By MATTHEW WHITE, Jr
A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued from Month to Month
and Will Include All Players of Note.
LACKAYE NEARLY A PRIEST.
On the Way to Rome to Prepare Himself
for Holy Orders He Was Stricken
with Stage Fever.
It is an interesting coincidence that Eben Plympton, now playing a bishop in "The Duel," should have been the unconscious means of keeping a young man out of the priesthood. It was away back in the early days of the Madison Square Theater, when "Esmeralda" was having its big run at that little playhouse and Plympton, as the hero, was a matinée favorite.
In the audience one day was a youth with big gray eyes, which were riveted in charmed attention on Plympton's every movement. The young man was with his father, and was on his way from his home in Washington to Rome, to attend there the school for acolytes, which was to pave the way for him to become a priest. His tomblike cell had already been selected for his occupancy, and, meantime, until the steamer sailed for Havre, the boy was going to the theater every night in New York with his father. He went in the afternoons, too, whenever there was a matinée.
"I wish the theaters were open in the morning," he said one day to his father, who began to wonder whether his son had not mistaken his vocation.
After this they went to see "Esmeralda," and then the sixteen-year-old youth issued his proclamation in these words:
"I have a vocation, but it is for the stage."
"Your vocation is the padded cell," replied his father tersely.