THE PRESS AGENT’S STORY.
The Press Agent of the Big Show had formerly been dramatic editor of the leading daily in Council Bluffs. It was his star boast that he was the only critic in the Middle West that ever had the nerve to roast Joe Jefferson, and he said he did it in the interest of art.
“Art,” says he, “must be preserved, an’ the only way to do it is by knockin’.”
The Press Agent wore his hair long, had a smooth face, and looked like a police reporter out on a three-column story with the facts coming in slowly. He hadn’t much baggage, but he always carried about a ream of adjective hit paper, two lead pencils, and a pass-pad. No man ever heard him talk without wondering what kind of stuff he beat out on a typewriter.
The saw dust spreader was smoothing out the ring for the night acts and the rest of the gang were sitting around roasting the route when the Press Agent came through the red curtains at the dressing tent entrance picking his teeth with a straw. He sat down on the box where the Greaser Knife Thrower kept his keen steels, and filling his pipe waited for a break in the conversation. Then he asked the gasoline man for a match. After he got the fire he saw there were no words loose from the ring-bankers, so he starts his skein.
“Well, lads, we hit ’em up hard at the mat today, 12,000 on the blue boards an’ the ticket wagon window down before the harness is on for the entree. S’pose them laddy-bucks in No. 2 car will say it was a good billin’, but I’m tellin’ you people that this is a readin’ community, an’ it was the press work that had the coin hittin’ the window this date, an’ that’s no cold cream con, either. The Gov’nor knows it, for he gives me a good word an’ a back pat jus’ as the parade was startin’ for the main highway.
“I’m given youse the real word, an’ it’s this—when you can get ’em readin’ about the Big Show you’ve already got ’em feelin’ for change to buy, an’ that’s as true as ticker talk. The old man sees in the paper that the Big Show will soon be on the lot, an’ when he gets home to daily bread he tells it to the old woman; the kids get next and there’s no let up on papa ’till he promises to buy in for the whole family. An’ workin’ one is workin’ all—that’s my motto. It’s the press work that gets ’em talkin’, an’ it’s the talkin’ that’ll make ’em give up even when wheat is down to 48 an’ interest on mortgages is starin’ ’em in the face. Get the paper talk an’ the money is so sure that you can be plannin’ new acts for next season before the first pasteboard hits the bottom of the red box on the gate.
“But, say, it ain’t no children’s game to get this paper talk. The good old days when you could blow into the newspaper offices with a loud vest and a tiger claw hangin’ on your watch guard is done. Them times the old agent would lay down a cigar on the editor’s desk, spread a lot of salve about the greatest yet and the only one in captivity story, and then work the gag ‘write me somethin’, old man.’ But them days is strictly past. It’s a new make up now, an’ a new line of talk that wins ’em. You want to enter quiet like just as if you were one of them Sunday school boys with a write-up on a rally in the church basement. The editor gives you the size-up for this, an’ when you says ‘I’m ahead of the Big Show comin’ 25th and 26th,’ he’s so surprised that he’s glad to see you, an’ it’s once aroun’ the track before the bunch sees the flag that he asks you out to drink before you spring your pass-pad. And, if you don’t believe me, ask soft talking Jim Jay Brady and have it passed off for gospel.
“It’s the approach that makes the center shot this new century. Go in easy, be skimp with your talk, don’t spread the salve too thick, an’ give ’em clean copy—that’s the game; be you ahead of Henry Irving with ten carloads of stuff, a dinky little farce comedy with a society dame doin’ the lead, a melodrama with a real convict a-cracking the safe, or one of them Broadway big ones—no matter, it’s the same, an’ what goes for them goes for the Big Show, whether you’ve got 68 cars on the sidin’, or you have slipped in after night with rubber boots on—and that’s no Tody Hamilton catch line.
“But you don’t want to be too certain; you can get your chances in this line just as easy as in the shootin’ gallery when its bullets against clay pipes. Some of the boys that handles the copy for the Eastern press can put up a frost that would keep Chicago beef around the world in a sailin’ ship. But you can melt ’em if you make good. Remember hittin’ Boston las’ season an’ runnin’ up against one of these heady boys with a foldin’ forehead. I give it to ’em easy, an’ when I says circus he looks at me through his windows an’ says so haughty:
“‘Ah, the circus! Quite a diverting entertainment. Originated with the Greeks.’
“Now wouldn’t that make you itch? Me mind gets to chasin’ ’roun’ for a proper come-back, an’ I tries to recollect the names of some of them old guys what went paddlin’ ’roun’ in a sheet an’ sandals spittin’ out wise words that no one has forgot. An’ mem’ry lands me at the right dock, so I han’s this to the college boy:
“‘Yes,’ sez I, ‘I believe it was Aristophanes who wrote an epic on the circus to be read at one of Nero’s spring openin’s.’
“The words is hardly out of me mouth when he gives me one of those looks that would have made Peary thought he had found the pole. So I lays me copy on the desk and gives five bells to back water an’ I’m in the elevator. An’ so help me Bob, I hardly reaches the pavement before I sees sheets of paper flutterin’ in the air an’ me copy falls on the asphalt. The college boy had lifted it. Now you would think that it was a sheet that roasted us. Not at all, not at all. He gives us a two-column write-up and three half tones that had me up to the bar an’ dizzy for a day. The worst will fool you.
“An’, say, that reminds me. Remember when we was playin’ the week’s run in Chicago las’ July? Well, I’d been skatin’ roun’ to the papers an’ buyin’ drinks for the press boys, an’ it was joggin’ along to three on the dials when I remembers I have a bed at the hotel. It was out near the lot, an’ I starts out to walk. I’m crossin’ the railroad tracks when a weary steps out an’ asks me for a match. I gives up, when another comes into the talk an’ says, ‘Give us money.’ Say, I didn’t have but thirty cents, an’ I gave up. But the highwaymen thought I was lyin’, an’ was going to tap me when I says, ‘Now, boys, let’s argue this out.’ So I takes them two Jesse Jameses under a lamp post an’ gives them a josh talk on the Big Show that has ’em serfy.”
“Well,” said the Boss Canvasman, who was always interested when there was any fight talk, “what happened, what happened?”
“What happened?” says the Press Agent. “Hear me! I takes out me pass-pad an’ writes passes for them robbers until a policeman comes, when I turns ’em over. An’ that ain’t all; I gets a column story in each of the afternoon sheets on how the Press Agent of the Big Show captures two bold boys, an’ the Gov’nor gives me the good word and a double X, an’ I says thankee an’ repeats me motto, ‘An’ workin’ one is workin’ all,’ to every barkeeper that was sellin’ after midnight that evenin’.”