Chapter 3

It is said that the late Ward McAllister shrank with peculiar distaste from the vulgarity of divorce. If so he is to be congratulated on passing away before the publication of his niece's domestic misfits. Mrs. Young is appallingly frank concerning her wrongs and the suit threatens to be spicy; although so far, the name of the actress corespondent has not been given to the press. It was good of Mr. McAllister to attempt that separation of wheat from chaff which at one time rendered his verdicts of such dread power among social aspirants; it may be the irony of mockery that to-day his family are conspicuous upon only two points. One relative goes clamorously into the divorce court while another wins celebration by the showy style of a bodice.

* * * * *

The gossip who predicted that the wife of the French ambassador would decline to be received by the Countess Cassini must content herself as best she may with the development of some lesser scandal, for certainly this last effort has met refutation. Mme. Cambon dined at the Russian embassy like the diplomatic woman that she is.

* * * * *

The visit of Miss Roosevelt to Cuba is said to have been more or less of a failure speaking from a Latin standpoint. Miss Roosevelt did not "take" with the Cuban element. She is uncompromisingly Anglo-Saxon and lacks that pliability which would endear her to the children of another race. Cuban women excel in charm of mannerism and in their eyes Miss Roosevelt appears unpolished and uncut. We may like her better as she is, but it is safe to say that had she but a few added years of experience there would have been a more gracious outcome to her trip. Miss Roosevelt Scovel was recently dining at Sherry's. She wore an exquisite white frock but is not herself a pretty girl though her grace uplifts somewhat her mediocrity of appearance.

* * * * *

It is the province of brides to be as bedecked as circumstances permit. Why then does Mrs. Depew automobile about Washington in a miserable machine that most people would refuse to be seen in? Is it humility? It is not gallant in Chauncey to permit the lady to appear in such an antiquated rattletrap. In appearance she is a plain woman; sensible, gracious and nice. Her position is a trying one which she supports with tact. So far she has been guilty of no error of taste and her manner with her husband is pleasant without bearing a trace of that silliness which the Senator's great age encouraged Washington to expect. No one has yet enjoyed any spiteful fun at Mrs. Depew's expense though many were on the _qui vive_ for entertainment.

* * * * *

Idlehours has been duly garnished for the return of the master, who loves this home better than the gray pile which represents the best architectural type on Fifth Avenue. Mr. Vanderbilt is modestly conscious of the prestige wrested from Fournier, and is a cheering illustration of the soundness of open-air enjoyment.

* * * * *

How often have we read of the monthly ten thousand dollars which our ambassador will lavish upon Brook House! In justice to Mr. Reid it must be owned that he is simplicity itself, and by no one is it supposed that either he or Mrs. Reid have part in the publication of these details. He showed wisdom in a preference for his own household over the proffered royal quarters which would have been assigned him. He is chosen for his fitness, but were he the veriest clod the dignity of his position would still carry with it a sufficient measure of respect. Our desire to embellish its importance is absurd, and the hysteria of the dailies is calculated to place a dignified gentleman in a ridiculous light. Mrs. Reid's name and cultivation will doubtless enable her to support a monotonous role with grace; but, in consideration of British proficiency in matters ceremonial, their money will not be called upon to add a jot to the dignity of their reception. Their early departure has not prevented the opening of their country place, Ophir Hall, in the vicinity of White Plains, while their neighbor, Colonel Astor, has long been established at Ferncliffe.

* * * * *

Miss Nannie Leiter, of studious renown, is visiting Chicago in the company of her father. Mamma Leiter plans a garden party in compliment to Ambassador and Madame Cambon, while brother Joseph courts fame from the arena of Buffalo Bill; but for a clear space of a day or two we have learned naught of Daisy of the violet orbs. They are the loveliest eyes in Washington, by contrast with which the commoner grays and blues appeal to the enamoured diplomats but as so many soulless pebbles.

* * * * *

From London wafts the rumor that Alexandra, pleading a dread of copy-designing peeresses, guards with jealous vigilance the secret of her coronation crown, and gossip adds that she fears to have it duplicated by some enterprising American. It is doubtful if the peculiar humor of the British populace would allow of a full appreciation of this joke. Years and etiquette combined have led her Majesty to the thraldom of the rouge and enamel pot. Like the sensible woman that she is she attempts no concealment of the fact that she protects herself from becoming hideous by the employment of three maids whose duty it is to successively undertake the embellishment of the royal countenance. By means of this relief no one of these women loses her delicacy of eye and touch, and Alexandra blooms with the rosy softness of a girl.

* * * * *

The papers seem to be woefully wrought up over the financial rating of Mr. Harry Lehr. Whether he is or whether he is not a wine boomer would not ordinarily be a query of agitating importance. Nor yet is the exact proportion of his yearly salary of national interest. No one ever accused this agile gentleman of setting up for a millionaire while his ingenuousness touching his wife's property is disconcerting in its frankness.

* * * * *

Now that Tom Reed is settled in New York one wonders somewhat that one hears so little of his family. They are to be congratulated on their breeding, for with his prominence to back them they would find notoriety an easy plum. A gentleman called at Mr. Reed's office a day or two ago to ask for an autograph letter on the plea that he had in his possession one of each of the speakers, and wound up his request with the half joking query of "You are a great man, are you not, Mr. Reed?" "No," said the rotund Tom in his big-voiced drawl, "No, but I am a good man."

BETTY STAIR.

=The Play=

If it be true that the future is revealed in the past, then should there be something in the dramatic season which is dead to indicate the character of the season not yet born. By the straws of public approval is the course of the dramatic current determined by those master mariners of the stage, the managers of theatres. The late season has left no great store of such buoys to mark the fair channel to success. Of such as there are, the purport is not altogether convincing.

To record that "Du Barry" and "Beauty and the Beast" are notable successes is but to record that the public, as ever, is attracted by display of rich vestments and spectacular effect. Such straws indicate nothing more than that a Circus or a Wild West Show will seduce to Madison Square Garden an audience that would fill a theatre for a month.

Mr. Hawtrey's triumph at the Garrick Theatre is as little of a guide to popular opinion as was Anna Held's or Weber and Fields'. No manager in his senses would suggest that because Mr. Hawtrey succeeded with "A Message from Mars," the public are prepared to support a series of like Christmas ghost stories. It was the novelty that took, and the personality of a refreshingly non-American actor.

For myself I would seek the trend of public opinion in a very different group of plays; in a batch that did not chronicle one single great success, but each of which received a fair meed of popular support. I refer to such plays as "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," "A Modern Magdalen," and "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." In such plays lies the modern tragedy. They are addressed to the times, actual, intelligible.

But such as held the New York stage in the past season were timorously constructed, bowdlerized by stage managers and, for the most part, poorly acted. Two of the three I have indicated are plays many seasons old. The greatest of these is "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray," interpreted for us by the greatest actress who ever essayed the part. It indicated a development I believe to be still in its infancy--a development that was arrested before it had been weaned from its first timid suckling.

The public does not desire the problem play. It demands a play that will end with a curtain definite, convincing. But in the problem plays of the past it finds the material it fain would see applied to a bolder, unequivocal purpose. In the eight years that have elapsed since the production of Pinero's "Tanqueray," the public's stomach has been strengthened. It is able to digest tragedies in drawing rooms. It no longer requires peptonized drama. The playgoer no longer demands whatever of primal passion is presented to him to be dressed in doublet and hose. He can accept plain truths in the speech of the day, villains and heroines in the costume of the clubs and Fifth Avenue.

The great play of the future must be a play of the times, must deal with the real things of life, must balk at no expression of modern tendencies, must reveal the skeleton in the twentieth century cupboard.

The days of the historical romance are happily ended. Such milk and water diet is food not fit for men. The new dramatist must provide us with strong meat, properly served by players of intelligence and insight, if dramatic art is to be rescued from the slough into which it has so miserably sunk. The question is: Can America produce a writer of sufficient originality, a manager of sufficient courage, an actor of sufficient understanding to give the public what it asks?

If such there be, their names are not Clyde Fitch or David Belasco, Charles Frohman or Daniel Frohman, Richard Mansfield or Amelia Bingham.

JAQUES.

=Artistic Disarray=

A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness;-- A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction-- An erring lace which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher,-- A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbands to flow confusedly,-- A winning wave deserving note, In the tempestuous petticoat,-- A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility,-- Do more bewitch me, than when art Is too precise in every part.

--Robert Herrick.

=Tavern Series=

That Smuggled Silk

By THE OLD LOBBYIST

Should your curiosity invite it, and the more since I promised you the story, we will now, my children, go about the telling of that one operation in underground silk. It is not calculated to foster the pride of an old man to plunge into a relation of dubious doings of his youth. And yet, as I look backward on that one bit of smuggling of which I was guilty, so far as motive was involved, I exonerate myself. I looked on the government, because of the South's conquest by the North, and that later ruin of myself through the machinations of the Revenue office, as both a political and a personal foe. And I felt, not alone morally free, but was impelled besides in what I deemed a spirit of justice to myself, to wage war against it as best I might. It was on such argument, where the chance proffered, that I sought wealth as a smuggler. I would deplete the government--forage, as it were, on the enemy--thereby to fatten my purse. Of course, as my hair has whitened with the sifting frosts of years, I confess that my sophistries of smuggling seem less and less plausible, while smuggling itself loses whatever of romantic glamour it may have been invested with or what little color of respect to which it might seem able to lay claim.

This tale shall be told in simplest periods. That is as should be; for expression should ever be meek and subjugated when one's story is the mere story of a cheat. There is scant room in such recital for heroic phrase. Smuggling, and paint it with what genius one may, can be nothing save a skulking, hiding, fear-eaten trade. There is nothing about it of bravery or dash. How therefore, and avoid laughter, may one wax stately in any telling of its ignoble details?

When, following my unfortunate crash in tobacco, I had cleared away the last fragment of the confusion that reigned in my affairs, I was driven to give my nerves a respite and seek a rest. For three months I had been under severest stress. When the funeral was done--for funeral it seemed to me--and my tobacco enterprise and those hopes it had so flattered were forever laid at rest, my nerves sank exhausted and my brain was in a whirl. I could neither think with clearness nor plan with accuracy. Moreover, I was prey to that depression and lack of confidence in myself, which come inevitably as the corollary of utter weariness.

Aware of this personal condition, I put aside thought of any present formulation of a future. I would rest, recover poise, and win back that optimism that belongs with health and youth. This was wisdom; I was jaded beyond belief; and fatigue means dejection, and dejection spells pessimism, and pessimism is never sagacious nor excellent in any of its programmes.

For that rawness of the nerves I speak of, many apply themselves to drink; some rush to drugs; for myself, I take to music. It was midwinter, and grand opera was here. This was fortunate. I buried myself in a box, and opened my very pores to those nerve-healthful harmonies. In a week thereafter I might call myself recovered. My soul was cool, my eye bright, my mind clear and sensibly elate. Life and its promises seemed mightily refreshed.

No one has ever called me superstitious, and yet to begin my course-charting for a new career, I harked back to the old Astor House. It was there that brilliant thought of tobacco overtook me two years before. Perhaps an inspiration was to dwell in an environment. Again I registered, and finding it tenantless, took over again my old room.

Still I cannot say, and it is to that hostelry's credit, that my domicile at the Astor aided me to my smuggling resolves. Those last had growth somewhat in this fashion: I had dawdled for two hours over coffee in the cafe--the room and the employment which had one-time brought me fortune--but was incapable of any thought of value. I could decide on nothing good. Indeed, I did naught save mentally curse those Washington revenue miscreants who, failing of blackmail, had destroyed me for revenge.

Whatever comfort may lurk in curses, at least they carry no money profit; so after a fruitless session over coffee and maledictions, I arose, and as a calmative, walked down Broadway. At Trinity churchyard, the gates being open, I turned in and began ramblingly to twine and twist among the graves. There I encountered a garrulous old man who, for his own pleasure, evidently, devoted himself to my information. He pointed out the grave of Fulton, he of the steamboats; then I was shown the tomb of that Lawrence who would "never give up the ship"; from there I was carried to the last low bed of the love-wrecked beautiful Charlotte Temple.

My eye at last, by the alluring voice and finger of the old guide, was drawn to a spot under the tower where sleeps the Lady Cornbury, dead now as I tell this, hardly two hundred years. Also I was told of that Lord Cornbury, her husband, once governor of the colony for his relative, Queen Anne; and how he became so much more efficient as a smuggler and a customs cheat, than ever he was as an executive, that he lost in 1708 his high employment.

Because I had nothing more worthy to occupy my leisure, I listened--somewhat listlessly, I promise you, for after all I was thinking of the future not the past, and considering of the living rather than those old dead folk, obscure, forgotten in their slim graves--I listened, I say, wordlessly to my gray historian; and somehow, after I was free of him, the one thing that remained alive in my memory was the smuggling story of our Viscount Cornbury.

Among those few acquaintances I had formed during my brief prosperity, was one with a gentleman named Harris, who had owned apartments under mine on Twenty-second Street. Harris was elegant, educated, traveled, and apparently well-to-do in riches. Busy with my own mounting fortunes, the questions of who Harris was? and what he did? and how he lived? never rapped at the door of my curiosity for reply. One night, however, as we sat over a late and by no means a first bottle of wine, Harris himself informed me that he was employed in smuggling; had a partner-accomplice in the Customs House, and perfect arrangements aboard a certain ship. By these last double advantages, he came aboard with twenty trunks, if he so pleased, without risking anything from the inquisitiveness or loquacity of the officers of the ship; and later debarked at New York with the certainty of going scatheless through the customs as rapidly as his Inspector partner could chalk scrawlingly "O.K." upon his sundry pieces of baggage.

Coming from Old Trinity, still mooting Cornbury and his smugglings, my thoughts turned to Harris. Also, for the earliest time, I began to consider within myself whether smuggling was not a field of business wherein a pushing man might grow and reap a harvest. The idea came to me to turn "free-trader." The government had destroyed me; I would make reprisal. I would give my hand to smuggling and spoil the Egyptian.

At once I sought Harris and over a glass of Burgundy--ever a favorite wine with me--we struck agreement. As a finale, we each put in fifteen thousand dollars and with the whole sum of thirty thousand dollars Harris pushed forth for Europe while I remained behind. Harris visited Lyons; and our complete investment was in a choicest sort of Lyons silk. The rich fabrics were packed in a dozen trunks--not all alike, these trunks, but differing, one from another, so as to prevent the notion as they stood about the wharf that there was aught of relationship between them or that one man stood owner of them all.

It is not needed to tell of my partner's voyage of return. It was without event and one may safely abandon it, leaving its relation to Harris himself, if he be yet alive and should the spirit him so move. It is enough for the present purpose that in due time the trunks holding our precious silk-bolts, with Harris as their convoy, arrived safe in New York. I had been looking for the boat's coming and was waiting eagerly on the wharf as her lines and her stagings were run ashore. Our partner, the Inspector, and who was to enjoy a per cent of the profits of the speculation, was named Lorns. He rapidly chalked "O.K." with his name affixed to the end of each several trunk, and it thereupon with the balance of inspected baggage was promptly piled upon the wharf.

There had been a demand for drays, I remember, and on this day when our silks came in, I was able to procure but one. The ship did not dock until late in the afternoon, and at eight o'clock of a dark, foggy April evening, there still remained one of our trunks--the largest of all, it was--on the wharf. The dray had departed with the second load for that concealing loft on Reade Street which, in Harris' absence, I had taken to be used as the depot of those smuggling operations wherein we might become engaged. I had made every move with caution; I had never employed our real names, not even with the drayman.

As I was telling, the dray was engaged about the second trip. This last large silk-trunk was left behind perforce; pile it how one might, there had been no safe room for it on the already overloaded dray. The drayman had promised to return and have it safely in our loft that night.

For myself, I was from first to last lounging about the wharf, overseeing the going away of our goods. Harris, so soon as I gave him key and street-number had posted to Reade Street to attend the silk's reception. Waiting for the coming back of the conveying dray was but a slow, dull business, and I was impatiently, at the hour I've named, walking up and down, casting an occasional glance at the big last trunk where it stood on end, a bit drawn out and separated from that common mountain of baggage wherewith the wharf was piled. One of the general inspectors, a man I had never seen but whom I knew, by virtue of his rank, to be superior to our chalk-wielding coparcener, Lorns, also paced the wharf and appeared to bear me company in a distant, non-communicative way. This customs captain and myself, save for an under inspector named Quin, had the dock to ourselves. The boat was long in and most land folk had gotten through their concern with her and wended homeward long before. There were, however, many passengers of emigrant sort still held aboard the ship.

As I marched up and down, Lorns came ashore and pretended some business with his superior officer. As he returned to the ship and what duties he had still to perform there, he made a slight signal to both myself and his fellow inspector, Quin, to follow him. I was well known to Lorns, having had several talks with him, while Harris was abroad. Quin I had never met; but it quickly appeared that he was a confidant of Lorns, and while without a money interest in our affairs was ready to bear a helping hand should a situation commence to pinch.

Quin and I went severally and withal carelessly aboard ship, and not at all as though we were seeking Lorns. This was to darken the chief, who was not in our secrets and whom we both surmised to be the cause of Lorns' signal.

Once aboard, and gathered in a dark corner, Lorns began at once:

"Let me do the talking," said Lorns with a nervous rapidity that at once enlisted the ears of Quin and myself. "Don't interrupt, but listen. The chief suspects that last trunk. I can tell it by the way he acts. A bit later, when I come ashore, he'll ask to have it opened. Should he do so, we're gone; you and I." This last was to me. Then to Quin: "Do you see that tall lean Swiss, with the long boots and porcelain pipe? He's in an ugly mood, doesn't speak English, and within one minute after you return to the wharf, he and I will be entangled in a rough and tumble riot. I'll attend to that. The row will be prodigious. The chief will be sent for to settle the war, and when he leaves the wharf, Quin, don't wait; seize on that silk trunk and throw it into the river. There's iron enough clamped about the corners to sink it; besides, it's packed so tightly it's as heavy as lead, and will go to the bottom like an anvil. Then from the pile pull down some trunk similar to it in looks and stand it in its place. Give the new trunk my mark, as the chief has already read the name on the trunk. Go, Quin; I rely on you."

"You can trust me, my boy," retorted Quin cheerfully, and turning on his heel, he was back on the wharf in a moment, and apparently busy about the pile of baggage.