When frost set in there was, of course, an end to the engagement, but little Miss Clark had no thought of quitting the game. She came on to New York, and began a systematic tour of the agencies and the managers' offices, and finally she landed an engagement with the chorus of Sousa's opera, "The Bride-Elect." From this she passed to the Casino, when Irene Bentley was appearing there in "The Belle of Bohemia." She was now entrusted with her first part, which secured her an opening with Hopper in "Mr. Pickwick." In this she was Sam Weller's sweetheart Polly. One of the critics said of her:
"Marguerite Clark is a most cunning and comely little girl—pretty enough to rave about—and many amusing miles away from the Dickens picture."
"Mr. Pickwick," by the way, will probably turn out to be the last musical play that Charles Klein will write. Since the abounding success of "The Music Master" and "The Lion and the Mouse," the so-called legitimate field will doubtless claim all his time.
To return to Miss Clark, when Hopper revived "Wang," she was cast for Mataya on account of her size, but was so afraid to come into New York with it that for that period she went to Boston and appeared in "The Babes in the Wood."
ORATORY STARTED CHAPIN.
The Prosy Addresses of Fourth-of-July
Speakers Goaded Him On to the
Study of Declamation.
"It was not because I happened to have long legs that I decided to put myself as Abraham Lincoln into a play."
So said Benjamin Chapin when I approached him with a request to talk a bit for the benefit of The Scrap Book readers.
And when I saw the man out of character I could not blame him for being a little ruffled at the persistent press talk about his doing the Lincoln play because he looked like the famous President. I had gone so far into this belief myself that I was distinctly amazed when the door opened to admit a young man, one not much more than thirty, I should say. The face is long, to be sure, and the frame loose-jointed, but Mr. Chapin's features blend into rather an attractive composite, and Mr. Lincoln, as everybody knows, never laid any claims to good looks.
"Why did I elect to do Lincoln, then?" Mr. Chapin went on. "Because it was the hardest thing of any to do. Any man with the proper amount of ambition in him likes to tackle and overcome difficulties, and in placing our first martyred President on the stage I realized to the full how carefully I must work to keep from falling into pits that would open up on every side of me. But you want to know how I came to go into this line of work at the very beginning, don't you?