Blue-grass and Broadway

by Maria Thompson Daviess

"You taught her to eat with the knife and the fork," growled Mr. Meyers from behind his violet barricade as he ripped over another page. "Mick!"

"Oh, not as bad as that, Pop," laughed Mr. Vandeford, with a glance of affection at the young Hebrew delving in the corner for a jewel for him. "She's just—oh, well, they are all children—and have to be spanked. She wants to sell me out to Weiner after I've spent five nice, good years in building her into a little twinkle star, but I don't think it will be good for her to let her do it. I'll have to use the slipper on her, I'm afraid. I believe in hunches and I believe I'll just use that purple manuscript you're chewing to let her set her teeth in. She needs one good failure to tone her up. What's the name of the effusion in ribbons?"

"The Renunciation of Rosalind," murmured Mr. Meyers, as he bent once more to the pages which he had been reading with eagerness when interrupted by his chief.

"We could call it 'The Purple Slipper.' About what will the cast figure?"

"Three thousand per week if you use Gerald Height at five hundred as per contract with him. But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I would say for a play this is—"

"That's not much money to waste on a purple hunch. A nice, judicious, little second-hand staging out of the warehouse and a few weeks' road try-out for the failure will cost about ten thousand. I'll let Denny have five thousand worth of fun mussing around with it to cut his eye teeth, and then we'll clap Violet into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' weeping with gratitude to have her face saved after being slapped first. Get the parts out to-morrow and you and Chambers begin to cast it. I'll see actors here from three to five Friday. I'll open it September tenth. Now I've got to go and chase those confounded marrons. The last I took were put up in [maraschino] and were not welcomed. I'll be in the office—"

"And about the author, Mr. Vandeford, and the contracts?" questioned Mr. Meyers, with both dismay and energy in his voice.

"Oh, I forgot about the author. She won't amount to much. A woman, I judge, from the ribbons. Offer the usual five, rising to seven and a half royalties, and explain carefully that you mean five per cent. on the box office receipts under five thousand, and seven and a half on all over that. Also go into the moving picture rights and second companies with your usual honesty, but offer her only a two hundred and fifty advance to cover a two years' option. She won't know that it ought to be five hundred for six months, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her. Besides, it will all be over for her and her play before October."

"She says in the letter which was pinned to the first page of the play, that the article about you in the 'Times Magazine' made her know that you were the one producer to whom she could trust her play," said Mr. Meyers, reading from a neat little cream-white note in his hand.

"Sweet child!" murmured Mr. Vandeford, as he took up his hat and stick. "Don't encourage her in any way in your letter, Pop. We don't want her rushing to the scene of action when we butcher her child. Pay the two thousand to Hilliard for the option on 'The Rosie Posie Girl' until January first, and tell him I am going to produce it in November. 'Phone me at Highcliff to-morrow if you want me. I'll be clearing the deck for the—spanking."