Actors and actresses -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Theater -- Fiction
“Some managers will allow married couples in their companies,” Potter
said, adding emphatically: “I won't! I never have and I never will!
Never! There's just one thing every soul in my support has got to keep
working for, and that is a high-tension performance every night in the
year. If married people are in love with each other, they're going to
think more about that than about the fact that they're working for me.
If they aren't in love with each other, there's the devil to pay. I'd
let the best man or woman in the profession go--and they could go to
vaudeville, for all I cared!--if I had to keep their wives or husbands
travelling with us. I won't have 'em! My soul! I don't marry, do I?”
Packer rose. “Is there anything else for me, Mr. Potter?”
“Yes. Take this interlined script, get some copies typewritten, and see
that the company's sides are changed to suit it. Be especially careful
about that young Miss--ah--Miss Malone's. You'll find her part is
altered considerably, and will be even more, when Mr. Canby gets the
dialogue for other changes finished. He'll let you have them to-morrow.
By the way, Packer, where did you find--” He paused, stretched out his
hand to the miniature sedan chair of liqueurs, took a decanter and tiny
glass therefrom, and carefully poured himself a sparkling emerald of
creme de menthe. “Will you have something, Mr. Canby?” he asked. “You,
Tinker?”
Both declined in silence; they seemed preoccupied.
“Where did I what, Mr. Potter?” asked the stage-manager, reminding him
of the question left unfinished.
“What?”
“You said: 'By the way, where did you find--'”
“Oh, yes.” Potter smiled negligently. “Where did you find that little
Miss Malone? At the agents'?”
Packer echoed him: “Where did I find her?” He scratched his head.
“Miss”--he said ruminatively, repeating the word slowly, like a man
trying to work out the solution of a puzzle--“Miss--”
“Miss Malone. I suppose you got her at an agent's?”
“Let's see,” said Packer. “At an agent's? No. No, it wasn't. Come to
think of it, it wasn't.”
“Then where did you get her?” Tinker inquired.
“That's what I just asked him,” Potter said, placing his glass upon a
table without having tasted the liqueur. “What's the matter, Packer?
Gone to sleep?”
“I remember now,” said Packer, laughing deferentially. “Of course! No.
It wasn't through any of the agents. Now I remember--come to think of
it--I sort of ran across her myself, as a matter of fact. I wasn't just
sure who you meant at first. You mean the understudy, the one that's
to play Miss Lyston's part, that Miss--Miss--” He snapped a finger and
thumb to spur memory and then, as in triumphant solution of his puzzle,
cried, “Ma--Malone! Miss Malone!”
“Yes,” said Potter, looking upon him darkly. “Where did you sort of run
across her, come to think of it, as a matter of fact?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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