The Voice of the City: Further Stories of the Four MillionHenry, O.
Philosophy
The Voice of the City: Further Stories of the Four Million
Henry, O.
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
"My boy," said Goldstein, "take the part if you can get it. Miss
Carrington won't listen to any of my suggestions. She has turned down
half a dozen of the best imitators of the rural dub in the city. She
declares she won't set a foot on the stage unless 'Haytosser' is the
best that can be raked up. She was raised in a village, you know, and
when a Broadway orchid sticks a straw in his hair and tries to call
himself a clover blossom she's on, all right. I asked her, in a
sarcastic vein, if she thought Denman Thompson would make any kind
of a show in the part. 'Oh, no,' says she. 'I don't want him or John
Drew or Jim Corbett or any of these swell actors that don't know a
turnip from a turnstile. I want the real article.' So, my boy, if
you want to play 'Sol Haytosser' you will have to convince Miss
Carrington. Luck be with you."
Highsmith took the train the next day for Cranberry Corners. He
remained in that forsaken and inanimate village three days. He found
the Boggs family and corkscrewed their history unto the third and
fourth generation. He amassed the facts and the local color of
Cranberry Corners. The village had not grown as rapidly as had Miss
Carrington. The actor estimated that it had suffered as few actual
changes since the departure of its solitary follower of Thespis as
had a stage upon which "four years is supposed to have elapsed." He
absorbed Cranberry Corners and returned to the city of chameleon
changes.
It was in the rathskeller that Highsmith made the hit of his
histrionic career. There is no need to name the place; there is but
one rathskeller where you could hope to find Miss Posie Carrington
after a performance of "The King's Bath-Robe."
There was a jolly small party at one of the tables that drew many
eyes. Miss Carrington, petite, marvellous, bubbling, electric,
fame-drunken, shall be named first. Herr Goldstein follows, sonorous,
curly-haired, heavy, a trifle anxious, as some bear that had caught,
somehow, a butterfly in his claws. Next, a man condemned to a
newspaper, sad, courted, armed, analyzing for press agent's dross
every sentence that was poured over him, eating his à la Newburg in
the silence of greatness. To conclude, a youth with parted hair, a
name that is ochre to red journals and gold on the back of a supper
check. These sat at a table while the musicians played, while waiters
moved in the mazy performance of their duties with their backs toward
all who desired their service, and all was bizarre and merry because
it was nine feet below the level of the sidewalk.
At 11.45 a being entered the rathskeller. The first violin
perceptibly flatted a C that should have been natural; the
clarionet blew a bubble instead of a grace note; Miss Carrington
giggled and the youth with parted hair swallowed an olive seed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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