CHAPTER XIII.—THE RACE.
All that forenoon he worked in the theater setting up the new mechanical arrangement, which had been completed, and preparing for the rehearsal that afternoon.
Rehearsal time came, and the members of the company assembled.
All but Burns.
He was missing.
“What do you think about it now?” asked Bart, grimly.
“The same as I thought before,” declared Frank. “Burns was almost broken-hearted at rehearsal yesterday. It is possible he may not come to-day, for you know he wished to be released.”
“Ah,” said a sad voice, as the person in question appeared; “it is necessity that brings me. I fain would have remained away, but I need the money, and I must do that which my heart revolts against.”
“I believed you would come,” said Frank, greeting the old tragedian. “You will get used to the part after a while. It is better to make people laugh than to make them weep.”
“But it is too late for me to turn myself into a clown.”
“Where did you stay last night?” asked Merry.
“At my humble lodgings,” was the answer.
“A man by your name registered at the hotel where I stop, and had the room next to mine. Is it possible there are two William Shakespeare Burns in the city of Denver?”
The old man drew himself up, thrusting his hand into the bosom of his coat, with his familiar movement of dignity.
“There is but one,” he said—“but one real William Shakespeare Burns in the whole world! I am he!”
“But you were not at the hotel last night?”
“Of a certainty I was not. To that I will pledge mine honor. If another was there under my name, he is an impostor.”
Frank was satisfied, but Bart was not; or, if Hodge was satisfied, he would not confess it.
The rehearsal began. Frank had engaged some people to work the mechanical arrangement used in the third act, and they had been drilled and instructed by Havener.
The first act went off well, the storm at the conclusion being worked up in first-class style. Scarcely a word of that act had Frank altered, so there was very little trouble over it.
The second act was likewise a success, Havener finding it necessary to interrupt and give instructions but twice.
Then came the third act, which Merry had almost entirely rewritten. In that act the burlesque tragedian was given an opportunity, and Burns showed that he had his lines very well, although he ran over them after the style of the old-time professional who disdains to do much more than repeat the words till the dress rehearsal comes.
The third act was divided into three scenes, the second scene being an exterior, showing the river in the distance, lined by a moving, swaying mass of people. Along the river raced the three boats representing Yale, Harvard and Cornell. Keeping pace with them on the shore was the observation train, black with a mass of spectators. As the boats first came on, Harvard had a slight lead, but Yale spurted on appearing, and when they passed from view Yale was leading slightly.
All this was a mechanical arrangement made to represent boats, a train, the river, and the great crowd of spectators. The rowers in the boats were inanimate objects, but they worked with such skill that it was hard to believe they were not living and breathing human beings. Even the different strokes of the three crews had been imitated.
This arrangement was an invention of Merriwell’s own. In fact, it was more of an optical illusion than anything else, but it was most remarkable in its results, for, from the front of the house, a perfect representation of the college boat race appeared to be taking place in the distance on the stage.
Havener was a man who said very little, but he showed excitement and enthusiasm as this scene was being worked out.
When the boats had disappeared, the stage grew dark, and there was a quick “shift” to the interior of the Yale boathouse. The entire front of the house, toward the river, had been flung wide open. Behind the scenes the actors who were not on the stage at the moment and the supers hurrahed much like the cheering of a vast multitude. Whistles shrieked, and then the three boats shot into view, with Yale still in the lead. The characters on the stage proper, in the boathouse, had made it known that the finish was directly opposite the boathouse, and so, when the boats flew across with Yale in advance, it was settled that the blue had won.
Then Frank Merriwell, who had escaped from scheming enemies, and rowed in the race for all the attempts to drug him, was brought on by his admirers, and with the Yale cheer of victory, the curtain came down.
Roscoe Havener came rushing onto the stage and caught Frank Merriwell by the hand, crying:
“Merriwell, you are a genius! I want to say right here that I have doubted the practicability of this invention of yours, but now I confess that it is the greatest thing I ever saw. Your sawmill invention in ‘John Smith’ was great, but this lays way over it! You should make your fortune with this, but you must protect it.”
“I shall apply for a patent on the mechanism,” said Frank. “I am having a working model made for that purpose.”
“That’s right. You have your chance to make a fortune, and I believe you can make it with this piece.”
“It is a chance,” agreed Frank, gravely; “but I shall take it for better or worse. I am going into this thing to make or break. I’ve got some money, and I’ll sink every dollar I’m worth in the attempt to float this piece.”
Frank spoke with quiet determination.
Hodge stood near and nodded his approval and satisfaction.
“It’s great, Merry,” he said, in approval. “It’s something new, too. You will not have any trouble over this, the way you did about the sawmill scene.”
“I hope not.”
Cassie Lee, the little soubrette, who was engaged to Havener, found an opportunity to get hold of Frank’s hand. She gave it a warm pressure.
“I’m so glad!” she whispered, looking into his eyes. “If Ross says it will go, you can bet it will! He knows his business. I’ve been waiting for him to express himself about it, and, now that he has, I feel better. You are right in it, Frank! I think you are a dandy!”
“Thank you, Cassie,” smiled Frank, looking down at her.
And even though he liked Cassie, who had always been his friend, he was thinking at that moment of another little girl who was far away, but whom he had once hoped would create the part in “True Blue” that had been given to Cassie.
In the fourth act Frank had skillfully handled the “fall” of the play, keeping all in suspense as he worked out the problem, one of the chief arts of successful play constructing. Too often a play falls to pieces at once after the grand climax is reached, and the final act is obviously tacked on to lengthen it out.
This one fault Frank had worked hard to avoid, and he had succeeded with masterly skill, even introducing a new element of suspense into the final act.
Merry had noticed that, in these modern days, the audience sniffs the “and-lived-happy-forever-after” conclusion of a play from afar, and there was always a rustling to get hats and coats and cloaks some moments before the end of most plays. To avoid this, he determined to end his play suddenly and in an original manner. This he succeeded in doing in a comedy scene, but not until the last speech was delivered was the suspense entirely relieved.
Havener, who could not write a play to save his life, but who understood thoroughly the construction of a piece, and was a discriminating critic, was nearly as well pleased by the end of the piece as by the mechanical effect in the third act.
“If this play does not make a big hit I shall call myself a chump,” he declared. “I was afraid of it in its original form, but the changes have added to it the elements it needed to become immensely popular.”
When the rehearsal was over Cassie Lee found Burns seated on a property stump behind the scenes, his face bowed on his hands, his attitude that of one in deep sorrow.
“Now, what’s the matter with you?” she asked, not unkindly. “Are you sick?”
The old tragedian raised his sad face and spoke:
“‘Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden; learn good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream;
From which awaked, the truth of what we are
Shews to us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I
Will keep a league till death.’”
There was something strangely impressive in the old man’s words and manner, and the laugh she tried to force died on Cassie’s lips.
“I s’pose that’s Shakespeare you are giving me,” she said. “I don’t go much on Shake. He was all right in his day, but his day is past, and he won’t go down with people in general now. The public wants something up to date, like this new play of Merriwell’s, for instance.”
“Ah, yes,” sighed Burns; “I think you speak the truth. In these degenerate days the vulgar rabble must be fed with what it can understand. The rabble’s meager intellects do not fathom the depths of the immortal poet’s thoughts, but its eyes can behold a mechanical arrangement that represents a boat race, and I doubt not that the groundlings will whoop themselves hoarse over it.”
“That’s the stuff!” nodded Cassie. “That’s what we want, for I rather reckon Mr. Merriwell is out for the dust.”
“The dust! Ah, sordid mortals! All the world, to-day, seems ‘out for the dust.’”
“Well, I rather think that’s right. What do you want, anyway? If you have plenty to eat and drink and wear you’re in luck.”
“‘What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.’”
“That’s all right; but just think of the ones who can’t get all they want to eat, and who are driven to work like dogs, day after day, without ever getting enough sleep to rest them.”
“Ah, but few of them have hopes or aspirations. They are worms of the earth.”
“Oh, I don’t know! I reckon some of them are as good as anybody, but they’re down on their luck. The world has gone against them.”
“But they have never climbed to the heights, only to slip back to the depths. Then is when the world turns dark.”
The old tragedian bowed his head again, and, feeling that she could say nothing to cheer him up, Cassie left him there.
Frank came in later, and had a talk with Burns. The old man acknowledged that he believed the play would be a success, but he bemoaned his fate to be forced to play a part so repulsive to him. Merry assured him that he would get over that in time, and succeeded in putting some spirit into the old fellow.