Cheerful-By Request

he conversation, which had zigzagged from the war to Zuloaga, and from Rasputin the Monk to the nu

ou know, about dishwashers, with a lot of fine detail about the fuzz of grease on the rim of the pan. And then those drear and hopeless ones about fallen sisters who end it all in the East River. The East River must be choked up with 'em. Now, I know that life is real, life i

ence. Mostly grey, with a da

t) with the great firm of Hahn & Lohman, theatrical

ft untold? We know the make of car Miss Billboard drives; who her husbands are and were; how much the movies have offered her; what she wears, reads, says, thinks, and eats for breakfast. Snapshots of author writing play at place on H

irth of a play; she officiated at its funeral. She carried the keys to the closets that housed the skeletons of the firm. When a play died of

n of its demise

cCabe" (the property man

el

this morning, aren

' company to mend and clean and press before five this af

ell you that 'My Mistake' closes Saturday

Josie. "And yet they s

sable bands can't carry a bad play. The critics had pounced on it with the savagery of their kind and hacked it, limb from limb, leaving its carcass to rot under the pitiless

gurgle and a Lucille dress don't make a play. Besides, Fritzi Kirke wears the biggest shoe of any actress I ever saw. A woman with feet like that"-she picked up a satin slipper,

right. A waspish

reigned thus, queen of the cast-offs; or to take you back to the days that

-third Street of the small shops, the smart crowds, and the glittering motors. It was the Forty-third lying east of the Grand Central sluice gates; east of fashion; east, in a word, of Fifth Avenue-a great square brick building smok

dewalk to the dim hallway; a musty-smelling passag

. Keep out. Th

ly, so protestingly, with such creaks and jerks and lurchings does it pull itself from floor to floor, like an octogenarian who, grunting and groaning, hoists himself from his

and beyond that, and again beyond that, row after row of high wooden cabinets stretching the width of the room, and forming innumerable aisles. All of Bluebeard's wives could have been tucked away in one corner of the remotest and least of these, and no one the wiser. All grimly shut and locked, they are, with the key in Josie'

t dangles, limp, invertebrate, yet how eloquent! No other woman in the world could have worn that gown, with its unbroken line from throat to hem, its smooth, high, b

hness vanished quite, yet as fragrant with romance as is the sere and withered blossom of a dead white rose pressed within the leaves of a book of love poems. Just next it, incongruously enough, flaunt the wicked froufrou skirts and the low-cut bodice and the wasp waist of the abbreviated costume in which Cora Kassell used so generously to display her charms. A rich and portly society matron of Pittsburgh now-she whose name had been a synonym for pulchritude these th

ch Maude Hammond, as Peterkins, winged her way to fame up through the hearts of a million children whose ages ranged from seven to seventy. Brocades and ginghams; tailor suits and peig

went? The left leg swung as a normal leg should. The right followed haltingly, sagging at

le girls who speak pieces at chicken-pie suppers held in the basement of the Presbyterian church. Her mother had been a silly, idle woman addicted to mother hubbards and paper-backed novels about the ho

l-blown butterfly curl. In a pale-blue, lace-fretted dress over a pale-blue slip, made in what her mother called "Empire style," Josie would deliver herself of "Entertaining Big Sister's Beau" and other sophisticated classics with an incredible ease and

lo, unless it was the so-called comic kind. It was before the day of the ubiquitous moving-picture theatre that has since been the undoing of the one-night stand and the ten-twenty-thirty stock company. The old red-brick opera house

y at a lollipop extracted from the sticky bag clutched in one moist palm. (A bag of candy to each and every girl; a ball or a top to each and every boy!) Josie knew that the middle-aged soubrette who came out between the first and second acts to sing a gingham-and-sunbonnet song would whisk off to reappear immediately in knee-length pink satin and curls. When the heroine left home in a shawl and a sudden snows

aken the part of a gipsy queen, appropriately costumed in slightly soiled white satin slippers with four-inch heels, and a white satin dress enhanced by a red sash, a black velvet bolero, and large hoop earrings. She had danced and sung w

them all. If any illusions about the stage had survived her Wapello days, they would have vanished in the first six months of her dramatic career. By the time she was twenty-four she had acqui

ng that often came perilously near to want, Josie Fifer managed to retain a certain humorous outlook on life. There was something whimsical about it. She could even see a jok

e. But I wish I knew if that J was pronounced l

n the company to say to her: "Jo, I'm blue a

ways o

ust when her laugh broke off short in the mi

had never seen the ocean before, and she viewed it now with an ap

es of the beauteous bathing girl dashing into the foaming breakers. She ran across the stretch of

mincingly. "So

ating derelict of a log struck her leg with its full weight, and with all the tremendous force of the breaker behind it. She doubled up ridiculously, and went down like a shot. Th

was over. (This is not the

anished-she of the Wapello colouring that had persisted during all these years. In her place limped a wan, shrunken, tragic littl

to the call boy. Then the show left town. There came a few letters of kind inquiry, then an occasional post card, signed by half a dozen members of the company. Then these ceased. Josie Fifer, in her cast and s

rse. Or: "One-night stands, and they're due in Muncie, Ind., to-night. I don't know wh

isited here and there, and on the slightest provocation she would give a scene ranging all the way from "Romeo and Ju

refusal to be discouraged when he found he had picked a failure. Still others, who knew him better, were likely to say: "Why, I don't know

atic, sensitive, artistic, intuitive, he was often rendered inarticulate by the very force and variety of his feelings. A little, rotund, ugly man, Sid Hahn,

, starring Sarah Haddon for the first time. No one dreamed the play would run for years, make a fortune f

ppendicitis. There was not even time to rush him to New York. He was on the operating tabl

nurse. "You'll be

mean the operatio

lay. He insisted on seeing them all daily, against his doctor's orders, and succeeded in working up a tem

Haddon. "I've seen too many plays that were skyrockets on

unity had come-the opportunity for which hundreds of gifted actresses wait a lifetime. Haddon was just twenty-eight then-a year younger than Josie Fifer. She had not yet blossomed into the full radiance of her b

at she had hoped for and never could know. She used to insist on having her door open, and she would lie there for hours, her eyes fixed on that spot in the hall across which Haddon would flash for one brief instant on her way to the room down the cor

ld come all those fairy gifts that Josie Fifer would never possess. All things about her-her furs, her gloves, her walk, her hats,

hey say everything works out in the end according to some scheme or other. Well, what's the answer to

ten minutes on her hair, made up outrageously with that sublime unconsciousness that comes from too close familiarity with rouge pad and grease jar, and went. She was trembling as though facing a first-night audience

it. At the feel of that generous friend

made even that Boston-looking interne with the thick glasses laugh. Go on

ing Hahn himself as the ailing chee-ild, gave a biting burlesque of the famous bedside visit that brought the t

eter in my mouth. What do I care! A laugh li

he eyed her keenly, and p

at? Temporary

mane

lling you that? Thes

ers, and when it came to putting 'em together again a couple of pieces were mi

stage for yo

ore s

de, scrawled a few words on it, signed it "S.H." in the f

New York, and up to my office; see? Give 'em this

nerosity with which they invested a play, from costumes to carpets. A period play was a period play when they presented it. You never saw a French clock on a Dutch mantel in a Hahn & Lohman production. No hybrid hangings marred their back drop. No matter what the play, th

r while the wounds of the dressmaker's needle still bled in them. And whether for a week or a year fur on a Hahn & Lohman costume was real fur; its satin was silk-backed, its lace real lace. No paste, or tinsel, or cardboard about H. & L.! Josie Fifer

and pounds on the door and weeps. She certainly did give it some hard wear. When Marriott crawls she crawls, and when she baw

dead rose garden. No, they were stored for a much thriftier reason. They were stored, if you must know, for possible future use. H. & L. were too clever not to use a last year's costume for a this year's road show. They knew what a

charge of the H. & L. lares et penates, she told herself it was only for a fe

uld never admit it. "Splendour" was what is known as a period play. The famous dress was of black velvet, made with a quaint, full-gathered skirt that made Haddon's slim waist seem fairylike and exquisitely supple. The black velvet bodice outlined the delicate swell of the bust. A rope of pearls enhanced the whiteness of her throat. Her hair, done in old-time scallops about her forehead, was a gl

d errands to take her to the theatre where "Splendour" was playing. Sid Hahn always said that after the big third-act scene he liked to watch the audience swim up the aisle. Josie, hidden in the back-stage shadows, used to watch, fascinated, breathless. Then, one night, she indiscreetly was led, by her, absorbed interest, to v

n went down she

ybody knows I can't have any one in the wings. Staring! It ruined my scene to-night. W

resentful. But the next week saw her back at the th

It was infinitely more than a stage costume. It was the habit of glory. It

insisted that if ever she discarded the old black velvet for a new the run of the play would stop. She assured Hahn that its shabbi

es her caustic comment, as she did so, would have startled the complacency of the erstwhile wearers of the garments. Her knowledge of the stage, its artifices, its pretence, its narrowness, its shams, was widening and deepening. No critic in bone-rimmed glasses and eveni

el

't play in this heat. They're taking it to London

with a face so radiant that one of her sewi

ood news, M

r' closes

n would think you'd been losing money

the tragédienne. Adelaide's maid was said to be the hardest-worked woman in the profession. When French finished wit

e dress on her lap fell to the floor. She stepped over it heedlessly, and went toward McC

McCabe and his men, with scenery and furniture still to unload and store, turned to go. Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they clattered down the worn old stairway. Josie snapped the cord that bound the third box. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. She turned it upside down. Then she pawed it over. Then she went

at do yo

ss! The black velvet

take it to London with her, to use on the opening night. She says if she wears a new one that fi

cheated, outraged. She was frightened at the intensity of her own sensations. "She might have let me have it," she sai

g, bright sewing room. "Splend

s. He spent much of his time abroad. Whenever opportunity present

l pla

ways, had eyed her curiously. "You

tlantic City just when I had my accident, and then meeting you through

habit of rushing up to her men friends with a delighted exclamation (preferably French) and kissing them on both cheeks. When

with it," she said to her assistant. "Haddon's got herself

it

e had been sort of foolish over that play and this costume. Her recent glimpse of Haddon had been somewhat disillusioning. But now, when she finally held the gown itself in her hand-the original "Splendour" second-act gown, a limp, soft black mass: just a few yards of worn and shab

guess Sarah would have a hard time making the hooks and eyes meet now

rdrobe room. There she hung it away in an empty closet, quite apart from the oth

ight of steps with a rush, unlocked the door with trembling fingers, and let herself into the cool, dank gloom of the storehouse hall. The metal door of the elevator stared inquiringly after her. She fled past it to the stairway. Every step of that ancient structure squeaked and groaned. First floor, second, third, fourth. The everyday hum of the sewing machines was absent. The room seemed to be holding its breath. Josie fancied th

fing laboriously up the four flights of stairs leading to the wardrobe floor, entered the main room unheard. Unknown to any one, he was indulging in one of his unsuspected visits to the old wareroom that housed the evidence of past and gone successes-successes that had brought him for

in the black velvet and mock pearls of "Splendour," with her grey-streaked blonde hair hidden under the romantic scallops of a black wig, was giving the big scene from the third act. And though it sounded like a burlesque of that famous passage, and though she limped mor

the creaking stairs, and so to the sunshine of Forty-third Street, with its unaccustomed Sunday-morning quiet. And he was smiling that rare and melting smile of his-the smile that was said to make him look something like a ke

aid he-"the poor, lonely, sti

on, sir?" inquir

re spoken to," s

d caustic as ever. It found Sid Hahn the most famous theatrical man of his day. It found Sarah Haddon at the fag-end of a career that had blazed with triumph and adulation. She had never had a success like "Splendour." Indeed, there were those who said that all the plays that followed had been failures, carried to semi-success

classic. Fathers had told their children of it-of her beauty, her golden voice, the exquisite grace of her, the charm, the tende

she had a rather dreadful time of it getting up again. And the audience, resentful, bewildered, cheated of a precious memory, laughed. That laugh sealed the career of Sarah Haddon. It is a fickle thing, this public that wants to be amused; fickle and cruel and-paradoxically enough-true to its su

ich she had always been famous. "If I had worn it, everything would have been different. That dress had a

hingly, "that dress has probably

think I am? That you should say that to

about that dress being lucky. You've grown out of

t that

rtably. "Well, if you mu

wh

n rose, dried her eyes, and began to straighten her hat: "Where are you going?" He trailed her to the d

g to see J

ok here,

loor of the storehouse Sarah Haddon was there ahead of him. The two women-one tall, imperious, magnificent in furs; the other shrunken, deformed,

Hahn himself gave it to me. He said I could cut it up for a dress or something if I wanted to. Long ago." Then, as Sid Hah

ahn. "It's yours, to

d fell. She was breathing sharply. "But S.H.!" she cried, "S.H., I've got to have it. Don't you see, I want it!

g at her, her eyes wide

didn't know you wanted it as bad as that. Why,

ed it up in a tight bundle and whisked off with it without a backward glan

at each other ludicrou

was nice of you, givin

th that dazed and wide-eyed look of one upon whom a great truth has just dawned. Then, suddenly, she be

the love of Heaven don't you go and get it. I've had to do wi

usual smile. The bitterness was quite gone from it. She faced Sid Hahn across the table. Her palms were outspread, as one who would ma

the plot,"

never had anything. Not a thing. She's travelled one way, and I've travelled in the opposite direction, and where has it brought us? Here we are, both fighting over

im any originality for that r

, "you don't call this a

eaches a lesson, and all that. And it's sort of

neat sheaf. "I'm afraid I didn't make myself quite clear. It's entertainin