“I told her that I used to growl as loud a bass as the rest of them when we sang on the college fence.
“ ‘That’s enough,’ said Mrs. Sanchez. ‘They’re putting on a Civil War play and they want a man to be one of a crowd of soldiers who sing at the camp-fire in one of the acts. The part isn’t big enough to pay a singer and there is nothing else to do but get shot and play dead in the battle scene.’
“I told her I thought I could play dead to the satisfaction of any reasonable manager and she gave me a card to the producer.
“Then she said, ‘You’ve never been on the stage, have you?’
“I shook my head. She told me to tell the producer that I had just come in from the road with a play that had closed after a six months’ run. I took the card and dashed out of the office so fast I nearly knocked over a poor old thing with a head of hair like a bushel of excelsior. It took me two days to get to the producer, and then he told me that it had been decided not to send the play out, since the theatrical conditions were so bad.”
Mrs. Vining interpolated, “Theatrical conditions are like the weather—always dangerous for people with poor circulation.”
“I went back to the office,” said Eldon, “and told Mrs. Sanchez the situation. The other members of the company had beaten me there. The poor old soul was broken-hearted, and I don’t believe she regretted her lost commissions as much as the disappointment of the actors.
“A lot of people have told me she was heartless. She was always good to me, and if she was a little hard in her manner it was because she would have died if she hadn’t been. Agents are like doctors, they’ve got to grow callous or quit. Her office was a shop where she bought and sold hopes and heartbreaks, and if she had squandered her sympathy on everybody she wouldn’t have lasted a week. But for some reason or other she made a kind of pet of me.”
Mrs. Vining murmured, “I rather fancy that she was not the first, and won’t be the last, woman to do that.”