"Well, of course we know now what happened, but nobody did then. Nobody was expecting him on the stage, before the scenes or behind 'em, and Mr. Kimball didn't know where he was gone. So it was the end of the piece before he was really missed. Then they begun to hunt, and no Elijah high or low nowhere. You know how the papers was full of it, and there would have been more about it, only Mr. Kimball and 'Liza Em'ly supposed it was just advertising. Even 'Liza Em'ly thought it was the wrong kind of advertising and that the leading lady had seen Elijah's face and thought it was better to kidnap him until the play got settled down her way. Seems if you can keep a play going any kind of a way for a little while, you can't never change it afterwards, no matter what you've put in it. It's all most remarkable business, a play is. But anyway, wherever he was, they all moved on to the next town anyhow. 'Liza Em'ly and Mr. Kimball went right with them to protect Elijah's interest, as it was plain to be seen from where Elijah's manager was sleeping, where his interest was now. And as soon as they begun to unload the scenery, the afternoon of that day, whatever do you suppose? There was Elijah, just where he'd fell when he tripped over the first scene. They'd carted him off in the triangle that unfolds into a grand piano, right along to the baggage-car, where they'd piled the whole of his play on top of him, ending up even with the chicken feathers."
"Great heav—!" cried Mrs. Lathrop.
"So he said," interrupted Miss Clegg. "But there was no help for it. Seems while you're playing Act III. of a play, Act II. is getting packed up, and Act I. is already in the train. So Elijah was all packed and pretty flat before they even missed him, and most crazy before he was found. Well, and so to try and soothe him they took him to the theater that night again, and the leading lady, when she looked at him and saw how awful weak he looked, sent him in a new idea she'd got, which was to let her have a poster done of him packed up in the scenery. Then every night he could sit in a box and at a certain sign give a yell and shoot out. Then she'd make a speech about his having been in the scenery car all the night before, and being naturally kind of excited. She said it would make the play draw like mad. Well, Elijah wouldn't consent to that a tall. And then again they worked with him and talked to him and called him a fool till he really begun to get awfully scared. They had in all the managers together, and they wouldn't let him consult any one. Seems they just all sat looking at his forehead just over his nose where you hypnotize people, and he kept getting more and more scared. Seems he told his nurse, during what they call a lucid interval, that you can talk all you please about will power—and it may be true of people in general—but no rule ever made on earth can possibly apply to any one who has just written a play. There's something about writing a play as takes all the marrow out of your bones and the blood out of your body. And he says he wasn't no more responsible when he signed that contract to go mad in a box every evening and at least one matinée every week than a grasshopper. He says his one and only thought by that time was to get away from 'em and make a break to where he'd never hear about his play again. But after he'd signed, they never let him out of sight. They locked him up in a dressing-room with the leading lady's pet mouse until after the performance, and then they took him and introduced him to two very big managers as was engaged to do nothing except manage him nights in the box.
"Well, you know the rest, Mrs. Lathrop. He really did go mad, then, and we've got him here now helpless, getting rich almost as fast as 'Liza Em'ly, and crazy as a loon. I declare, it's one of the saddest cases I ever see. I don't know whatever can be done. They say as fast as he gets sane, the play'll surely drive him crazy again, so I don't see what 'Liza Em'ly will do. She set with me the whole afternoon and talked very nicely about it all. To see her here, you'd never think she could act the way Mrs. Macy and Mrs. Fisher tell about. I can see she's got a little airy, and she says she misses her maid and her secretary more than she ever tells the minister's family; but on the whole I like her very much, and her devotion to Elijah is most beautiful. She says he's the one love of her life, and she shall marry him if ever he gets sense enough to know what he's doing. If he doesn't, she says she shall take a yacht and sail with him and write books until he dies. She says they can land once in a while to get their provisions and their royalties. But she says the only possible salvation for Elijah, as things are now, will be to stay where he never sees a car to remind him of scenery, or a house to remind him of a stage, for years and years to come. I asked her what she really thought of his play, and she said she thought the leading lady was just right and very clever, only Elijah was too sensitive a nature to understand little artistic touches like the chicken feathers. She says folks are too tired nowadays to be bothered to laugh. They want to be made to laugh without even thinking. She says Elijah is a earnest nature as likes to work his laughs out very carefully and conscientious; but the leading lady understands getting the same effect, only a million times quicker, with chicken feathers and divorces. 'Liza Em'ly says the leading lady is very fair according to her own idea of fairness. She didn't have no money to put in the play, so she agreed to put in four divorces and one scandal as her part of the stock. Now the play's only been on a month, and she's paid up everything except one divorce and the scandal; and she's done so well they're trying to work up some scheme to let her pay both those off at the same time. The play is going fine. They print columns about Elijah and his madness, and the whole company is learning to crow together at the end of the second act. Every night they take out a little of what Elijah wrote, and the main manager says that there'll soon be nothing of Elijah left in except the ghost, and the ghost of the bottle, and the agreement to pay Elijah his royalties. And according to the main manager's views, that's being pretty fair and square with Elijah."
"Do you—?" queried Mrs. Lathrop.
"Well, I don't know," answered Miss Clegg, "I really d'n know what to say. I'm kind of dumb did over both 'Liza Em'ly and Elijah, for you know as well as I do, Mrs. Lathrop, that nobody ever looked for those kind of things from them."
"Shall—?" asked Mrs. Lathrop.
"Yes, if it ever comes where I can," responded Miss Clegg, "I shall like to see it very much."
"Did—?" pressed Mrs. Lathrop.
"Oh, yes, I asked her," Susan admitted, "I asked her fair and square. I says: ''Liza Em'ly, there's no use denying as you've used real people in this community in your book, and now I want to know who is Deacon Tooker?' She said Deacon Tooker was just the book itself. She seemed more amused than there was any particular sense in; but I thought if anything could give her a good laugh, it wasn't me would begrudge her. There's this to be said for our young folks when they do get rich, Mrs. Lathrop, and that is that they're nice about it, and it makes every one feel kindly towards 'em. Every one feels kindly towards Jathrop, and every one feels kindly towards 'Liza Em'ly, and as for poor, dear Elijah—Well!"