In the Bishop's Carriage

XII.

When Obermuller sent for me I thought he wanted to see me about that play he's writing in which I'm to star—when the pigs begin to fly.

Funniest thing in the world about that man, Mag. He knows he can't get bookings for any play on earth; that if he did they'd be canceled and any old excuse thrown at him, as soon as Tausig heard of it and could put on the screws. He knows that there isn't an unwatched hole in theatrical America through which he can crawl and pull me and the play in after him. And yet he just can't let go working on it. He loves it, Mag; he loves it as Molly loved that child of hers that kept her nursing it all the years of its life, and left her feeling that the world had been robbed of everything there was for a woman to do when it died.

Obermuller has told me all the plot. In fact, he's worked it out on me. I know it as it is, as he wanted it to be, and as it's going to be. He tells me he's built it up about me; that it will fit me as never a comedy fitted a player yet, and that we'll make such a hit—the play and I together—that...

And then he remembers that there's no chance; not the ghost of one; and he falls to swearing at the Trust.

"Don't you think, Mr. O.," I said, as he began again when I came into his office, "that it might be as well to quit cursing the Syndicate till you've got something new to say or something different to rail about? It seems to me a man's likely to get daffy if he keeps harping on—"

"Oh, I've got it all right, Nance, be sure of that! I've got something different to say of them and something new to swear about. They've done me up; that's all. Just as they've fixed Iringer and Gaffney and Howison."

"Tell me."

He threw out his arms and then let them fall to his side.

"Oh, it's easy," he cried, "so easy that I never thought of it. They've just bought the Vaudeville out of hand and served notice on me that when my lease expires next month they'll not be able to renew it, 'unfortunately'! That's all. No; not quite. In order to kill all hope of a new plan in me they've just let it get to be understood that any man or woman that works for Obermuller needn't come round to them at any future time."

"Phew! A blacklist."

"Not anything so tangible. It's just a hint, you know, but it works all right. It works like—"

"What are you going to do; what can you do?"

"Shoot Tausig or myself, or both of us."

"Nonsense!"

"Yes, of course, it's nonsense, or rather it's only what I'd like to do.... But that's not the question. Never mind about me. It's what are you going to do?"

He looked straight at me, waiting. But I didn't answer. I was thinking.

"You don't realize, Nance, what those fellows are capable of. When Gaffney told me, before he gave up and went West, that there was a genuine signed conspiracy among them to crush out us independents, I laughed at him. 'It's a dream, Gaffney,' I said. 'Forget it.' 'It's no dream, as you'll find out when your turn comes in time,' he shouted. 'It's a fact, and what's more, Iringer once taxed Tausig to his face with it; told him he knew there was such a document in existence, signed by the great Tausig himself, by Heffelfinger of the Pacific circuit; by Dixon of Chicago, and Weinstock of New Orleans, binding themselves to force us fellows to the wall, and specifying the per cent. of profit each one of 'em should get on any increase of business; to blacklist every man and woman that worked for us; to buy up our debts and even bring false attachments, when—'"

"Now, weren't there enough real debts to satisfy 'em? They're hard to please, if you haven't creditors enough to suit 'em!"

He looked grim, but he didn't speak.

"I don't believe it, anyway, Mr. O; and 'tisn't good for you to keep thinking about just one thing. You'll land where Iringer did, if you don't look out. How did he know about it, anyway?"

"There was a leak in Tausig's office. Iringer used to be in with them, and he had it from a clerk who—but never mind that. It's the blacklisting I'm talking about now. Gray's just been in to see me, to let me know that she quits at the end of the season. And his Lordship, too, of course. You're not burdened with a contract, Nance. Perhaps you'd better think it over seriously for a day or two and decide if it wouldn't be best—"

"I don't have to," I interrupted then.

"Nance!" he cried, jumping up, as though he'd been relieved of half his troubles.

"I don't have to think it over," I went on slowly, not looking at the hand he held out to me. "It doesn't take long to know that when you're between the devil and the deep sea, you'd better try—the devil rather than be forced out into the wet."

"What?—you don't mean—"

I knew he was looking at me incredulously, but I just wouldn't meet his eye.

"My staying with you will do you no good—" was hurrying now to get it over with—"and it would do me a lot of harm. I think you're right, Mr. Obermuller; I'd better just go over to where it's warm. They'll be glad to get me and—and, to tell the truth, I'll be glad to get in with the Syndicate, even if I can't make as good terms as I might have by selling that contract, which—like the famous conspiracy you're half mad about—never existed."

He sat down on the edge of the desk. I caught one glimpse of his face. It was black; that was enough for me. I turned to go.

"Ah, but it did, Miss Olden, it did!" he sneered.

"I won't believe it on the word of a man that's been in the lunatic asylum ever since he lost his theater."

"Perhaps you'll believe it on mine."

I jumped. "On yours!"

"Didn't that little bully, when he lost his temper that day at the Van Twiller, when we had our last fight—didn't he pull a paper out of his box and shake it in my face, and—"

"But—you could have them arrested for conspiracy and—"

"And the proof of it could be destroyed and then—but I can't see how this interests you."

"No—no," I said thoughtfully. "I only happened to lump it in with the contract we haven't—you and I. And as there's no contract, why there's no need of my waiting till the end of the season."

"Do you mean to say you'd—you'd—"

"If 'twere done, 'twere better it'd be done—quickly," I said Macbethically.

He looked at me. Sitting there on his desk, his clenched fist on his knee, he looked for a moment as though he was about to fly at me. Then all of a sudden he slipped into his chair, leaned back and laughed.

It wasn't a pleasant laugh, Mag. No—wait. Let me tell you the rest.

"You are so shrewd, Olden, so awfully shrewd! Your eye is so everlastingly out for the main chance, and you're still so young that I predict a—a great future for you. I might even suggest that by cultivating Tausig personally—"

"You needn't."

"No, you're right; I needn't. You can discount any suggestion I might make. You just want to be the first to go over, eh? To get there before Gray does—to get all there is in it for the first rebel that lays down his arms; not to come in late when submission is stale—and cheap. Don't worry about terms, you poor little babe in the woods. Don't—" His own words seemed to choke him.

"Don't you think—" I began a bit unsteadily.

"I think—oh, what a fool I've been!"

That stiffened me.

"Of course, you have," I said cordially. "It's silly to fight the push, isn't it? It's only the cranks that get cocky and think they can upset the fellows on top. The thing to do is to find out which is the stronger—if you're a better man than the other fellow, down him. If he's the champion, enlist under him. But be in it. What's the use of being a kicker all your life? You only let some one else come in for the soft things, while you stay outside and gnaw your finger-nails and plot and plan and starve. You spend your life hoping to live to-morrow, while the Tausigs are living high to-day. The thing to do is to be humble if you can't be arrogant. If they've got you in the door, don't curse, but placate them. Think of Gaffney herding sheep out in Nevada; of Iringer in the asylum; of Howison—"

"Admirable! admirable!" he interrupted sarcastically. "The only fault I have to find with your harangue is that you've misconceived my meaning entirely. But I needn't enlighten you. Good morning, Miss Olden—good-by."

He turned to his desk and pulled out some papers. I knew he wasn't so desperately absorbed in them as he pretended to be.

"Won't you shake hands," I asked, "and wish me luck?"

He put down his pen. His face was white and hard, but as he looked at me it gradually softened.

"I suppose—I suppose, I am a bit unreasonable just this minute," he said slowly. "I'm hard hit and—and I don't just know the way out. Still, I haven't any right to—to expect more of you than there is in you, you poor little thing! It's not your fault, but mine, that I've expected—Oh, for God's sake—Nance—go, and leave me alone!"

I had to take that with me to the Van Twiller, and it wasn't pleasant. But Tausig received me with open arms.

"Got tired of staying out in the cold—eh?" he grinned.

"I'm tired of vaudeville," I answered. "Can't you give me a chance in a comedy?"

"Hm! Ambitious, ain't you?"

"Obermuller has a play all ready for me—written for me. He'd star me fast enough if he had the chance."

"But he'll never get the chance."

"Oh, I don't know."

"But I do. He's on the toboggan; that's where they all get, my dear, when they get big-headed enough to fight us."

"But Obermuller's not like the others. He's not so easy. And he is so clever; why, the plot of that comedy is the bulliest thing—"

"You've read it—you remember it?"

"Oh, I know it by heart—my part of it. You see, he wouldn't keep away from me while he was thinking of it. He kept consulting me about everything in it. In a way, we worked over it together."

The little man looked at me, slowly closing one eye. It is a habit of his when he's going to do something particularly nasty.

"Then, in a way, as you say, it is part yours."

"Hardly! Imagine Nance Olden writing a line of a play!"

"Still you—collaborated; that's the word. I say, my dear, if I could read that comedy, and it was—half what you say it is, I might—I don't promise, mind—but I might let you have the part that was written for you and put the thing on. Has he drilled you any, eh? He was the best stage-manager we ever had before he got the notion of managing for himself—and ruining himself."

"Well, he's all that yet. Of course, he has told me, and we agreed how the thing should be done. As he'd write, you know, he'd read the thing over to me, and I—"

"Fine—fine! A reading from that fool Obermuller would be enough to open the eyes of a clever woman. I'd like to read that comedy—yes?"

"But Obermuller would never—"

"But Olden might—"

"What?"

"Dictate the plot to my secretary, Mason, in there," he nodded his head back toward the inner room. "She could give him the plot and as much of her own part in full as she could remember. You know Mason. Used to be a newspaper man. Smart fellow, that, when he's sober. He could piece out the holes—yes?"

I looked at him. The little beast sat there, slowly closing one eye and opening it again. He looked like an unhealthy little frog, with his bald head, his thin-lipped mouth that laughed, while the wrinkles rayed away from his cold, sneering eyes that had no smile in them.

"I—I wouldn't like to make an enemy of a man like Obermuller, Mr. Tausig."

"Bah! Ain't I told you he's on the toboggan?"

"But you never can tell with a man like that. Suppose he got into that combine with Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock?"

"What're you talking about?"

"Well, it's what I've heard."

"But Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock are all in with us; who told you that fairy story?"

"Obermuller himself."

The little fellow laughed. His is a creaky, almost silent little laugh; if a spider could laugh he'd laugh that way.

"They're fooling him a bunch or two. Never you mind Obermuller. He's a dead one."

"Oh, he said that you thought they were in with you, but that nothing but a written agreement would hold men like that. And that you hadn't got."

"Smart fellow, that Obermuller. He'd have been a good man to have in the business if it hadn't been for those independent ideas he's got. He's right; it takes—"

"So there is an agreement!" I shouted, in spite of myself, as I leaned forward.

He sat back in his chair, or, rather, he let it swallow him again.

"What business is that of yours? Stick to the business on hand. Get to work on that play with Mason inside. If it's good, and we decide to put it on, we'll pay you five hundred dollars down in addition to your salary. If it's rot, you'll have your salary weekly all the time you're at it, just the same as if you were working, till I can place you. In the meantime, keep your ears and eyes open and watch things, and your mouth shut. I'll speak to Mason and he'll be ready for you to-morrow morning. Come round in the morning; there's nobody about then, and we want to keep this thing dark till it's done. Obermuller mustn't get any idea what we're up to.... He don't love you—no—for shaking him?"

"He's furious; wouldn't even say good-by. I'm done for with him, anyway, I guess. But what could I do?"

"Nothing, my dear; nothing. You're a smart little girl," he chuckled. "Ta-ta!"