The Fun of It: Stories from The Talk of the Town (Modern Library Paperbacks) Page 3

  Miss Nichols sought out Mr. Pitou and offered to sell him a twenty-five per cent interest in “Abie’s Irish Rose” for $5,000. Five thousand dollars, she calculated, would be enough to keep the play operating until its public found it in remunerative numbers. She herself had parted with her jewels, with everything she had, to keep the play going.

  Mr. Pitou promised to look into the matter, and the following Saturday he attended a matinee of her production with Mrs. Pitou. He instantly recognized the cheap quality of the play, but Mr. Pitou is too experienced a manager to let his personal reaction interfere with his judgment of a box-office attraction. The audience, he could not help noticing, was wildly enthusiastic about it and howled its head off with glee at the slightest provocation. The lobby, at intermission time, was filled with people who were announcing that they could hardly wait to see Cousin Minnie and Uncle Abe to advise them by all means not to miss this great human document, this gorgeously comic play.

  And so Mr. Pitou ventured the opinion that he might buy the twenty-five per cent interest for $5,000. Mrs. Pitou for some minutes thereafter seemed to believe that Mr. Pitou had suddenly gone mad. The play, she announced, was horrible and had not the ghost of a chance for success. Mr. Pitou, in her opinion, could do better by just taking $5,000 and lighting cigars with them.

  Mrs. Pitou’s opinion was echoed by Louis Cohn, the ticket broker, who further informed Mr. Pitou that he had not sold a single ticket for “Abie’s Irish Rose” in three weeks. . . . Mr. Pitou then told Miss Nichols that he could not accept her offer.

  Miss Nichols, in some way or other, managed to keep the show going until it had hit its stride. That stride, by now, would have returned Mr. Pitou well over $1,000,000 for his investment of $5,000. And one somehow imagines that Mr. and Mrs. Pitou have a good deal to talk about on such an occasion as the third birthday of “Abie’s Irish Rose.”

  1925

  CAL AND BELLES LETTRES — Author Unknown

  MR. COOLIDGE is, beyond denial, a bachelor of arts and, as such, eligible to be stamped “inspected and passed as educated” whenever the Congress gets around to creating a bureaucracy to supervise learning. But, one reflects, governmental standards are likely to be low.

  At any rate, Mr. Coolidge, looking upon his standing with his countrymen, was led to reflect that it would not pain him too deeply if the nation held for its president a warmer feeling, which reflection he put into words while talking lately with one of the Washington newspaper correspondents.

  The correspondent, wise man that he is, knew the observation for a presidential hint that suggestions were in order.

  “Why not recognize the arts, Mr. President?” he proposed. “You have had leaders of almost every other line of endeavor for breakfast in the White House; why not invite some of the leaders in one of the arts—some poets, perhaps?”

  “Who are the leading poets?” came from Calvin, after the customary silent interval.

  “Oh, Edward Arlington Robinson, Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edgar Lee Masters, Elinor Wylie,” Mr. Sullivan tossed off.

  The President considered this.

  “When I was in College,” he observed, presently, “there was a man named Smith—who wrote verse.”

  1925

  MODEST MR. SHAW — Author Unknown

  BERNARD SHAW as a short story writer would be new to most people, and even those who, as far as they know, read everything he writes, have met with him in that field just once, if ever. But on his own statement he is thinking and has been these four years of presenting himself in it—and, morbidly modest though he is about his plays, he doesn’t think his short stories are so worthless.

  In 1908 the short story referred to, a very Shavian and very good one, called “Aerial Football,” appeared in Collier’s. It attracted even wider attention than its merit deserved, for Collier’s, then edited by Norman Hapgood, was awarding every three months a $1,000 prize to the author of the best story it had published in that period, and was rash enough to make such award to Mr. Shaw. He returned the draft with a rebuke—he had been duly paid for the story, and giving him a prize was insulting—all of which Collier’s imperturbably printed.

  In 1921, when the Evening Post was reprinting short stories, somebody in its office bethought him of that one and made the best possible offer for the use of it. Mr. Shaw replied that he was much obliged, but expected to bring out a book of his short stories and would rather not have “Aerial Football” reprinted in the meantime.

  There has been no further word of the book, and this Spring a prosperous magazine which knew of the Evening Post’s offer mentioned it in making another, of as much money as prosperous magazines, even in these author’sbonanza days, are paying for some of their stories, brand new.

  In reply, Mr. Shaw’s secretary was bidden to state that “the situation with regard to ‘Aerial Football’ is unchanged, and that anyhow, three hundred dollars is not up to his rates.” The magazine is far from blaming G. B. S. for wanting all the traffic will bear, but if he can get more than that for “second serial rights” in one short story anywhere on earth, its admiration of him will rise to reverence; and the Author’s League will build a statue to his memory.

  The book still is unannounced. Indeed, this is a sizzling news “beat,” which may affect the stock market, on the fact that such a book may be impending.

  1925

  VACHEL LINDSAY — Author Unknown

  A REAL character recently passed through New York, flaring a large head, partly gray, partly red, wholly unkempt. This was Vachel Lindsay, the author of “The Golden Whales of California” and sundry other books of poetry.

  Whether or not he is the best of the New Poets, may be a moot point with some, but not with him. He admits he is a conceited man and that his egotism is so enormous that he can’t get on with anyone. He has little use for New York; the provinces are solid, he says, “and I can understand them.”

  We saw him slopping by several times. He has always lived carelessly. Years ago with Stephen Graham, who now visits various countries and writes books on them, he tramped about America giving a little book of his poems to whoever would trade a square meal for it. He started in Springfield, Illinois, thence went for a little education to Hiram College, then about the middle West, then far west and south; doing a little teaching, reading very little, shouting Walt Whitman’s poetry. And now he is about to embark on a tour of lectures to read his poems. “I will teach America six poems,” he says. “That’s enough to do in one lifetime.”

  He is indifferent to comfort and the mellow surroundings so many writers love. He can do his best work in a hotel writing room if that is where he happens to be. He also does queerer things than write poetry. For example, he studies Egyptian hieroglyphics, still clings to an anti-liquor prejudice, which, they say, he inherited from his mother, loves the Woolworth Building, and is inclined to speak of his wife as the little woman.

  As he sits in the Hotel Commodore, he is for all the world like an obviously inspired ex-cowboy with red hair. His is a startling personality that is always shouting, but he has plenty of humor. They are still telling a story about him in a town in southern Texas. He had read some of his poems in the meeting hall and was asked if he would autograph some of his books. He agreed, but it was found that there weren’t any of his books in town. Two old ladies, however, had Bibles with them and brought them up to the platform.

  “Certainly I’ll autograph them,” he said, sitting down.

  In one Bible he wrote, “Now is the time for every good man to come to the aid of his party”; in the other, “I did not write this book. Vachel Lindsay.”

  1926

  FENCE BUSTER — Author Unknown

  SOME facts about Gehrig, the baseball player who is rivalling Ruth as a home-run hitter, seem to be worth recording. To begin with, he is one of the few native New Yorkers on our local nines, and a former student at Columbia University. He is twenty-four, and of German descent. His
father, we are told, was a janitor and grass-cutter at Columbia, and the son decided to attend college there, not so much because of the classical opportunities but because he had heard the plaudits for the university baseball stars and he knew he could play as well as they. He remained only two years, but during that time he made such progress as a hitter and a pitcher that the New York Yankees signed him. That was five years ago. After a year with a minor league club he was recalled here and has been on the local roster ever since. Last year he played regularly, but it was not until the present season that he began to puncture fences and figure as a home-run king.

  Gehrig is no intellectual giant on the diamond, but he is determined. When he was at Columbia he would practice hitting balls until it was too dark to see and mothers called home to bed the boys who chased them for him. Even now, during the training season, he is the first man on the field and the last off. He practices and studies and he seldom takes his eyes off Ruth. He idolizes that gentleman, and they say Ruth has shown no jealousy, but has helped Gehrig considerably.

  He is of middle size and quite squarely built, with great, stocky legs. Naturally clumsy, he has overcome much of his ineptness. He is so hardy that he never wears an overcoat, and on the bitter January day he signed with the Yanks one of the officials felt so sorry for him he offered to lend him money to buy one. He makes about $10,000 a year, but next season it will be much more.

  Gehrig does not drink, smoke or gamble. He has never had a girl. His hobby is fishing for eels. There is a mystery about this. No one knows where he catches them, except that it is somewhere in the vicinity of Harlem, but he never fails in his quest. He likes his eels pickled, and his mother does the pickling. Pickled eels, in fact, have become a Yankee superstition. The players have come to believe that they produce hitting power, and whenever the team is in a slump the boys urge Gehrig to go fishing, and then they join in the feast.

  1927

  THE SIN OF ADAMS — Russel Crouse

  NOT long since, in these columns, we recounted the story of the origin of ice-cream soda in Manhattan. We now feel it our duty to fix the responsibility for chewing gum on the Borough of Richmond, for it was on Staten Island, in the otherwise uneventful year of 1866, we are told by the scion of one of the oldest and most reliable families of those parts, that the possibilities of chicle came to light. It appears that in June of that year the Mexican general, Santa Ana, having found it necessary to absent himself from his native land, put into Snug Harbor. He hobnobbed frequently with the islanders, and one of his acquaintances was a young photographer named Thomas Adams, an ambitious young gentleman and something of an experimenter.

  During one of his chats the general produced a lump of rubbery substance which he said was the gum of the zapote tree and which he liked to chew. He gave Adams a piece. The photographer saw possibilities in it. He believed that, with proper treatment, it could be made—of all things—a substitute for the rubber used in plates for false teeth.

  Adams is said to have experimented for weeks with this in mind. It was only after a final test, when, disgusted by failure, he slammed the mass on a table, that he tried the general’s plan. He picked up one of the pieces and absently put it in his mouth. He found that it did not dissolve and that crunching away at it was somehow diverting. Eventually he and his father, after obtaining additional chicle, set up a workroom in which they boiled the product, cooled it in water, cut it into long strips and packed it in boxes. These they peddled. The idea of sweetening it and flavoring it came later. Then they moved to Jersey City. It is said that gum was not well received at first. The makers, however, hit upon the idea of giving away chewing gum with candy and thus developed a taste for the product. Eventually they became a great corporation and sold out for millions. We hear that fifty million dollars’ worth of the stuff is produced annually now and that all the department stores in New York have squads of men detailed to scrape it off the floors every night.

  1927

  DIME NOVEL — Author Unknown

  UPON requesting, the other day, to view some of the works of the Beadle Collection of Dime Novels which is kept in the Reserve Room of the Public Library, we were asked if we had any connection with the movies. “Dr. O’Brien, the donor,” we were informed, “has reserved the right to withhold the books from motion picture people.”

  This deepened our interest to such a degree that we paid a visit to the author of this discrimination, who is a New York dentist and whose name is Dr. Frank P. O’Brien. He confessed having made the reservation we have mentioned and went on to exhibit to us an even larger collection of dime novels than the one of fifteen hundred volumes which now rests aristocratically in the library. There are nearly three thousand in this second collection. They are kept in two huge safes.

  Dr. O’Brien permitted us to take a handful of them to hold and let us turn the pages of “Malaeska, or, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter,” the first dime novel published in America. It is by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, and was published May 15, 1860, and shortly was translated into five different languages.

  For many years, between times of dabbling in teeth and Wall Street, Dr. O’Brien has spent his leisure in travelling about the country seeking out these old books. He obtained a few of them from Mrs. Sophie B. Raymond, Erastus Beadle’s only daughter, now living in Cooperstown, New York.

  Erastus Beadle, the man who made “The Pioneer Books,” was born in Piers-town, Otsego County, New York, in 1821. As a miller’s apprentice he laid the foundation of his career as a publisher. Need arose in the mill one day for some letters to be used in labelling the bags of grain. Erastus cut the letters from blocks of hard wood, just as the old block letters had been made in the days before Gutenberg. He later left the mill with his equipment and travelled about the country, stamping bags and marking lap-robes, wagons and other things.

  In Cooperstown, Elihu Phinney, a pioneer printer, offered him work and Beadle there learned printing. By 1852 he had a shop of his own in Buffalo and in that year issued his first publication, “The Youth’s Casket.” This was not a dime novel, but nearly three thousand of them followed later, among which are such alliterative titles as “Alkali Abe,” “Border Bessie,” “Bowery Ben,” “Corduroy Charlie,” “Daisy Dare,” “Dandy Darke,” and “Roaring Ralph Rockwood.” In the fall of 1859 he came to New York, where he set up shop at 141 William Street. According to Dr. O’Brien, Erastus Beadle was not a sensational publisher, even though his successes were of this nature. He had no thought of bringing out “dime novels” in the sense that we think of them; rather, he published the tales and records of early pioneer struggles and adventure to preserve them for future generations.

  1927

  THE OLD LADY — James Thurber

  HAVING heard of great changes in store for the Old Lady, as attachés affectionately call the Murray Hill Hotel, we went half fearfully to dine there the other evening. We were reassured, however, when we found the old street lamps before the Park Avenue doors still blinking, even as they did at the turn of the century. Walking around to the Fortieth Street doorway we were happy to see the doormat marked “Ladies’ Entrance” just where it was when Mark Twain in his white suit played billiards below stairs. When later we went into the billiard room, it was charming to see two old cronies pottering about a table and chuckling over each other’s wobbly shots. The gilt-pillared lobby gave us the impression it always does—that in this building time has stopped. An elderly gentleman drowsed over his Springfield Republican and a long-ashed cigar. Gray-haired couples shared the deep lounges. It might have been an evening in the nineties except for a radio, which, however, was silent. It is always, we were told later, turned on for Mr. Coolidge’s speeches.

  For years we have heard whispers that time has stopped more in truth than in fancy at the Murray Hill. It has been true: the clocks of the old hotel have, figuratively speaking, just been rewound. Almost fifteen years ago a chronic illness from septic poisoning sent the hotel’s venerable owner-manager
to his room and kept him there. Just a month or two ago he came downstairs for the first time, to find dusty tapestries, outworn equipment and servants who had grown gray-haired since he had last given them instructions in person. With fine devotion they had gone on, working longer hours and accepting pre-war pay. The guardian of the Old Lady’s tranquillity is Mr. B. L. M. Bates, an innkeeper of the old tradition. All he intends to do, he says, is to redecorate the hotel gently and tastefully; gold doorknobs and newfangled elevators may come to other hotels but the Murray Hill will go on unchanged in spirit. One of Mr. Bates’ first acts upon resuming active responsibility was to retire an aged cook on pension, who died a few weeks later. Now the rest of the old servants can stay on until they are happily a hundred. There are four of these ancients in the dining-room. One serves the same group of tables that he presided over forty-three years ago when the hotel opened. Two-thirds of the diners are gray-haired too, and many have lived here for a quarter of a century. There is a soft tone of an old Continental hotel about the dining-room. A dame du comptoir sits behind an oak counter and keeps track of things. A trio of violin, piano and cello playing nineteenth-century music broke softly into “Lady Be Good” and seemed almost skittish.

  Mr. Bates was the first proprietor of the Everett House, one of the city’s oldest residential hotels. Later he managed the Belmont and then leased and finally purchased the Murray Hill. He says he does not fear that the younger set will invade the hotel, except “now and again to rest their nerves.”