"What would you have done?"
"Gone to Belasco's house, or telephoned something startling that would have brought him down quickly."
"For instance?"
"Well, that the theatre was on fire."
"But when he got there?"
"I'd have made him see it was a joke."
"Maybe he hasn't that kind of a sense of humour?"
"Then I should have perished bravely."
So the incidents of their first day's careering ended jocularly.
Bambi called Mr. Strong on the wire next day, and told him of Jarvis's unprofitable sitting. Could he get her a letter to Belasco? Or to any other leading manager? He laughed, said he did not know Belasco, but thought he could arrange it for her. He promised to send a letter to the club.
With this assurance to fall back upon, she persuaded Jarvis to go to the office of one of the newer managers who seemed to be of an open mind in regard to untried playwrights. She showed him a magazine article about this "live wire," named over his productions, and repeated his cordial invitation to new writers.
Jarvis set forth reluctantly. He liked salesman work as little as he had expected to. But he felt he owed some effort to Bambi, since he was her guest, and her mind was so set on his success.
This time the cheeky-faced office boy admitted that the manager was in. He accepted and scrutinized Jarvis's card with disdain, but on his return from the inner office he ejaculated, "Wait!" So Jarvis sat down for his second endurance feat. The same Johnnies and Billies and Fays came to this office in their endless seeking. He began to vision the great, ceaseless army of them "making the rounds," as they call it, often hungry and tired. They were most of them uneducated, you could tell by their speech, for all their long "a's" and short "r's." That they were physically unadapted to the profession was obvious enough in many cases. They were probably badly trained. How did they live? Where did they go? They began to haunt him.
He was interrupted by hearing his name called. He rose mechanically, and followed the boy into a very large and ornate office. A fat Jewish man, in loud clothes, a brown derby hat, and a cigar, sat at a desk, dictating.
"H'are ye?" he ejaculated as Jarvis entered. He went on dictating and smoking, until Jarvis finally interrupted him, saying he wanted to see the manager. The fat man glared at him.
"Sit down until I get through!" he shouted. "I'm the manager."
Jarvis took a chair and looked at the man closely. What would such a creature find in his play, with its roots in a modern condition, no more grasped by this man than by Professor Parkhurst? The absurdity of the idea struck Jarvis so forcibly that he laughed out loud.
"Let's have it, if it's any good," said the fat man.
"I beg your pardon," Jarvis replied.
The manager dismissed the stenographer, took up Jarvis's card, looked at it, and then at his victim.
"Jarvis Jocelyn," he read. "Good stage name. What's your line, Jarvis?"
[Illustration: "WELL, BELIEVE ME, THAT HIGH-BROW STUFF IS ON THE TOBOGGAN."]
"I've come to see you about a play."
"Oh, you're a writer? What have you done?"
"Several plays, and some poetry."
"Nix on the poetry. Who brought out the plays?"
"Nobody yet. I am just beginning to offer them."
"What sort of stuff is it?"
"It's a dramatic handling of the feminist movement."
"What's that?"
"The emancipation of woman."
"I hadn't heard about it. Is your stuff funny?"
"No. It is a serious presentation of an unique revolution----"
"Well, believe me, that high-brow stuff is on the toboggan. I knew it couldn't last. I gave it to them when they demanded it, but I am cutting it out now. Haven't you got a good melodrama, or a funny show?"
"I have not," superbly.
"Say, do you know any Jews? I got a great idea for a Jew play that would take like the measles if some fellow would work it up. Pile of money in it."
Jarvis rose, furious.
"It is so apparent that we have nothing to say to each other that I'll bid you good morning."
"If you fellows who come in here from the country to run Broadway could put _yourselves_ in a show, it would be the scream of the town," said the fat man in Jarvis's wake.
"I'd rather starve than endure a pig like you!" cried Jarvis, as he fled.
The fat man's laugh followed him to the street. He hated himself, and the whole situation. It galled him to think he had deliberately submitted himself to such treatment. Even Bambi could not expect it of him,--to set him to sell his dreams in such a market. He charged down Broadway, clearing a wake as wide as a battleship in action. He saw red. He was unconscious of people. He only felt the animus of the atmosphere, the sense of things tugging at him, which had to be cast off. Why was he here? He wanted the quiet, the open stretches, and his own free thoughts. What turn of the wheel had brought him into this maelstrom? Bambi! The old story, Samson and Delilah! He had visioned great things. She had shorn him, and pushed him into a net of circumstances. He would not endure it. He would sweep her out of his life, and be about his work.
He was disappointed to find her out when he returned to the club. He had his opening speech all ready and it was annoying to have his scene delayed. He raged about, to keep his wrath hot, until she came. "Greeting," she began; then saw his face, and added, "Jungle beast!"
"I'll not stay here another day!" he cried.
"You saw the manager?"
"He asked me if the stuff was funny! He invited me to write a Jew play, and make a pot of money! He said 'Nix on the high-brow stuff,' and never heard of the feminist movement," he blurted out in one breath.
She sat down under the onslaught, trying to arrange her rebellious features.
"'Nix on the high-brow stuff.' To me!" he repeated.
Bambi gave up. She rolled on the bed, and laughed.
Jarvis raged the room up and down. There was no gleam of humour in it for him. When her paroxysm had passed, she sat up and looked at him.
"Poor old Knight with the Broken Lance," she said. "It's tough, but it had to be done."
"What had to be done?"
"This morning's work. It was part of your training. You must know just what the situation is here, in the market-place."
"But there is no place for me here."
"After two days' failure, you give up?"
"I told you I couldn't sell my things. They are too good."
"That's rubbish. Nothing you, nor I, nor any other human can think, is too good. If we have big thoughts, and want to tell them to our brothers who speak another tongue, if we have the brains, we must learn their tongue, not hope for them to acquire ours. That is what I hoped you would see."
"You think I've got to learn the Broadway lingo?"
"I do. If you have anything to say, Broadway needs it."
"I can't translate what I want to say into that speech."
"But you can. It will mean hard work, hard work and heartache, and disappointment, but you can do it, because you have the soul stuff of a great man."
Her eyes shone now, misted with feeling. He saw again his multitudes flocking to him in the wilderness. He saw them aroused, revived, triumphant over life through him.
"Will you help me?" he cried to her. It was his first uttered need of her, and her heart beat high in response.
"I will, if you will let me, Jack o' Dreams."
"Don't let me give up! Don't let me lose heart!"
"No, I won't. I'll push, or haul you, to the top!"
"I came to scoff, and I stay to pray," said Jarvis, cryptically. "God bless you, Bambi!" he added, as he left her.
X
No letter from Mr. Strong arrived in the morning's mail, so Bambi induced Jarvis to go over to the Cubist show, by himself, on the plea that she had a headache. He went, most willingly, anywhere, except Broadway.
The minute he was out of the way her languid, headachey manner changed to one of brisk energy. She donned her smartest frock and hat. She was more earnest in her effort to allure the eye than she was on the day of her own conquest. "You must look your best, you little old Bambi, you, and see what you can do for big Jarvis!"
After the last nod of approval at her reflected self, she tucked Jarvis's manuscript under her arm, and started forth. She had made a close study of all the theatrical columns of the papers and magazines since their arrival in New York, so she was beginning to have a formal bowing acquaintance with the names of the leading managers.
In spite of her cheerful acceptance of Jarvis's mood of despair, the day before, she was really deeply touched by it, and appealed to by his helplessness to cope with the situation. She remembered her words to her father, "He cannot accommodate himself to the commercial standards of the times." It was so true. And was she right in submitting him to them so ruthlessly? Was she blunting something fine in him by this ugly picture she was holding up for him to see, of a thoroughly commercialized drama, the laws and restrictions of which he must know and conquer, or be silenced? All the mother in her hated to have him hurt, but the sensible helpmeet part of her knew that it must be done. Of course he could not be expected to know how to approach managers, all at once. He was probably very tactless. He admitted that he had called the enemy of yesterday a "pig." Naturally that was no way to help his cause. Perhaps, after this experience, and his new cognizance of conditions, it would be better for him to write in quiet and solitude, while she acted as salesman.