It was just nineteen years ago that Cora Tanner was booked to appear there in a new play, "Fascination." The first performance was set down for Monday night, and at a rehearsal on the Friday previous the player of a minor part failed to show up. He sent word that he was ill.
Colonel Sinn strolled into the box-office where young Edeson was trying to balance his accounts, and began to bemoan the ill luck of the thing. To a fellow engaged in the task of adding figures this running accompaniment of self-commiseration was not conducive to accuracy in the totals, So, finally, Edeson turned on his employer with the exclamation:
"Look here, Colonel Sinn, if you will keep quiet and allow me to straighten out this account in peace, I'll play that part."
Dazed into silence by this daring proposition, his employer remained speechless long enough to permit Edeson to complete his task. Taking his coat and hat, he was in the act of leaving the box-office when Colonel Sinn called after him:
"Young man, I'll bet you one hundred dollars you can't make good on that bluff."
"I'll go you," was Edeson's reply. "Get me a substitute here and give me the part."
Concerning the outcome, Edeson himself has since observed:
"I remember very little of that first performance. However, I believe I was not offensive and therefore was allowed to play the week out. The following season, not being able to come to terms with Colonel Sinn, I determined to adopt the stage as a profession and was fortunate enough to secure the juvenile part in a small company playing Daly's 'A Night Off.' Then came 'The Dark Secret,' in which the villains and myself were the only members of the company who escaped the tank."
A few seasons later he was with Charles Dickson in "Incog," which came to be called in the profession "the matrimonial play," as no less than four couples met their affinities while acting therein, viz.: Charles Dickson and Lillian Burkhardt, Louis Mann and Clara Lipman, Harry Davenport and Phyllis Rankin, and Mr. Edeson and Ellen Burg.
Ten years ago Mr. Edeson was in the Empire stock company, understudy to William Faversham, and making a particularly good impression when he played the latter's part in "Under the Red Robe," which ran so far into the spring that the leaders in the cast became tired out and left their parts to the next in line, Ida Conquest falling heir to Viola Allen's Renée.