Work and Win #07: Fred Fearnot as Actor — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

7 eS ee oe en hs Pee ee. eee ie im A him, lays over anything I ever ran across. 4 : Y ‘ FRED FEARNOT AS AN ACTOR. 23 ** All right,’ laughed Fred, “ let it run.”’ **But how did you get Gale into it 2” **Oh, I hoodooed him. If you’ll keep him in the company | think you’ll have no trouble with him in the future.”’ * Well, Pll think about it,’ replied Hammond. CHAPTER X. ' FRED MAKES A GREAT HIT ON THE STAGE. AFTER the play was over that night the manager met Gale behind the scenes and extended his hand to saying: : *“T’m much obliged to you, Gale, for working up that fight with the wolves. It was simply grand.”’ “Oh, that’s all right,”’ returned Gale. ‘‘ Fearnot suggested it to me and asked me to help him out with it, and I promised him I would.”’ ‘Well, see here, if you and Fearnot will work to- gether harmoniously I’d be glad to have you do so, and would recall that notice and have you stay in the company. What do you say ?”’ “Well, I’m willing,’’ Gale replied, ‘‘for I find that Fearnot is cask to get along with after one under- stands him.’ ** Oh, he’s a genius,’’ remarked the manager. ‘‘ He His ventrilo- quial powers are simply marvelous.”’’ << Yes, he’s a good one, and better still, he seems to be a good all around fellow.”’ «Oh, he is undoubtedly. It’s strange that we’ve never run up with him anywhere in New York City.”’ The next morning when Gale met Fred he told him what the manager had said to him, and that he was to continue with the company. «Oh, that’s all right,’’ laughed Fred. ‘‘I knew it would settle him, for I spoke to Mrs. Hammond about it last night and found she was ready to do anything I suggested.”’ «*Oh, you’ve won all the women of the company,”’ laughed Gale. ‘Il never saw them so stuck on a fel- iow in my life.”’ ! «« Glad to hear it,” laughed Fred. ‘I make it a rule wherever I go, to keep on the good side of the women and girls. They appreciate kindness and defer- ence a great deal more ye men do, and that I al- ways try to show them.’ «©Oh, yes; that’s a good rule on general principles ; but some of them will pull your leg for all you are worth.”’ ««Oh, [never let them do that with me; but at the same time I never let them know or titanate that I suspect them of any such game, Asa general thing women in the theatrical profession are imposed on outrageously.” ‘No doubt of that,” assented Gale, ‘‘and so are the men sometimes.” pe two or iiree pike faker the com Dany struck | the audience was electrifiee@ pil novo 4 Minneapolis, where they were billed to play for a week. There for the first time, Fred and Terry were thunderstruck at finding their names in six-inch let- ters on the billboard. ‘Great Scott, Terry, that’s the worst yet!’’ ex- claimed Fred. ‘‘ What do you think of it?” ‘Why, hang it, I: can’t think,’’ replied Terry. “T’m utterly and completely flabbergasted. It’s a good thing for us that we are a thousand miles away from New York.’’ “Yes; but for all that I’m afraid the home folks will get hold of it.” ‘Oh, no; we’re not making a sensation big enough for that. The only danger lies in our running up against somebody out here who knows us.”’ ‘‘Oh, I guess there’s no danger of that.”’ That night the great theater was jammed from pit to dome on account of the curiosity excited by the promised battle of wolves in the forest. The play was the same they had been playing at the one night | stands, and so great was the hit made by the young patriot spy and the scene at the old well, together with the fight with the wolves in the forest, the papers the next morning described it as the most thrilling play that had ever been seen on the boards of any theater in that city. «That settles it,’? said Hammond, when he read the comments of the press. ‘‘ We’ll stick to that one play as long as it will fill the house.”’ The next night there were ‘“‘no standing room’”’ signs put out, even before the curtain was raised on the first act, and during the entire week, including two matinees, the house was jammed. The other plays that Hammond expected to put on were held back. He wanted to engage the theater for another week, put found that previous engage- ments prevented. He found another theater, how- ever, in the city, which he engaged for a month, and proceeded to telegraph to the small towns, canceling engagements there, until further notice. So they moved over at the end of the week to the other theater, which was at least a mile farther away from their hotel. Of course, while they were to stay so long, the manager engaged quarters for them in a private boarding house. Night after night the theater was jammed to see the patriotic play, hear the songs, and listen to the fights of the wolves. During the week Fred was busy thinking up a new scene which he wished to in- troduce, in which he could bring in little Gussie Sil- } vers in a way that would advance her prospects for the future, but he would say nothing to her or any- one else about it, until he had fixed it in his mind just right. It was while he was thinking abcut it, that Ham- mond decided to put the play of ‘* The Lovers ”’ on the board during a matinee. Both Fred and Nellie Tray- nor had been rehearsing it for over a week. It was , well advertised and when the first matinee came off COM wien ok : ‘3 * v a ba a a SoS ~ to ere eo eee