Love and Learn (Witwer)/Chapter 2
A hundred and fifty years ago, the late Mr. Samuel Johnson yawned, picked up his pen, jabbed it in the nearest inkwell and dashed off the following nifty:
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money!"
Now, really, with plenty of due respect for the deceased, I'm compelled to remark that in my opinion the above wise crack is the ant's smoking jacket. I admit that I have yet to stumble across a writer who made it a habit never to take any doubloons for his stuff, but I do know a milk-fed author who says it with plays and who doesn't give a good gosh darn whether he gets pennies for 'em or not, as long as he gets his concoctions produced with his name on 'em. This entry, Guy Austin Tower, is an incurable addict of that habit-forming drug, Fame, and he'd rather have three cheers than three dollars. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that he's also a full-blooded millionaire and that does make a difference, now doesn't it?
Mr. Tower's first play is still running on Broadway and if it isn't a success then neither is Henry Ford. Getting a seat in Heaven and getting a seat in the show shop where Mr. Tower's riot is on view are two feats of equal difficulty, and judging by the lines outside the box office there's the same number of people trying to get into both places. I have a season pass—to the theater, not Heaven—and can go as oiten as I can stand it. That's very nice, but what I should be clicking off is a large slice of the weekly loot, because if it hadn't been for me there wouldn't have been any play!
At the time Mr. Tower crossed my path I had just finished reading a story entitled "When Knighthood Was in Flower" by Charles Major, and really Charley manipulated a wicked set of writing implements, no fooling! Often I'd close my eyes over that book at the switchboard and imagine I was living in the romantical days of old like the kind Charles wrote about and then I'd gaze around at the leering lounge lizards and smirking lobby hounds who jam the gorgeous corridors of the St. Moe—hunting in packs like the wolves they are!—and believe me, I'd come back to earth with a thump! Many and many a time I've wished I had been current when gleaming blades flashed in the sun for a lady's smile and when a perfumed glove, tossed from a balcony, was ample to start a revolution, a duel, an empire or a scandal. But now that's all as out of order as a suit of white ducks would be in a coal mine. These days, men start wars for dollars and fight for women with the same weapons!
Well, I was in this silly, sentimental frame of mind when along came Mr. Tower.
The meeting was very scenario. I overslept one morning and being afraid I'd be late at the mill I blew myself to a taxi. About halfway to the St. Moe, the motor quit like a dog and after my fearful looking chauffeur had leisurely pottered around it and tried without luck to start it with curses alone, I impatiently commanded him to get me another and less shopworn bus. Time and tide not only waits for no man, but it waits for no woman either and I was frantic to get on the job.
"Hey, quit that hollerin' at me!" says the chauffeur politely. "I'm doin' the best I kin, ain't I? I'll git you downtown in good time. They seems to be somethin' the matter with the carburetor, but I ain't sure if"
"You're a fine automobile mechanic!" I interrupt, with equal courtesy. "I bet you think a wrist pin is jewelry. It's taken you nearly fifteen minutes to go three miles!"
"Who d'ye wish to drive you for a buck and a half—Barney Oldfield?" he sneers.
"Listen!" I says. "Save that cross-fire patter for the garage. Call me a taxi with a motor in it and make it snappy!"
The chauffeur scowls at me.
"You certainly like to arg, don't you?" he says. "All right, I'll git you a cab. Gimme the one fifty what's on the clock for haulin' you this far."
I reached in my hand bag and then, honestly, I thought I'd swoon! In my mad rush to get out of my apartment and down to the hotel I had forgotten my purse—can you imagine that?
"I—it seems I have left my money at home," I began to stammer, my face as red as his ungainly nose. "If you"
"Apple sauce!" butts in this charming gentleman of the old school. "Don't try to kid me, cutey. That stuff might git you by in them out of town slabs, but I was born and dragged up on Second Avenoo and I have met you gyppers before! I wouldn't care if you was so good lookin' you'd make a goldfish forgit to keep openin' and closin' its mouth, I'm blonde-proof. You don't shove off from here till I git my jack and that's that!"
Well, an interested knot of innocent bystanders begins to rally round us and this modern Sir Galahad squawks his head off till, really, I never was so mortified since I first tried roller skating. I have met some hard-boiled citizens in tripping gaily along life's promenade, but Mr. Taxi Driver was a china egg if there ever was one! No give to him at all and the more I pleaded with him the more abusive he became and the more the shipping clerks, bootleggers, pickpockets and floorwalkers on their way to business seemed to enjoy it. Honestly, it was horrible!
At this critical moment along comes Mr. Guy Austin Tower, Esq., in his costly imported horseless carriage, built along racing lines to hold two people—if they're kind of affectionate friends. Mr. Tower leaps lightly and gracefully out of his car, shoulders his way to my taxi and raises his cap with the air of two Valentinos.
"As I live!" he remarks with a bright smile. "The Goddess of the Switchboard! May I be of service?"
Not even his mother will ever be any gladder to see him than I was right then! I remembered him instantly as my wealthy admirer who is parked in the royal suite on the tenth floor of the St. Moe—two hundred dollars the day, but then you get a lovely view of Central Park.
I made him a present of the smile that had no little to do with me winning that Utah beauty contest, and reading the immediate effect in his eyes I felt more at ease right away.
"Thank you!" I says. "I left my purse at home and"
"Blah!" the taxi apache shuts me off. "What d'ye wanna tell this cake-eater that stuff for? Ask him to slip you the buck and a half you owe me, he looks dizzy enough to fall for it!"
Mr. Tower certainly was light on his feet for a big man and he acted promptly, as all first-class knights do. His arm shot out from his shoulder and down flopped friend chauffeur as if he'd been shot through the heart! A round of applause went up from the delighted spectators, just as a burly policeman pushed his way through the throng.
The cop looks at me and I'm trembling with fear, he stares curiously at the prostrate chauffeur who won't be any more still when he's dead, he gazes around at the grinning witnesses, and then he turns to the flushed Mr. Tower, who's standing there blowing softly on his skinned knuckles.
"Hey, what's all the excitement here, heh?" growls the gendarme.
Mr. Tower smiles cheerfully and pats John Law on the arm.
"Eh—just taking a movie!" he says pleasantly.
"Move along and give these people a chanct to see what they're doin'!" bawls the cop to the laughing crowd as Mr. Tower hands me into his car with so much grace that I could close my eyes and see him standing there in silken doublet and hose and hear him say, "I prithee, fair lady, wouldst step in you equipage?"
I don't know what the name of Mr. Tower's car was, but I think it must have been a Leaping Tuna from the way it carried on when we hit bumps and crossings en route to the St. Moe. I promised to go to dinner with him at my earliest convenience, too, because by this time I was up to my neck in romance and I thought my millionaire cavalier was the gnat's bathrobe!
Enter Robert Meacham Westover, playwright number two.
Robert was writing dramas for such producers as the Shuberts, A. H. Woods, Dillingham, Savage, Brady, Morosco and Lederer. He wrote for them all, yet unfortunately none of them gave his plays a tumble. Like Mr. Tower, Robert was young and comely, but he was also an incurable pauper and the other girls on the board liked him and carbolic the same way. Really, he was a fearful pest, hanging around the switchboard all day and asking over and over again, "Are you sure there were no calls for me today?" or "There must have been a phone call for me—I have a play being considered by Klaw and Erlanger, and—" etc. But there were no more calls for Robert Meacham Westover than there are calls for hot water bags in Hades!
Personally, I was very sorry for Robert, who looked like he never had a good time in his life. Every day and in every way he kept getting thinner and thinner, till he resembled a model for a "Help the Starving Kanakas!" poster, or something similar, honestly! I knew he didn't have a dime in the wide wide world and I often wondered how he managed to live. I even had a hazy idea of taking him out and feeding him some day as a simple act of charity, but of course a girl has to be careful mothering strange young men in New York—or anywhere else, for that matter. Look at the jam Eve got herself into by feeding Adam that apple!
It was Jerry Murphy who made up my mind for me regarding Robert. One day Jerry loomed up over the board just as Robert Meacham Westover had walked away.
"What's 'at clown pesterin' you about now?" growls Jerry, jerking a pudgy thumb over his shoulder at Robert's threadbare back.
"Are you my father?" I says, haughtily working the plugs.
"No," admits Jerry, "but they's a movie by 'at name right across the street. Listen, has 'at guy Westover been annoyin' you?"
"No," I says. "You do all that! What right have you got to question me about my friends? Run along and play, when I wish your services I'll whistle. Go on, shoo—you're on a busy wire!"
"Somebody must of put in a rap for me," says Jerry mournfully. "Seems to me you're always busy when I give you a bell, but 'at Westover mug can buzz you all day long and make you like it! He's been tryin' to promote you now since"
"That's out!" I shut him off. "Don't get out of line, Jerry, or I won't let you talk to me at all. Besides, I don't believe Mr. Westover is even interested in women—he's too busy writing plays."
"Blah!" snorts Jerry scornfully. "Show me a guy which can't get no kick out of you and I'll show you a place in the East River where it's nothing but consommé! If 'at scissor-billed boloney ever tries to make a date with you I'll lay him like a carpet. I'm goin' to bear down on him anyways. He gets checked out of this trap tonight, or else"
"Or else he don't!" I finish for him. "Look here, Jerry, I don't need a guardian and if you ever start a disturbance around here on my account I'll make you so sorry you'll sob yourself sick! Understand?"
"Don't get red-headed," says Jerry soothingly. "I ain't goin' to cuff him, but I got orders to pinch him. Laugh that off!"
"Arrest Mr. Westover?" I says, and I'm so startled I gave two people their right numbers. "What for?"
"He's got a hobby of not payin' his rent," says Jerry. "The big stiff! So he writes plays, hey? Well, six months on the island ought to give him plenty ideas for his next comedy!"
Then I saw Jerry was serious, so I got serious, too. Somehow the idea of this starving kid being thrown in the Bastille didn't appeal to me. No matter what anybody says, I have never believed that a writer does his best work when the world's against him. Why, six months in a cell might ruin that boy's entire future and prevent the world from meeting another Avery Hopwood! So I manage to smile and flirt Jerry Murphy into keeping his hands off Robert Meacham Westover till I had interviewed the young man and got a line on where, if anywhere, he expected to turn for some pieces of eight.
That very night as I was going out to dinner I ran across Robert standing in front of the big plate glass window of the Café les Infants, watching the chef juggling wheat cakes. Some of the numbing chill of New York's regard for a loser has crept into the air itself and Robert's coat collar is turned up, his hands are in his pockets, and in his eyes, glued on the golden brown wheat cakes, is a look of longing such as probably Cleopatra saw when Mark Antony first gave her the up and down. Just saying it was pathetic is not doing the scene justice. He started, kind of guilty, when he pegged me, but I grabbed his arm.
"Greetings!" I says smilingly. "Speaking of Lake Erie, come on, I'm going to feed you!"
Yes, men can blush.
"Why—I—why—eh—really, I'm not hungry," he stammers, but how his eyes did glint at the mention of food! "I"
But by this time I have crowded him inside and seated him at a table, where his protests got weaker and weaker. One glance at the line of march and he simply ordered everything on it and a pot of coffee. However, he insisted upon paying for his dinner and mine—borrowing ten dollars from me for this worthy purpose. Robert carefully marked down the loan on the back of a letter rejecting one of his plays, with the solemn promise that when his first drama was accepted he would repay me about two thousand percent. Tomato sauce! I waited till he had finished giving his one man banquet a beating and then I took him in hand.
"What's the idea of storing yourself in the best hotel in Gotham when you have no visible and ap parently no invisible means of support?" I ask him, over the cheese and crackers.
Robert turns a rosy red.
"I imagine that must look a bit odd," he says. "But allow me to call your attention to the fact that I'm occupying the cheapest room in the—eh—hostelry, and I must have a good address to get even casual attention from the theatrical producers."
"Listen," I says quietly. "As long as you have failed to set the lake ablaze as a playwright, are in debt and have no more idea than a rabbit where you're going to promote any money, why not forget about the hard hearted theatrical producers and go to work?"
Robert's knife clatters to the table and his mouth opens wide. In his eyes is a look of genuine amazement. Then he smiles.
"You're joking," he says calmly.
I gaze at him, coolly sitting there eating the food I have paid for and grinning at the idea of earning his living, and honestly I get burnt up!
"You see something comical in the idea of getting a job?" I ask him, in a kind of strained voice.
"Naturally!" he answers, packing some more cheese on a cracker. "My dear girl, I wouldn't even know how to go about it! What would I do, for instance?"
"What would you do?" I says angrily. "Why, anything! Drive a truck, dig streets, sell books, learn a trade of some kind or enlist on the police force! Get up early in the morning, study the want ads and then lay out a route for yourself, taking the first job that's offered you! Why"
"I'm afraid you don't understand," butts in Robert, with coldly raised eyebrows. "I'm an artist—not a laborer!"
"I wouldn't brag about it!" I says. "Do you mean to say you have never done a day's work in your life?"
"I was at one time engaged in the work of bringing men's and women's attention to the fact that this life is not eternal—that death must come to us all!" says Robert. "And"
"You were a minister?" I interrupt, full of surprise.
"No," says Robert. "An insurance agent."
Well, we sat there and argued till I was plenty late when I went back to my board. Honestly, I rode Mr. Robert Meacham Westover to a fare-thee-well in an attempt to make him snap into it. He broke out with an attack of temperament and angry words flew back and forth like swallows, till finally he threw up his hands and promised me faithfully that if his latest masterpiece, "An Illegal Crime," wasn't accepted within a week he'd return to the respectable science of selling life insurance, as he was doing when what he called the "divine afflatus" knocked him for a loop.
The very next day Robert gave me a copy of "An Illegal Crime" to read and I took it home with me when I went off duty that night. I must admit I didn't expect to get much of a kick out of it, but I thought I'd at least glance through it, so that when Robert cross-examined me about this drama, I'd know how many acts was in it, if nothing else.
Well, really, I don't know when I got such a surprise! From the minute I started to read "An Illegal Crime" I simply couldn't lay it down, and it was nearly four a.m. when I turned out the light at the indignant request of Hazel Killian. I had read every word of Robert's play and some of it twice, and if it wasn't a knockout then I'm Queen of Sheba!
Two days later I kept, my dinner engagement with Guy Austin Tower.
If I'd been going to get married I couldn't have donated more time to dolling myself up than I did on the day of this date. The first thing I did was to phone Mr. Williams, manager of the St. Moe, another male who fancies himself highly. If I had a dollar for every time this dizzy dumbbell has tried to take me out, he'd never be in a position to invite me again! I told him I was sick and couldn't report and he says I should try Doc Cooey's system, because all ills are only imaginary. So I sweetly said that in that case he could imagine I was there and then I hung up. My next move is to drop in at a beauty parlor and let the skilled labor there have a field day. I had my hair waved, my nails done, my classic features massaged, sat for a troubled hour with my face caked in mud, etc., etc., and even etc. When I came out I was all in, but I was also a success!
I had exactly one evening gown. Buying it swept away my lifetime savings and made Hazel hysterical laughing at what she called my maniacal extravagance. I didn't consider getting this dear of a dress was extravagance! Looking at it, wearing it, even touching it, gave me more joy than I can tell you. I just loved it. If I had a million dollars I'd have $975,000 worth of clothes! This one was pink satin covered with crystals, wrapped tightly around the figure towards the front, where the draperies fastened with large ornaments of silver leaves and buds. It was a rather daring gown and not everybody could wear it, but I didn't win that beauty contest because the judges were nearsighted!
Mr. Tower called for me at seven and the look he gave me as his face changed color when I opened the door repaid me with illegal interest for my preparations. In dinner clothes, he was very restful to the eye himself. In fact, the openly envious Hazel thought my knight had stepped right off the screen and she told me later she got such a reaction that she deliberately broke a date with a boy poet from Greenwich Village and went out with a dashing young peddler of automobiles instead, simply because the latter sheik had a pleasing habit of wearing a tuxedo of nights.
Well, Mr. Tower and I had dinner at Jonquin's, the Polo Grounds of the restaurant league, and he seemed as proud of me as if he'd won me at golf. We talked about this and we talked about that and then, of course, the conversation got personal. I soon found out that Mr. Tower, who had nothing but money, was as temperamental as Mr. Westover, who had nothing but nerve. My millionaire is dissatisfied with things in general. Although his father left him about everything but South Dakota when he died, Mr. Tower says he wants to make good—that is, he craves fame. A moment afterwards when he confesses that he's an author and playwright, I nearly choked.
"What's the matter?" he asks me anxiously.
"Nothing," I says. "I—well, I seem to be in the midst of an epidemic of writers! I had dinner with one only the other day, Robert Meacham Westover. He lives at the St. Moe, too—do you know him?"
"No, I don't believe I do," says Mr. Tower thoughtfully. "But if his plays have been produced, I envy him!"
"Save your envy," I says. "What plays have you had produced, Mr. Tower?"
I started something.
"None!" he says, banging the table with his fist. "And I or any other unknown playwright never will have his work produced while conditions in the theatrical business remain as they are. Genius is strangled, sacrificed to the god of the box office! Originality is penalized and becomes a serious handicap—art is symbolized by the lady on the face of the dollar!"
"In other words, it's all wrong," I says, feeling I should say something.
"Exactly," says Mr. Tower. "How quick you are to grasp one's meaning and how wonderfully sympathetic!"
"It's a gift!" I says demurely. "Like being able to wiggle your ears or play the oboe."
"By Jove, that's clever!" says Mr. Tower. "I shall put that in my next story. Have I your permission?"
"Go right ahead," I says. "Don't hesitate to call on me at any time. So you write stories, too? I suppose you're what they call ambidextrous, aren't you?"
Mr. Tower throws back his head and laughs like a kid.
"Now you're joshing me!" he says, wagging a reproachful finger at me. "Write stories? My dear girl, under various nom de plumes I have submitted verse, essays, short and long stories, jokes, epigrams, plays and what not to producers and publishers, but thus far I have failed to ring the bell. I have been told by competent authorities that my style and technic—the result of much study and training—leave nothing to be desired, but it appears that I lack that unusual imagination necessary to invent new and interesting plots. Perhaps that is because I have not seen enough of life in the raw—I have never actually experienced hunger, fear, envy; in fact, few, if any, of the standard emotions. There has been no necessity for me to feel them. My infernal wealth has been fatal to inspiration! Yet, by heaven, I can write, and some day I"
"But with all your money, Mr. Tower," I interrupt, "why not rent a theater and produce one of your own plays yourself, since all you really want is to see it on Broadway?"
"Yes, I could do that," he tells me, "but that is not my desire. I want my work accepted by a disinterested producer, on its merits!"
"Fair enough!" I says, foiling a yawn in my throat. "Isn't that waltz they're playing delightful?"
Well, money had not prevented Mr. Tower from solving the mysteries of dancing, and really he glided a wicked ballroom. While we're tripping the light fantastic, as they call it on Avenue A, I can't seem to keep my mind off this queer situation in which the millionaire Mr. Tower and the starving Mr. Westover play the leading parts. The thing interests me strangely, and having helped a prize fighter solve a similar problem, I can't see why I should be baffled by a couple of synthetic playwrights. Then in a flash the answer comes to me! I will have Mr. Tower buy "An Illegal Crime," which will put Mr. Westover on his feet and give him a stake for coffee and cakes while he writes other gems. In turn, Mr. Tower through his influence can have Mr. Westover's play produced under his own name and in that way gather the fame he craves, because I'm satisfied "An Illegal Crime" will slap Broadway for a row of parsley!
I'm so excited over my idea that I talk of nothing else to Mr. Tower all the way home in his car—this time it's a Boles-Joyce limousine, carrying a crew of two on the front seat. When we reached my bower, I ran up and got my copy of "An Illegal Crime" and gave it to Mr. Tower to read, together with my proposition to think over. He was very doubtful and far from sold on the idea. In fact, he seemed much more interested in getting a rough estimate from me on when he could play around with me again. I said let's get his future all fixed up and we'd speak of recreation later. He then told me I was wonderful and I told him good night.
The very first thing the next morning Mr. Tower called me on the switchboard and he's the height of enthusiasm over both "An Illegal Crime" and the idea of buying it from Mr. Westover. Could I arrange a meeting? I said of course I could—and then it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn't yet mentioned a word of my scheme to Mr. Westover.
At first the highly astonished Robert couldn't see my proposition with a telescope and he most indignantly refused to have anything to do with it. What, allow his brain child to appear as the progeny of another? Never! He barked and meowed along these lines till I called his attention to the fact that he was broke, in debt, on the brink of being streeted from the St. Moe and had a six months' vacation in the hoosegow staring him in the face for not being able to pay his hotel bill. This made Robert thoughtful and he finally agreed with me that he who writes and makes it pay will live to write another play. He insisted, however, that he wouldn't take a nickel less than a thousand dollars for "An Illegal Crime." When Mr. Tower offered him $7500 cash for it Robert nearly swooned, but he recovered in time to gurgle "Sold!" Then the gambling millionaire starts the rounds with the play.
Well, where poor Robert Meacham Westover had to be content with interviewing office boys and having stenographers pass on his play when he was peddling it, Mr. Tower was ushered right in to see the big theatrical moguls themselves. There's only one place on earth where a man who is able to write a check for a million and get it cashed can't get attention and that place is called Nowhere. Sidney Rosenblum, the first producer Mr. Tower called on, looked greatly disappointed when the young money king declined to put up the sugar to produce the play or even to go fifty-fifty on it. Still, out of respect to Mr. Tower's bankroll, Rosenblum glanced carelessly over "An Illegal Crime." Mr. Tower told me afterwards that before Rosenblum had finished reading the first act he rang for his secretary and asked her to break out a contract!
Six weeks later the play was produced with Mr. Tower's name on it as author, and to the hysterical joy of Mr. Tower, me and Rosenblum, it turned out to be the success of the year. The critics went crazy and point-blankly accused Mr. Tower of having wrote the great American play. Honestly he was interviewed silly and his picture was plastered all over the papers—in other words, he was famous and his lifelong ambition was realized.
Then along comes the fly in the ointment and the fly's name was Robert Meacham Westover, the real author of "An Illegal Crime." When Robert sees what a knockout his drama has turned out to be and realizes that he has sold all his rights in it, he's fit to be tied, no fooling! He made quite a scene at the switchboard, blaming me as all men since the first one blame the woman when anything goes wrong!
"I worked the best part of a year on that play," he almost sobs to me. "I starved and slaved in composing it, and now, by heaven, I have to buy tickets to see my masterpiece, with another's name on it as its author! It's driving me insane!'
"Well, why didn't you think of that when you sold your frolic?" I says, but I'm really a bit upset myself. "You took seventy-five hundred dollars for it and Mr. Tower took all the chances. Suppose it had been a flop, would you have given him back his money?"
"I'll give him back his paltry seventy-five hundred now!" raves Robert. "Why, 'An Illegal Crime' will make that in royalties within a few weeks. I'll make him take back his gold and return my play! It's my greatest effort and I demand the fame and prestige it will give me and which is my right. Oh, whatever possessed me to enter into such an indecent, immoral bargain—to sell the child of my brain! I may never again compose such a plot. I'll have to start all over again. I"
"Be still!" I butt in. "You got everybody in the lobby looking at you! As long as I started this, I'll try and finish it. I'll talk this over with Mr. Tower today. Remember, I promise nothing, but I'll do my best!"
"Straighten this out and you will never regret it," says Robert frantically. "My career now rests in your pretty hands!"
Well, honestly, I was very sorry for Robert and the more I turned matters over in my troubled mind the more I began to see some justice in his stand. After all, it was his play that New York was wild over and it must have been horrible to have to see someone else get the credit. I hated myself for getting mixed up in his affairs at all, even though what I did was only done to help him. Then there was Mr. Tower's side to be considered, too. Hadn't he gambled his seventy-five hundred—just seven and a half times what Robert asked for "An Illegal Crime"? Mr. Tower had no way of knowing that the play would get over.
I just couldn't stand thinking about it any longer, so I went right to Mr. Tower and presented the case of Robert Meacham Westover to him. Mr. Tower, joyful as a lark, was busy autographing his pictures, dictating letters to admirers, signing contracts for movie rights and Lord knows what else. He was busier than Busy himself, and sitting pretty, and I just hated to be a crape-hanger!
Mr. Tower was smiling happily when I began my story, after he had told his secretary to step out, but before I got half finished he was pacing the floor and the smile was conspicuous by its absence. To say it was a shock would be a niggardly use of adjectives! He never expected anything like this to gum up his fun.
"This is terrible—terrible!" he says finally. "I bought all rights to the infernal play from Westover, didn't I? Any court in the land will sustain my position. I'll give him all the royalties! I have no use for the money, I only want"
"You only want the same thing Mr. Westover wants," I interrupt. "That's credit for writing the play! There's no use offering him money either, Mr. Tower, I know he wouldn't accept it, and of course if he sued you and won, he'd get all the royalties anyhow. He could have me dragged to court for a witness—and I'd have to tell the truth, wouldn't I?"
Again Mr. Tower nervously patrols the room. "Well, what shall I do—what would you do?" he asks me desperately.
"Mr. Tower," I says seriously, "if you're a real man, a true knight, such as I like to think you are, here's the chance of a lifetime to show your bigness, and you'll jump at it! There's only one thing to do and that's the honorable thing. Take back your money from Mr. Westover and we'll both make an affidavit that he, not you, wrote 'An Illegal Crime'."
Mr. Tower gave me a long, long look and I returned it, putting everything I had in my eyes. "It will please you if I do this?" he asks me soulfully.
"Very much," I answered promptly. "And it should please you, too!"
With a deep sigh Mr. Tower became a knight. He called in his secretary and dictated a statement that caused the dumbfounded secretary's eyes to bulge. Then we got Mr. Westover, stopped at a notary public, and we all wrote our names on the dotted line. Mr. Westover signed with a flourish, but Mr. Tower's signature was shaky. Our next port of call was Sidney Rosenblum.
It goes without saying that Rosenblum was dazed when we had told him our little bedtime story, but he wasn't so dazed that he forgot to get his press agent busy on this new and sensational angle to the production of the play. There was little else in the newspapers the next morning, and, yes, my picture was there with the others. The thing burst like a bombshell on Broadway and the avalanche of publicity started "An Illegal Crime" on a two-year run on the Big Street alone. Robert Meacham Westover was made for life, of course. Why, he and this Rosenblum got $80,000 for the movie rights! I could have entered the chorus of any musical show on Broadway as the result of my photos being incessantly printed and the general notoriety I drew out of it, and even Mr. Tower got the best of the big exposure. He was highly praised for his sportsmanship in acting like he did, when he was legally entitled to claim authorship of the play.
Well, success brought about a great change in Robert Meacham Westover, the boy playwright. It went right to his head, where there was the most room! He moved from his cupboard under the roof to a classy suite in the most expensive part of the St. Moe and stalked through the lobby like he'd suddenly been appointed Duke of Diphtheria, or something. Instead of pestering me and the other girls about his imaginary phone calls as he did in days of yore, he now refused to talk to anybody over the phone.
However, he was grateful enough to me, who he swore put him over. He wanted me to go here and he wanted me to go there with him, but I couldn't use him and was ready and anxious to let him pass out of my life. Robert was too much in love with himself to really love anyone else, and when he asked me would I consider marrying him I told him I was afraid I couldn't get off duty to go to the church and they wouldn't stand for a wedding in the lobby.
"But I don't object to taking back the ten dollars I loaned you before you became the talk of New York," I says.
"Oh—I beg your pardon!" he stammers, getting red, and why shouldn't he? "I—I'd forgotten all about that—rushed to death—working on my new play, you know—that sort of thing"
He pulls out a roll of bills that would strangle a hippo and makes a big display in the crowded lobby by thumbing them over a couple of times before counting me out a hundred dollars in ten-dollar bills. He let everybody see him handing me that money—and that's the tip-off on him!
I took one ten and coldly told him to keep the rest for writing materials.
Guy Austin Tower rushed up to the switchboard a few days later to excitedly announce that he'd been commissioned to write a play by no less than Sidney Rosenblum himself. Rosenblum had sent for Mr. Tower and told him he saw no good reason why the publicity he'd just enjoyed shouldn't be made use of. He then made Mr. Tower repeat all the circumstances connected with the authorship of "An Illegal Crime." When my boy friend got finished with the sad tale, Rosenblum puffed thoughtfully at his cigar for a minute or two and remarked that in his opinion the story of how Mr. Tower had bought Mr. Westover's drama and then given it back to him would make a corking play itself!
Well, with a plot at last to mix with his fine writing, Mr. Tower tied in enthusiastically and wrote the play.
It opened six months ago—try to get in!