“They’re always pickin’ on me,” moaned Jimmy a few weeks later as he flung the letter he had just finished reading down on his desk in a corner of the dingy office of the Colonial Theatre and kicked impulsively at a crumpled pile of discarded newspapers on the floor.
“What’s the matter, old man?” inquired Matthews, looking up from a stack of letters on his desk and regarding the press agent with a bantering smile. “Is Bartlett out on the rampage again?”
“No,” replied Jimmy in a disgusted tone of voice. “I wish he was. He’s postin’ three sheets tellin’ what a grand little fellow I am. That’s what gets my pet Angora.”
“What’s the catch?” questioned the other.
“Oh, that’s concealed in the last paragraph. He starts out with a lot of hot air about how good I am and how pleased he is at the wonderful showing I’ve landed over here in Boston, and a bunch of other junk and then he—wait, I’ll read you the finish. He says—‘and being desirous of showing my appreciation of your efforts in a concrete way I have decided to intrust to you the general direction of the publicity campaign of ’The Ganges Princess.’ I will send someone to take over ‘Keep Moving’ on Saturday, and you will kindly report at this office on Monday morning.’”
Matthews, who had sauntered over to Jimmy’s desk during the reading of Chester Bartlett’s letter, looked frankly bewildered.
“I’m pretty dense, I guess,” he said. “I don’t see anything in that to cause you to exhibit any signs of distress. He’s handing you the prize job of the season on a gold platter. You couldn’t stop the papers from printing stuff about that show with an injunction from the Supreme Court. Don’t you realize that?”
“Oh, that part of it’s all right,” replied Jimmy. “I suppose I’ve got a nerve to put up a holler, but I can’t help it. It’s this thing of bein’ bounced about like a tennis ball that makes me sore. The minute I get sewed up with one show and the machinery in the little old idea factory gets all oiled up and is makin’ 286 revolutions to the minute, along comes a letter or a wire shootin’ me on to join somethin’ else. Gee, I wish I was workin’ for myself and not for the other guy.”
Jimmy would have resented any suggestion that the look which crept into his eyes as he said this was wistful, but it was just that. He paused and gazed out of the window at the scurrying throng of early morning shoppers. Across his face there came and went the shadow of a pathetic smile, a smile that seemed to express for a moment the elation of holding within his grasp the very substance of things hoped for and which instantly merged into something that epitomized utter hopelessness. Matthews sensed his mood and put his hand on the press agent’s shoulder.
“Why don’t you take a flier on your own?” He asked. “Everybody in the business would wish you well.”
Jimmy snorted derisively.
“What would I use for money?” he inquired sarcastically. “Playwrights ain’t takin’ good wishes for advance royalties and you can’t slip a few kind words into the salary envelopes on Saturday night.”
“But it don’t take so much to make a start,” persisted the other. “Don’t you manage to save anything at all?”
“Sure. I’ve got almost enough cigarette coupons to get a gold plated safety razor or a genuine silk umbrella, and there’s 20 shares of Flying Frog copper stock in the tray of my trunk. That must be worth all of a dollar and eight cents, and it cost me about thirty dollars, too. Quit your kiddin’, old man. An agent has about as much chance these days of savin’ money as the Kaiser has of bein’ invited to a week-end party by the King of England.”
Jimmy stood up and began to pace slowly up and down the room. The wistful look came into his eyes again and the longing smile touched his mouth once more.
“Still,” he said, half to himself, “it’s kind of nice to think about ownin’ your own show even if you know you never will, and to sort of get a flash in your mind’s eye of a twenty-four sheet with ‘James T. Martin presents’ splashed across the top of it in black on yellow with red initials. ‘James T. Martin presents’—that’d certainly look immense on that low board on Broadway near Forty-fifth street that hits everybody on the big street right in the eye.”
Matthews, in response to a summons from the box-office, left him still soliloquizing under his breath and gazing pensively across the snow covered Common.
“The Ganges Princess” was the dramatic sensation of a decade. It had been running for a solid year at the huge Hendrik Hudson Theatre in New York, having weathered a hot summer with hardly a noticeable falling off of receipts. It was Chester Bartlett’s first venture into what is technically known as the “legitimate field” and he had staged it with that lavish disregard for expense and with that keen sense of the artistic which had given him pre-eminence as a producer of light musical entertainment.
Written by one of America’s most flamboyant playwrights it told a turgid story of Oriental passion and treachery set against a spectacular background depicting scenes in ancient India. As sheer spectacle it quite transcended anything hitherto attempted in the United States. It presented a series of settings which were so flaming in their color, so permeated with the mystery of the East and so splendid in their suggestion of great size and vast distances that each new revelation was invariably greeted with gasps of amazement from the audience. A cast bristling with distinguished names gave verisimilitude to the somewhat bombastic dialogue and purely incidental members of the company included a troupe of fifty real nautch-girls, six elephants, five camels and a flock of sheep.
“The Ganges Princess” was not merely the talk of New York. It was literally the talk of the country and its forthcoming tour promised to be one of the most important in the history of the American theatre. It was booked for extended engagements in only a few of the larger cities, there being a comparatively limited number of places containing playhouses with stages large enough to accommodate the production and possessing auditoriums of sufficient size to insure financial success.
Bartlett had mapped out a plan of exploitation which was quite the most comprehensive ever undertaken in the annals of press agentry. No less than half a dozen advance couriers—the pick of the country—were to devote their energies to the advertising and newspaper campaign alone, while the purely business details were to be intrusted to trained experts who were to have no other duties. This would leave the purveyors of publicity free and untrammeled in their assaults upon the press and a defenseless public.
Jimmy Martin was to be generalissimo, commander-in-chief and field marshal of the combined forces and was to be entrusted with delegated powers such as had never before been given to anyone holding a similar position. Matthews had understated the case when he referred to the place as the prize job of the season. It wasn’t even comparable. Nothing like it had ever been known for opportunity and power, since the modern variety of press agent came into being. Jimmy realized that himself after Bartlett had finished outlining the scope of the proposed campaign.
“Go to it, my boy,” the manager said at the completion of an hour’s talk, “and remember that the azure dome of heaven is the limit and that in the bright lexicon of showmanship there are no such words as ‘it can’t be done.’ Do I make myself clear?”
“Absolutely,” replied Jimmy cheerfully. “I’m to sit with my feet in a mustard bath and I’m to play my cards without regard to the feelin’s, digestions, general state of temperature or politics of anyone else in the game. I’m to see all raises and tilt it one for luck whenever I think the time is ripe for a killin’. Have I got the right combination?”
Bartlett laughed heartily at the flavory idioms which flowed so freely from Jimmy’s lips.
“Thou hast, most potent, grave and reverend signor,” he replied, bowing low in exaggerated mock courtesy. “By the way,” he continued, getting back to business again, “there’s another thing I completely forgot. I’ve engaged a literary chap for a special stunt, and I want you to figure out some way of getting it across so that it seems on the level.
“The general idea is to have this fellow deliver a series of lectures on India about three weeks ahead of the play date. It’ll be a camouflaged boost for the show. Every once in a while he&rs............