Elsie. Prince! what Prince?
Jack. Sh! walls have ears, Elsie, and, indeed, I forgot that the King had forbidden us ever to speak of him again. But I must be off to dance attendance on the Queen. Her majesty, be it said with all due reverence, is not over-sweet when her loyal subjects are slow to obey her commands. [Exit, but immediately puts his head in the door.] Don't forget the magical water, Elsie. [Exit.]
Elsie. That's so; I had forgotten that I must drink this. [Looks at flask in her hand.] Jack says that it keeps anybody from growing old so fast; but if you get it from the fairies on Christmas eve, the way I did, you won't ever grow old. Oh dear! I don't want to be young forever. I want to grow up, and be sixteen. Then I'd wear my hair high, and have a long train. [Struts up and down, but stops suddenly.] Well, I don't care, you couldn't play hop-scotch in a train. [Looking about her.] I don't think this room's pretty, a bit. [Catches sight of something shining on the wall.] Oh my! what's that shiny thing? Wouldn't it be fun if there were a secret door there, just like a story book! I'm going to see what it is. [Stops.] Dear me! I forgot that horrid flask! [Brightening up.] Maybe it'll make me nice and old, though. I'll take the old spring water first, anyhow, and then I'll see what that thing is over there. I wonder what will happen. [Drinks.]
Curtain.
[CRITTENDEN MARRIOTT]
Crittenden Marriott, novelist, was born at Baltimore, March 20, 1867, the great grandson of Kentucky's famous statesman, John J. Crittenden, the grandson of Mrs. Chapman Coleman, who wrote her father's biography, and the son of Cornelia Coleman, who was born at Louisville, Kentucky, and lived there until her marriage. Mr. Marriott's mother, grandmother, and aunts translated several of Miss Muhlbach's novels and a volume of French fairy tales. The future novelist first saw Kentucky when he was nine years old, and for the two years following he lived at Louisville and attended a public school. From 1878 to 1882 he was at school in Virginia, but he spent two of the vacations in Louisville. In 1883 he was appointed to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but two years later he was compelled to resign on account of deficient eyesight. He returned to Louisville where he clerked in an insurance office, the American Mutual Aid Society, which position he held until 1887, when he resigned and removed to Baltimore as an architectural draughtsman. He subsequently went to Washington, and from there to California. In 1890 Mr. Marriott joined the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle, and acted as representative of the Associated Press. Two years later he went to South Africa as a correspondent, tramping sixteen hundred miles in the interior, mostly alone. After this strenuous journey he returned to his aunt's home at Louisville, spending some of the time in Shelby county, Kentucky. He shortly afterwards went to New York as ship news reporter for The Tribune, which he held for six months. In 1893 Mr. Marriott went to Brazil for the Associated Press on the dynamite cruiser Nictheroy. The fall of 1894 found him again in Shelby county, this time meeting his future wife, a Louisville girl, whom he married in June, 1895. At the time of his wedding he was a newspaper correspondent in Washington. Mr. Marriott's health broke shortly afterwards, and from January to September, 1896, he was ill at Louisville. In 1897 he went to Cuba for the Chicago Record. When the now defunct Louisville Dispatch was established, Mr. Marriott became telegraph editor, which position he held for six months in 1898. Although he has resided in Washington since leaving the Dispatch, he regards Louisville as his real home, and he has visited there several times within the last few years, his most recent visit being late in 1912, when he came for his sister's wedding. Since 1904 Mr. Marriott has been one of the assistant editors of the publications of the United States Geological Survey. At the present time he is planning to surrender his post and establish a permanent home at Louisville. Mr. Marriott's first book, Uncle Sam's Business (New York, 1908), was an excellent study of our government at work, "told for young Americans." It was followed by a thrilling, wildly improbable tale of the Sargasso Sea, The Isle of Dead Ships (Philadelphia, 1909), the scene of which he saw several times on his various journeys around the world. How Americans Are Governed in Nation, State, and City (New York, 1910), was an adultiazation and elaboration of his first book, fitting it for institutions of learning and for the general reader. Mr. Marriott's second novel, Out of Russia (Philadelphia, 1911), a story of adventure and intrigue, was somewhat saner than The Isle of Dead Ships. From June to October, 1912, his Sally Castleton, Southerner, a Civil War story, ran in Everybody's Magazine, and it will be issued by the Lippincott's in January, 1913. The love story of a Virginia girl, daughter of a Confederate general, and a Kentuckian, who is a Northern spy, it is far and away the finest thing Mr. Marriott has done—one of the best of the recent war novels. In the past five years he has sold more than one hundred short-stories, some fifteen serials, and his fifth book is now in press, which is certainly a most creditable record. He has published two Kentucky stories, one for Gunter's Magazine, the other for The Pocket Magazine (which periodical was swallowed up by Leslie's Weekly); and he has recently finished a third Kentucky romance, which he calls One Night in Kentucky, and which will appear in The Red Book Magazine sometime in 1913.
Bibliography. Letters from Mr. Marriott to the Author; Who's Who in America, (1912-1913).
THE ARRIVAL OF THE ENEMY[53]
[From Sally Castleton, Southerner (Everybody's Magazine, June, 1912)]