of yourself." And when I discovered that that attempt at consolation was no go I added, "Why, it will all be dead by the time we get back." Maxine was not to be comforted, however. She was sure our arrival in America would result in a fresh outburst of scandal. "Maybe it will," I agreed, "but we haven't done any wrong, any harm, so why should we worry?" Maxine wrung her hands and sobbed. "We know our behavior has been absolutely right," I urged. "We know," said Maxine, "but the world doesn't know." And I confess I could find nothing to say to that. I was rattled. A chicken I had bought on my way home from the track and had put on a spit to roast over my grate fire was a mass of charcoal when I finally discovered it. At dinner I upset a bottle of claret all over the table cloth and spilled a pot of hot tea into Gertrude's lap. It was the most inharmonious meal I ever ate. I was rattled!

And all the time Gertrude said nothing. That is up to the moment that scalding tea hit her. Then she let go!

"You two people are acting like a couple of fools," she began—succinctly. "There's only one way out of it and you've got to take it."

"What is it?" Maxine and I asked.

"Cable America you're engaged and are to be married some time next season."

I left the room. At the theatre Maxine and I made no reference to Gertrude's suggestion. On our return to the hotel I tried to excuse myself from our usual supper. But Max, with a merry little twinkle in her eyes, said, "Oh come on."

"What do you think of Gertrude's suggestion?" asked Max.

"What do you think of it?" I parried.

"I'm game," said Max.

"You're on," said I.

And thus began my "romance."

Chapter LV

WELCOME (!) HOME

The Australian sense of humor is peculiar. My last night at Sydney, at the end of the five-thousand-dollar-week, I interpolated in my speech of farewell a line from Shakespeare, "Parting is such sweet sorrow." The audience applauded vociferously!

We packed with joyous anticipation. We were going home!

After we got out of the theatre I made straight for a little hotel run by a New England woman and gorged myself on baked beans! On the way I ran across Arthur Hoops and Louis Payne.

"Governor," said Payne, "if we turn up aboard the ship to-morrow a bit squiffy or with a hold-over, you won't mind, will you?" "Go to it," responded I. "I may turn up that way myself." They kept their promise and I nearly kept mine!

There were hundreds of people at the pier to see us off. I wondered if they were inspired by feelings of gratitude! It sounded like a courteous farewell but I was never sure.

At Honolulu we had our first taste of the "Welcome home" we were all so fondly counting on. A new theatre had just been finished and a Mr. Marks, now one of the lessees of the Columbia Theatre in San Francisco, was on the ground making arrangements for its formal opening as agent for the Frawley company.

Almost as soon as we docked a dozen gentlemen approached me and asked that I give a performance that night in the new playhouse. I told them it was impossible; our wardrobes and scenery were packed in the hold of the ship; it would be out of the question.

"Never mind," said they, "go on in your street clothes!"

I explained we had no make-up even. My company was scattered all over the island, sight-seeing.

"We'll send out a posse and corral them," they insisted.

"But how will anyone know we're going to play?" I asked.

"We'll call everybody in town on the telephone and tell them," they replied.

And they did. And that night, in our street clothes and without make-up, we gave a performance that took in $1100, of which I got ninety per cent! It was a nice bit of spending money on the way to San Francisco.

Marks was very indignant. But the gentlemen told him that if he tried to prevent the performance they would cancel the contract with Frawley.

Altogether that stop at Honolulu was joyous. And as we sailed out of the harbor the next morning, followed by the strains of Aloha from the native band, we were a very happy lot.

We were amazed to find a solid jam of humanity waiting on the pier in San Francisco. Such a greeting had never entered our minds! When we opened the newspapers we found the reason. They were teeming with the most sensational matter concerning our goings on in Australia. It was indeed a "welcome home!"

We paid as little attention to the scurrilous slanders as possible and prepared for our opening at the Baldwin Theatre in "An American Citizen." As a measure of safety I announced "The Rivals" as the bill for the second half of the week. But capacity audiences was the rule during the whole engagement.

I was very nervous about doing "The Rivals." I knew comparison with Jefferson was inevitable. I had caught it in Australia for daring to play a rôle made classic by the "dean of the drama" and I feared for my presumption in invading his own bailiwick. I was afraid I could never avoid using Jefferson's methods as I had played with him so many times; but I finally hit on the plan of giving Bob a country dialect and this made him a very different characterization from Jefferson's. I received splendid reviews and one editorial.

Chapter LVI

NUMBER THREE

The series of malicious falsehoods concerning Maxine and me which were being published daily would have made us fit subjects for the penitentiary had they been true. Articles, hideous in their construction, were sent broadcast throughout the country purporting to picture our lives and conduct in the Antipodes. (And with what zest did the press of America copy them!)

By the time our opening in "An American Citizen" arrived we were so nervous we gave a performance fifty per cent below our best. But the next morning we were amazed to discover that we were a great aggregation of actors—Maxine and I scoring tremendously! The papers expressed much surprise that she had "improved" so much during her short association with me.

Poor, deluded critics! Never by any possible chance do you differentiate. Never do you disassociate the player from his part. A genius playing Osric would vanish into obscurity if a duffer were playing Hamlet. Maxine Elliott, be she good or bad, was quite as clever when I first saw her act as the night she opened with me in San Francisco. But now she was appearing in a star part, surrounded by a clever company, beautifully gowned and (pardon a little pride) very carefully edited! She had left a dollar aggregation, an extremely good competitor, Miss Blanche Bates (whose acting eclipsed Maxine's beauty), and a company of players all acting for individual hits irrespective of the ensemble. She returned a member of an organization noted for its team work whose motto was "One for all and all for one"—and that particular one Maxine! She appeared in a character molded to her charm and beauty and supported (!) by a star of twenty years' standing!

Naturally she scored in such an environment! She would have done as well months before under the same conditions, but the ever wise critic saw an "improvement."

Was it her acting or the unwholesome notoriety that preceded us that had opened his discerning eyes?

I wonder.

I sandwiched in "The Rivals" with "An American Citizen" as a matter of self-protection. Max was fairly smothering me in most of the cities we visited! I was shining in a reflected light, her effulgence forcing me back into the shadows. Also, and equally annoying to me, questions were beginning to be asked as to our marital intentions. Allusions to "Beauty and the Beast" were not infrequent. Happily a few of the critics were respectful and while none could pay homage to my beauty a few allowed that I had not lost the art of acting! This was encouraging and I endeavored to win the fair Maxine along those lines.

I finally succeeded!

But it was some endeavor!

I don't remember the date of the marriage. It is extremely difficult for me to remember dates. I know the place, however! It was the Hollenden Hotel in Cleveland. And I know I spent the previous evening with dear Dick Golden and Walter Jones and we three jolly bachelors had a bully time! It was a lucky thing that the marriage ceremony was only recovery for me! The boys had put me in no condition to learn a new part!

Max received two wedding presents—a diamond ring from me and an anonymous letter from some "Christian lady" warning her against the "Monster" who had lured her into "Holy Matrimony!"

We were very happy—at least I was—for a few months. I made the mistake of introducing her to a few conspicuous, powerful financiers who gave her tips on the stock market (and casual luncheons!). They also gave me tips. Mine lost invariably. Hers always won. How very strange!

As we toured through the country to splendid business I discovered her authority was growing. I was constantly being censured for my grammar. She began to stage-manage my productions without waiting for my suggestions. She complained of my companions whom she found "common." My previous marriages came in for a share of her disapproval.

I found this amusing inasmuch as she herself had made a previous plunge; as I had taken one of her family out of a lumber yard and tried to make him an actor; as I had taken a cousin from a picture gallery in Boston where she was going blind trying to copy miniatures and made her an actress, and as another member of her family had committed suicide in a disreputable place in San Francisco. With this genealogical tree waving in the background she still had the courage to pluck my friends from my garden and call them "vulgar."

Perhaps they were and are, but they all continue to be my friends!

It was during the run of "An American Citizen" that the first thought of the disruption of my union with Maxine clouded my mind. It is seldom I care to refer to the dead except in a kindly way, but her attitude and that of Clyde Fitch is sufficient provocation.

Fitch at this time (in 1897) was not especially prosperous. Two years earlier he had come to me with an idea of making a play out of the story of Nathan Hale's life. I had told him I thought it an excellent subject and to go ahead. When he finished the play he decided it was beyond my capabilities and submitted it instead to E. H. Sothern—who turned it down! Then he went to Mansfield with the script and again met with no encouragement. From Mansfield he peddled "Nathan Hale" to each of the three Frohmans—and they unanimously voted it no good.

Thus it transpired that I was in no friendly mood when I received the following letter:—

And this is the gentleman who, a few years later, insisted on the transportation of an entire company from Philadelphia to New York because he was too weary to make the trip himself. (The company was rehearsing one of his plays and he insisted on personally supervising it.)

Even after his supplicating letter I dodged Fitch. I didn't like him in the first place and his shabby behavior with "Nathan Hale" made me disgusted with him. I broke a dozen appointments with him, but finally he cornered me and I had to hear the play. While I knew I could neither look nor suggest the character I did see possibilities for acting and I was sure the rôle of Alice Adams would fit Maxine down to the ground. For these reasons I agreed to produce the play.

From that day forward Clyde Fitch and my wife conspired against me. They exchanged endearing expressions through the mail—aided and abetted by the wife of a Chicago dentist who had committed suicide after one of his "best friends" had stolen his wife (who deserted her child to come to New York and aid other women with affinities!). Fancy, killing one's self! Why not kill her and her paramour?

They made a worthy trio! And they finally succeeded in hatching a scheme which developed in Maxine's starring alone in a play written for her by Fitch called "Her Own Way"—an appropriate title cunningly selected. They launched her as a star (on my money!) and broke up my home! They had to come to me to obtain bookings for a road tour. For putting up the cash I was to get one third of the profits. Abe Erlanger refused to go in with me for one dollar, insisting that Maxine would be an awful flivver on her own. But the play made an instant hit and her success was just as big.

Could I have possessed even a little bit of clairvoyance I should have then and there bought a ticket to Reno!

Chapter LVII

WHEN WE WERE TWENTY-ONE AND OTHER PLAYS

Our success with "Nathan Hale" was tremendous. For Maxine it was nothing short of a triumph. And during the season I signed a contract with Fitch for another play to follow it. He turned out "The Cowboy and the Lady." Neither Max nor I fancied our characters and although we did big business with the play we were most uncomfortable in our rôles. It failed miserably in London—where they recognize the real value of plays!

I think it was the summer of 1898 (but what difference does it make?) that I met Henry V. Esmond, the author-actor and a very clever young man. In any event it was in London and at the time of the failure of "The Cowboy and the Lady." He asked me how I would like a play founded on Thackery's poem "When We Were Twenty-One." I thought the idea immense and told him so. We made a contract for the play on the spot and six weeks later he delivered the manuscript!

Max and I were both delighted with it. We brought it back with us in the Fall but instead of producing it in New York immediately we revived "The Cowboy and the Lady." Poor as that play was it absolutely refused to play to bad business! I kept it on until about the middle of the season and took it off with a nineteen-hundred-dollar-house begging me to keep it going!

"When We Were Twenty-One" made the biggest and the most nearly instantaneous hit of any play I ever produced. It was a gold mine for me. But there is little I could say about it that any of you, dear readers, can't anticipate. I might say only that I never played the rôle I liked best in the play!

It was along about this time that I made a production of "The Merchant of Venice." And it was a production! And, although it was not so advertised, it was as nearly an "all-star" cast as many of the revivals of late years have been—if not more so! For four weeks my characterization of Shylock seemed to please the public and certainly attracted large audiences in spite of the fact that the critics in New York roasted my performance to a fare-ye-well. For one reason or another the critics have always resented me except as a comedian!

My next production was "The Altar of Friendship" which had been a failure with John Mason in the leading rôle. He had made a great personal success and the play had received splendid notices but the public stayed away. When the late Jacob Litt consigned the production to the storehouse I opened negotiations with him, bought the property and put it on. It proved to be one of the biggest money-makers Maxine and I ever had! But Maxine's bee for starring alone came buzzing by and deafened her to the tinkle of the box office receipts. It finally stung me and our professional partnership came to an end. "The Altar of Friendship" was our last joint vehicle.

"The Usurper" was my first production after our separation. It made a big hit on the road but failed in New York. I left Gotham at the end of two weeks and went to Boston where we did a tremendous week, continuing on for the rest of the season to splendid business.

It was during this time that Klaw & Erlanger approached me with an offer to open their new New Amsterdam Theatre. The bill was to be "A Midsummer Night's Dream," my rôle Bottom. It sounded good to me and I accepted. Erlanger gave it a most lavish production and announced it for a long run. The opening house was $2700! But the next night the receipts dropped to $1100. I have always believed it was due to insufficient advertising and to the fact that the theatre was new and in a strange locality (in those days Forty-second Street west of Seventh Avenue was strange—theatrically!).

Erlanger was much annoyed. He was not very keen for Shakespeare anyway. In his disappointment he rashly determined to end our engagement in three weeks. I argued and pleaded in vain. I could not make him see it was madness deliberately to kill all chances of our making any money on the road. And to quit in three weeks in New York was admission of failure beyond dispute.

It didn't take long for the trouble to start. Within a fortnight Alan Dale got in his choicest work. An illustrated page in the Hearst Sunday paper showed Maxine, costumed to represent Florence Nightingale, standing Juno-like with outstretched hands as if she might be Charity—or perhaps Hope! Below her was a caricature of Arthur Byron who had just failed in a play called "Major André." Maxine had moved into the Savoy Theatre as Byron was forced out. He was pictured running up a hill with a valise in his hand, saying, "She saved me, Nat!" I was down in the lower left hand corner at the back door of a theatre in a beseeching attitude. Out of my mouth issued these words: "Won't you please come in, Max?"

That alleged comic picture settled our road business once and for all. To make matters worse, if that were possible, Klaw & Erlanger acted on Dale's suggestion and insisted on Maxine's following my engagement at the New Amsterdam. I knew this was the last straw and fatal to whatever chances we might have had otherwise and I asked to be let out then and there. But Erlanger insisted that we go to Boston.

Our company numbered one hundred and fifty people! Our weekly expenses were $6,000!

Arrived in Boston I strolled into the Hollis Street Theatre where we were to open. There wasn't a soul on Hollis Street as I turned the corner from Washington Street. It was noon and I had expected to see a line extending half way to the corner. I found the treasurer in the box office smoking a cigarette. After the usual salutations I inquired casually if we were sold out.

"Pipe that rack," quoth the treasurer laconically as he indicated a forest of tickets arranged on a board.

"Are all those tickets for to-night?" I asked.

"Uh huh," grunted the treasurer and took a deep inhale of his cigarette.

We opened to less than $600. The performance made such a tremendous hit that we were sold out the last three performances of the week and the following week saw never an empty seat at any performance—and for all that we made no money! From Boston we went to Brooklyn where our opening house was $400. (Florence Nightingale was working her influence!) We played to gradually increasing business—but not enough to cover expenses—during the rest of the week. The next (and last) stand was Newark where we opened to $200! Again business increased with every performance but again we had a losing week. Then it was I insisted on closing. Florence Nightingale was an advance agent no attraction could hope to win out against. Thus Newark saw the last of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

And this is the record of a play which drew in two performances in one day more than $5,000! The day was the last Saturday of our three-weeks' run at the New Amsterdam!

Following this fiasco I entered into a contract with Charles Frohman under which we produced "Beauty and the Barge," by Jacobs, the English playwright. It should have run a year. It failed dismally. I knew it would after witnessing the dress rehearsal. David Warfield, Frohman and I sat out front at that rehearsal, my part being read so I could get an idea of the ensembles. I discovered my two ingenues might have been taken from the Forest Home! My two light comedians were so light I am sure they could have walked on water! An old man character insisted on hitting the hard stage with his cane—supposed to be a garden! I begged Frohman to postpone the opening. These five people had a twenty-two-minute scene before I came on. Warfield agreed with me.

A friend of Frohman's had come in meantime. He insisted that my "marvelous" acting would carry the play.

"Marvelous acting be damned!" I cried. "No human being could succeed with such incompetent surroundings."

I was voted down, however, and the next night we opened at the Lyceum Theatre. The play was dead before I made my entrance, a score of men leaving the house in the first fifteen minutes. My dressing-room was within five feet of the stage and I could hear every sound, from front and back. It wrung my heart as I heard the delicate, pretty little scenes I had worshipped when I had seen Cyril Maude's company play it in London just torn all to pieces! Point after point went for nothing. All the humor disappeared. It was awful!

Finally came my cue and I went on. My reception was vociferous and brought me out of my slough of despair. I even got a scene call after I made my exit. But the play was doomed. Afterwards I commiserated with Mr. Jacobs in London and told him it was only the acting that was to blame for its failure to run two years. It ran two weeks.

"Wolfville," Clyde Fitch's dramatization of those excellent short stories by Alfred Henry Lewis, was my next production. This time it was not the fault of the actors. Fitch was to blame. He had taken all of Lewis' characters and then tried to write an original story around them. Fitch couldn't touch Lewis when it came to Western types—or stories. Again, before the first performance, I told Frohman we would fail—and we did, the piece dying at the end of six weeks.

Frohman was at a loss to provide me with another play. He suggested that I take a steamship and see the first performances of two plays which he controlled, "Dr. Quick's Patient" and "The Alabaster Staircase." The latter was written by Captain Marshall of England who wrote "The Second in Command." John Hare was to enact the leading rôle. It looked good to me and I jumped across. My trip saved me two more failures as each of this pair of plays lasted just one week. Instead of either of them I brought back a manuscript of a comedy called "What Would a Gentleman Do?"—which proved as big a failure as any I ever had! Next I produced "The Master Hand" by a Mr. Fleming—whew! what a flivver! (The play, of course!)

But before I increase this list further let me hark back to matters more personal if no less gloomy!

Chapter LVIII

AT JACKWOOD

During the early days at Jackwood when I was busily engaged in hiring guests to come and partake of my board and rooms (I mean the professional diners out) I found great difficulty in securing patrons. I had plenty at my command so far as professional friends and visiting Americans were concerned, but the fair Maxine had the English bee in her American bonnet and insisted that we try to get together some of the impecunious nobility and army men as guests.

I knew of no one who represented those particular branches and had no desire to know any, but being under her hypnotic influence I sought a woman, the wife of a friend of mine, an American mining man, who knew all the swagger members of "the Guards." Through her influence one of these sapheads was persuaded to visit our humble home from Saturday to Monday. He came, accompanied by one of the present Dukes of England (whose father, by the way, died owing me a paltry two thousand dollars, borrowed on the race course at Deauville, France). They came down with Mme. Melba and Haddon Chambers.

We had a lovely time (that is, I presume they had). Max insisted on my entertaining the guests between courses with my supposedly funny stories. Generally after the telling of each one, which occupied some little time, my portion of the feast was either cold or confiscated by the butler. Very little attention was paid to me anyway except when I was telling anecdotes (and on the first of every month when the bills became due!).

On this particular Sunday evening the guests sauntered into the drawing room expecting to hear Melba sing. She didn't even talk!

Then the party, in couples, sauntered through the house and inspected the grounds.

Being on particularly good terms with the butler I selected him for my companion and we quietly strolled through the upper rose terrace discussing a menu that might appeal to the next influx of England's dilettantes. By this time all my American friends were barred. Max considered them "extremely common" by now.

The butler and I were figuring out the expenses of the previous month as the pale moon cast its rays over my book of memoranda. Inadvertently we stopped before an open window of the drawing room. As we stood there I chanced to overhear this remark:

"How could you possibly have married such a vulgar little person?"

Being terribly self conscious at all times I said to my butler, "Luic, I am the v. l. p. to whom that chocolate soldier is referring. Listen, and we'll have a Warrior's opinion of a Thespian!"

Then ensued the following dialogue:—

She: Do you think him vulgar?

He: Not necessarily vulgar, but an awful accent!

She: Well, no one ever accused him of an American accent. He was educated in Boston. Don't you think him rather amusing?

He: In what way?

She: By way of anecdotes and funny stories?

He: Were those stories he told at dinner supposed to be funny?

She: Of course; didn't you hear the guests laugh?

He: Yes; so did I, but simply in a spirit of compliment. Is he supposed to be a comic man in your country?

She: Extremely so.

He: Really?

She: And he talks remarkably well.

He: Did he talk remarkably well to-night?

She: I thought so.

He: Well, maybe, but I was deafened by your beauty. I saw nothing but those beauteous eyes of yours, my dear Mrs. Goodwin and everything else was a blank. Really, I—

She: Now don't pay me silly compliments, Lord Algy; it isn't nice.

He: I beg your pardon; but please tell me how did you happen to marry that funny little man.

She: Now don't ask impertinent questions; one has to get married and, really, when he talks he says something.

He: Does he—really?

The butler and I resumed our stroll.

Some time after I met this Grenadier, talked—and said something! (My editor refuses even to edit it.)

Jackwood proved a lovely summer abode for me. It cost me fifty thousand dollars to get it and fifteen thousand a "year" to keep it up (we were there about ten weeks every season). It cost me twenty-five thousand dollars to lose it!

During our lives at Jackwood incident followed incident, each of which convinced me the autumn leaves were falling that would soon bury me. I discovered the fair Maxine was being bored save when the house was filled with English guests. Americans bored her even more than I did! My repertoire palled and the anecdotes she screamed at when we first were wed met with but little response and that only when the dinner table was filled with English guests who found it quite as difficult to fathom my wit as Maxine.

Life at Jackwood was beginning to pall on me. Many Sundays found me a lonely host. Max was constantly accepting invitations to meet people at country houses, spending the usual Saturday to Monday outing away from her own fireside.

These Saturday to Monday gatherings as a rule were the rendezvous for unblushing husbands and wives whose mates were enjoying the hospitality of opposite houses of intrigue. Generally no husband is ever invited to these meetings accompanied by his own wife, the husband always accepting invitations to the house party of his friend's wife—and thus the silly and unwholesome game goes on.

In nine weeks my wife made nine trips of from two to six days' duration each. These outings included a visit to one of England's ex-Prime Minister's country house, a Member of Parliament's yacht and a society lady's home at Doncaster.

Being very respectable at the time, I was never invited to any of these functions.

During my entire occupancy of Jackwood I accepted just one such invitation. And then I was bored stiff. Of all the asinine, vacant, vapid lot of people I ever saw commend me to the polyglot mob one meets at the average Saturday to Monday gathering. Even the few actors and actresses who were present seemed to absorb the atmosphere and became deadly dull.

You must understand the guests are invited from some ulterior motive—women to meet men for every kind of purpose, men to mingle with men for financial reasons, from a tip on the race course to the promotion of a South African mining scheme, women to meet women to plot and intrigue and make trouble for either of the sexes. It is a sort of clearing-house for the sale of souls and the ruin of women's morals. At these gatherings more plots are schemed, more sins consummated, more crimes committed than at Whitechapel during a busy Sunday! When one stops to consider what can be accomplished by a bunch of these parasites in forty-eight hours it is appalling. I leave it to your imagination—what can be consummated in a week at these places—where statesmen and financiers lend themselves to such intrigues—on yachts, in closed stone castles and concealed hunting lodges!

At first I mildly protested against my wife's accepting these invitations and was always met with mild acquiescence and a desire to do what I demanded. If it were distasteful to me she would not accept and, like a dutiful wife, remain at home with me from Saturday to Monday. For two Sundays we sat in the drawing room with each other twirling our thumbs! It was a day of eloquent silence—each of those Sundays! At first I tried to think up stories to amuse her but she would look up from her book with those dreamy, cruel eyes, listen for a moment and in sweet dulcet tones remark:—

"Very clever, my dear, and most amusing, but you told me that some time ago at Seattle!" Then she would resume the reading of her engagement book for the following week.

I soon grew tired of our Saturday-to-Monday tête-à-têtes and let her go on her own as they say in England. We gave a few parties, but as I found it difficult to separate my friends from their wives I gave it up—and usually spent my forty-eight hours going to Paris to see a play or to Ostend to indulge in it.

It took me but a short time to become disgusted with our mode of living and alarmed at the expense involved. My clever wife adroitly managed to avoid all expense (although we had agreed to share it equally). Once in a while she would accidentally leave her check book where I could see it and the stubs convinced me she was not paying any of the household bills. Large sums were artfully arranged in a cipher which a Philadelphia lawyer or a writing expert could not fathom.

"Cigarette case for A" might mean Arthur or Alice; "Luncheon to N" might be Nellie or Ned; "Sundries for M" might mean Mike or Mabel—and there you are. Wherever her money went she was contributing nothing to the maintenance of the home (which included the services of sixteen servants)!

I made up my mind to bring things to an issue—to use a slang expression, to vamp. Ugly rumors were rife concerning the attentions of the ex-Prime Minister, the Member of Parliament, two American millionaires, an English Lord and the leading man of Maxine's company. I put Jackwood on the books of a real estate firm and placed my furniture in a storehouse together with the contents of my wine cellar (only to see them again, alas, adorning the home of my wife on Duke Street, London, a residence purchased during our marriage, to which I was never invited!).

After I had tried so hard to entertain her at Jackwood I think her conduct most discourteous.

Our life was very tranquil at Jackwood so far as we were personally concerned. Things went along pretty smoothly until we made a trip to Trouville for a holiday. I was privileged to enjoy myself alone most of the time as the fair Maxine would leave me early in the morning returning in time for dinner after a day's outing on the golf links accompanied by some English admirer. I spent most of my time gambling at the Casino, where I managed to lose thirty thousand dollars! And some ass has written:—

"Unlucky in love, lucky at cards!"

Up to this time I considered my wife thoughtless and fond of admiration as all women are—but not worse than that. The only time she failed to exercise her diplomacy and splendid tact was during our sojourn at this French watering place. Perhaps my constant presence irritated her. There is nothing that so gets on one's nerves as the presence of someone who is a bore. I don't blame any woman for wanting to jump the traces under these conditions. The only thing I hold against her is that she never told me. It would have been very easy and I would willingly have released her from her misery, but to inform people by inference—to make a boob of me—was unkind, unjust and cruel.

It never occurred to me that I was boring her until I came across a letter which fell into my hands quite by accident. My servant mistook it for a note addressed to me and placed it with several others he had previously opened for my perusal. It furnished one of my reasons for divorcing the most beautiful woman in the world. Here it is:—

Any man who could live with a woman who wrote such a letter does not deserve the name of man. I made up my mind to quit then and there and told her so. I gave her my reason, kept the letter and took the train for London and the boat for America—thirty thousand loser!

Gee! but I had a bully summer!

Maxine Elliott is a variously gifted woman. With the ambition of a Cleopatra she used me as a ladder to reach her goal and found her crowning glory in the blinding glare of a myriad incandescent lights which spell her name over the portals of a New York theatre. She is one of the cleverest women I ever met. Her dignity is that of a Joan of Arc, her demeanor Nero-like in its assertive quality and yet she has channels of emotion that manifest womanhood in the truest sense of the word.