The Argosy, April 1916 — page 77: what you’re looking at

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

THE “She had on so much make-up that she could have gone on in almost any scene just as she was. She would have registered Queen Elizabeth if she hadn’t been- dressed for the title rdle of ‘The Heiress to Millions.’ The worst of it was she was only about twenty years old and had been spoiled for life. “TI didn’t recognize her. To show you how ignorant I was I didn’t even recognize her when some one whispered it: ‘““*There goes Lollie Goodelle!’ “She swept right past everybody, as haughty as Hortense. ‘She didn’t take the trouble to have herself announced. The kid at the switchboard jumped right over and opened the mmer door for her. She sailed on in without even thanking him. “T didn’t get a line on her until I began to hear other things that the crowd let drop as soon as she was out of hearing. Then I remembered. She was one of the leading lights of Broadway, all right—one of those flivver-hghts that flash right up for a couple of months and then go out forever. “Her name had come up with a rich vertising in the world. But she was no actress and never would be. “T think that it was the thing that the girl stood for, more than anything else, that just sort of crumpled me up. “You see, I love the stage, always have loved it. And I’ve always stood for the dig- nity and honor of t. I tell the differ- ence between a ham and an actor a mile away. And I’ve always hated more than anything else what Lollie Goodelle stood for. I got it from my father. “So I walked right out of the office of the Daguerre Corporation before the crowd could properly tighen up again. I did leave a message. I told the boy at the switch- board where I was stopping. I also told him that if Arnitz—leaving out the mister —wanted to see me he could come and look for me there, and that maybe I’d be in and maybe I wouldn't. | “The room in the Pazzaza was costing me ten dollars a day. I’ve often paid big money for misery and discomfort since then, but never anything quite hke that. “T sat there looking at the red wall-paper and imitation onyx for the rest of the morning and all afternoon. I didn’t have much more money than enough to keep me more than a week or so at this rate. I had left California with a splurge. ‘“SMUGGLER’S DAUGHTER ”—FIVE REELS. 67 “In New York I had no friends. I knew well enough that I was unknown to the trade. The thought of going around and waiting in other offices as I had waited that morning in the office of the Daguerre gave me chills and fever. If the Daguerre had kept me waiting among the misfits and the mavericks, I could well imagine the sort of welcome I was likely to get from the other companies. But I wasn’t goimg back to California—not after the send-off I had had from my friends out there. “About seven o’clock that evening the telephone bell rang, and some one was ask- ing if this was Mr. Moore. It was a wom- an’s voice. She was giving me an address ever on West Forty-third street, where some one wanted to see me. Then the wires got tangled or something, and we were “T didn’t get the name, but I had the ad- dress, all right. Some one had seen my name on the register. That was the way I figured it out. I was that mean and sad and homesick that I would have welcomed the attention of a yellow dog. “The address turned out to be that of a boarding-house. It was a theatrical board- ing-house of the very cheapest, dingiest kind. You know the sort—handkerchiefs ironed on the window-panes, beer by the bucket, sausage frizzled over the gas-jet, small-time people practising their turns on every floor. “It was the landlady who opened the door. I could tell it by her looks. They all look alike. “Tam Mr. Moore,’ I began. ** “Second-floor-front,’ she said; and that was all I got from her, ‘except a stare and a smell of cheap perfume. “The tenant of the second-floor-front was aman. I confess that that was the first thing I noticed; also that he was a perfect stranger; also that he was in his shirt sleeves and appeared to be busy with a lot of papers and things. ‘It was a second or two before he turned around, although he had told me to come in. He made up for his delay, though, the moment he did turn. He came striding toward me across the room with his hand out. “He was about my age. Only he looked run-down and overworked. He had a big mop of crinkly hair that stuck up straight from the top of his high forehead. Other- wise he was sort of bald. 1IOOOLK C@