"I was standing over near the piano when the leading lady galloped in. Believe me the dog she put on would make you think that she had every other star looking like a twinkle, and before she landed where she is now she was leading lady for a moving picture company.
"But the comedian—honest, when he gets a couple under his belt he is just that funny—gee! I nearly howled my head off at him calling the tenor Gertrude.
"Say, he got awfully peevish and was mad enough to crush a grape when he found out that he couldn't have the 'spot' when he does his duet number with the ingenue, and when he found out that he would have to dress with the character comedian, who is a low, coarse brute, always drinking beer in the dressing room and not sharing with anybody, he got so mad I thought he would burst into tears.
"He's another of these exaggerated ego guys, every move a picture, wears his handkerchief up his sleeve and all that kind of guff.
"The funniest thing about the whole show is that the author is staging the piece, and what he don't know about the show business would make the Lenox Library look like a news stand He wanted the tenor to hold the prima so she couldn't show her rings. And that's the only thing that got her the job—her jewelry.
"We open in Hartford in a couple of weeks and then play Washington and then come in here for a run.
"Honest, the way those two towns fall for this: 'Manager Soandso is to be congratulated upon securing for his next week's attraction Mr. Suchandsuch's elaborate production of the great London success, 'The Rancid Prune,' with the following all-star cast of metropolitan favorites.' And some of them, ach, Himmel!
"I do wish that the merry Springtime would hurry up and kick in. Them can have the Winter that likes it, but not for little Angel-face; give me the summer and that 'Robins Nest Again' number.
"When the bock beer signs again wave in the breeze and the Dutchman in the delicatessen don't think you are a bug when you ask for Summer sausage; when the mint commences to sprout in the cigar box on the fire escape and all nature seems glad. I just love those trips on the night boat up the Hudson with the searchlight: shining on the trees and the ice tinkling in the highball glass as the steward comes down the deck.
"You know that I am naturally—even when sober—of a romantic and emotional temperament, but those nights I can sit and hold hands and inhale cocktails until daylight without an effort.