Phantom Fingers
all dirty, all covered with the dust of years, and all forgotten.
Two or three years ago, however, the Humberts had a play called “The Leopard’s Spots” rehearsing there, preparatory to opening in that same theater. It was a good season in New York and every theater was occupied. There seemed no reason not to use the Grand, and indeed there was none. The acoustics were very nearly the best in New York, the lobby was spacious in the old manner, the house was very large and in case of a real success, would return much profit, and the only objection to it seemed to be that it was below Forty-second Street.
This lengthy preamble is necessary because I want you to have a pretty fair conception of the place where all this happened, that you may the better understand the subsequent events.
The rehearsals for “The Leopard’s Spots” went very well indeed. It was the first play in which Betty Sargent, a beautiful and talented young actress, was to be featured. The star was Augustin Arnold, one of the finest young romantic actors in the country, and the second act of the play was distinguished by as impassioned a love scene between the two as has ever been played on our stage. I know, because I saw it in rehearsal. The reason it was never given in full on the opening of the play, or thereafter, constitutes one of the jumping-off places for this curious chronicle.
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