I am Engaged to Star part of the Season-Mr. Daly Breaks his
Contract-I Leave him and under Threat of Injunction-I meet Mr. Palmer
and make Contract and appear at the Union Square in the “Wicked World.”

The third season in New York was drawing to its close, and by most desperate struggling I had managed just to keep my head above water-that was all. I not only failed to get ahead by so much as a single dollar, but I had never had really enough of anything. We were skimped on clothes, skimped on food, indeed we were skimped on everything, except work and hope deferred. When, lo! a starring tour was proposed to me. After my first fright was over I saw a possibility of earning in that way something more than my mere board, though, truth to tell, I was not enraptured with the prospect of joining that ever-moving caravan of homeless wanderers, who barter home, happiness, and digestive apparatus for their percentage of the gross, and the doubtful privilege of having their own three-sheet posters stare them out of countenance in every town they visit. Yet without the brazen poster and an occasional lithograph hung upside down in the window of a German beer saloon, one would lack the proof of stardom.

No, I had watched stars too long and too closely to believe theirs was a very joyous existence; besides, I felt I had much to learn yet, and that New York was the place to learn it in; so, true to my promise, off I went and laid the matter before Mr. Daly-and he did take on, but for such an odd reason. For though he paid me the valued compliment of saying he could not afford to lose me, his greatest anger was aroused by what he called the “demoralization” my act would bring into his company.

“You put that bee in their bonnets and its buzzing will drown all commands, threats, or reasons. Every mother’s son and daughter of them will demand the right to star! Why, confound it! Jimmie Lewis, who has had one try at it, is twisting and writhing to get at it again-even now; and as for Miss Davenport, she will simply raise the dead over her effort to break out starring, and Ethel-oh, well, she’s free now to do as she likes. But you star one week and you’ll see how quick she will take the cue, while Miss-oh, it’s damnable! You can’t do it! it will set everyone on end!”

“If you will give me a salary equal to that of other people, who do much less work than I do, I will stay with you,” I said.

But he wanted me to keep to the small salary and let him “make it up to me,” meaning by that, his paying for the stage costumes and occasional gifts, etc. But that was not only unbusiness-like and unsatisfactory-though he undoubtedly would have been generous enough-but it was a bit humiliating, since it made me dependent on his whims and, worst of all, it opened the door to possible scandal, and I had but one tongue to deny with, while scandal had a thousand tongues to accuse with.

It was a queer whim, but he insisted that he could not give me the really modest salary I would remain for, though, in his own words, I should have “three times its value.” Finally we agreed that I should give him three months of the season every year as long as he might want my services, and the rest of the season I should be free to make as much money as I could, starring. He told me to go ahead and make engagements at once to produce “L’Article 47” or “Alixe”-I to pay him a heavy nightly royalty for each play, and when my engagements were completed to bring him the list, that he might not produce “Alixe” with his company before me in any city that I was to visit. I did as he had requested me. I was bound in every contract to be the first to present “L’Article 47” or “Alixe” in that city. I was then to open in Philadelphia. I had been announced as a coming attraction, when I received startling telegrams and threats from the local manager that “Mr. Daly’s Fifth Avenue Company” was announced to appear the week before me in “Alixe,” in an opposition house. Thus Mr. Daly had most cruelly broken faith with me. I went to him at once. I reproached him. I said: “These people will sue me!”

“Bah!” he sneered, “they can’t take what you have not got!”

“But,” I cried, “they will throw over my engagement!”

His face lit up with undisguised pleasure. He thrust his hand into the open desk-drawer. “Ah,” he smiled, “I have a part here that might have been written for you. It is great-honestly great, and with this starring business disposed of, we can get at it early!”

I rose. I said: “Mr. Daly, you have done an unworthy thing, you have broken faith with me. If you produce ‘Alixe’ next week, I will never play for you again!”

“You will have to!” he threatened. “I have broken the verbal part of our contract, but you cannot prove it, nor can you break the written part of the contract!”

I repeated: “I shall play for you no more!”

And he hotly answered: “Well, don’t you try playing for anyone else. I give you fair warning-I’ll enjoin you if you do! The law is on my side, remember.”

“My dear sir,” I said, “the law was not specially created for you to have fun with, and it has an odd way of protecting women at times. I shall at all events appeal to it to-morrow morning.”

Next morning my salary was sent to me. I took from it what was due me for two nights’ work I had done early in the week, and returned the rest, saying: “As I am not a member of the company, no salary need be sent me.” And eleven o’clock found me in the office of ex-Judge William Fullerton.

He declared that my mind showed a strong legal bent, and he congratulated me upon my refusal of the proffered salary. “If,” said he, “you receive a desirable offer in the way of an engagement, take it at once and without fear. Mr. Daly will threaten you, of course, but I can’t believe his lawyers will permit him to take this matter into court. In attacking you he will attack every young, self-supporting woman in New York, in your person. The New York man will sympathize with you. Public opinion is a great power, and no manager wishes to see it arrayed against him.”

And thus it happened that I was not legally quite off with the old manager when I was on with the new-in the person of Mr. A. M. Palmer, my sometime manager and still my honored friend. Our relations were always kindly, yet to this hour I squirm mentally when I recall our first meeting. I was taking some chocolate at a woman’s restaurant on Broadway, and a common friend brought the “Union Square” manager in and introduced him, simply as a friend, for whatever my secret hope, there had been no open word spoken about business in connection with this interview. But, given a meeting between an idle actress and an active manager, a Barkis-like willingness to talk business is sure to develop.

Looking up and seeing Mr. Harriott advancing toward my table with a strange gentleman in tow, I gave a nervous swallow and fixed my attention upon the latter. His rigid propriety of expression, the immaculately spotless and creaseless condition of his garments made me expect each moment to hear the church-bells clang out an invitation to morning service. Being presented, he greeted me with a gentle coldness of manner-if I may use the expression-that sent my heart down like lead. Now extreme nervousness on my part nearly always expresses itself in rapid, almost reckless speech, and directly I was off at a tangent, successfully sharing with them the fun of various absurdities going on about us; until, in an evil moment, my eye fell upon the smug face of a young rural beau, whose terrified delight in believing himself a very devil of a fellow was so ludicrously evident, that one wept for the presence of a Dickens to embalm him in the amber of his wit.

“Oh!” I said, egged on by one of those imps who hover at the elbow of just such women as I am, “can’t you see he is a minister’s son? He has had more religion given to him than he can digest. He’s taking a sniff of freedom. He has kicked over the traces and he has not quite decided yet whether he’ll go to the demnition bow-wows entirely, or be moderately respectable. He’s a minister’s son fast enough, but he doesn’t know yet whether he will manage a theatre in New York or run away with the Sunday-school funds; and that red-haired young person oppo-opposite” And I trailed off stupidly, for judging by the ghastly silence that had fallen upon my hearers and the stricken look upon Mr. Harriott’s face, I knew I had set my foot deep in some conversational morass. I turned a frightened glance upon Mr. Palmer’s face, and I have always been glad that I was in time to catch the twinkling laughter in his cool, hazel eyes. Then he leaned toward me and gently remarked: “I am the son of a minister, Miss Morris, and the manager of a theatre, but upon my word the Sunday-school funds never suffered at my hands.”

“Oh!” I groaned. And I must have looked just as a pet dog does when it creeps guiltily to its mistress’s foot and waits to be smacked. I really must, because he suddenly broke into such hearty laughter. Then presently he made a business proposition that pleased me greatly, but I felt I must tell him that Mr. Daly promised to get out an injunction to prevent my appearance anywhere, and he would probably not care to risk any trouble. And then there came a little squeeze to Mr. Palmer’s lips and a little glint in his eye, as he remarked: “You accept my offer and I’ll know how to meet the injunction.”

And I can’t help it-being born on St. Patrick’s Day and all that-if people will step on the tail of one’s coat, why of course they must expect “ructions.” And to tell the honest truth, Mr. Palmer’s perfect willingness to fight that injunction filled me with unholy glee; which combined beautifully with gratitude for his quick forgiveness of my faux pas-and I signed a contract with Mr. Sheridan Shook and Mr. A. M. Palmer and was announced to appear in “The Wicked World” at the Union Square Theatre, and I was pursued day and night by slim young men with black curly hair, who tried to push folded papers into my unwilling hands; while life behind the scenes grew more and more strenuous, as scene-shifters, property-men, and head carpenters, armed with braces and screw-eyes, charged any unknown male creature that looked as if he could define the word injunction.

The night came, and with it an equinoctial gale of perfect fury. Whether the people were blown in by the storm or fought their way in by intention, I can’t decide. I only know they were there and in numbers sufficient to crowd the bright and ruddy auditorium. They were a trifle damp about the ankles and disordered about the hair, but their hands were in prime working order, their hearts were warm, their perceptions quick-what more could the most terrified actress pray for in an audience?

The play was one of Gilbert’s deliciously poetic satires-well cast, beautifully produced, after the manner of Union Square productions generally, and Success shook the rain off her wings and perched upon our banners, and we were all filled with pride and joy, in spite of the young men with folded white papers who swirled wildly up and down Fourth Avenue in the storm, and of those other young men who came early and strove diligently to get seats within reaching distance of the foot-lights, only to find that by some strange accident both those rows of chairs were fully occupied when the doors were first throw open. Yes, in spite of all those disappointed young men, we had a success, and I was not enjoined. Yet there were two rather long managerial faces there that night. For unless my out-of-town managers threw me overboard, because of the trouble about “Alixe,” I could remain in this charming play of “The Wicked World” but two short weeks. And no manager can be expected to rejoice over the forced withdrawal of a success.

And right there Mr. Palmer saw fit to do a very gracious thing. After the first outburst of anger and disappointment from Mr. Thomas Hall (my Philadelphia manager), instead of breaking his engagement with me, as he had every right to do, he stood by his contract to star me and at the same terms, if I could provide a play-any play to fill the time with. I had nothing of course but the Daly plays, so my thanks and utter abandonment of the engagement were neatly packed within the regulation ten telegraphic words, when Mr. Palmer offered me the use of his play, “The Geneva Cross,” written by George Fawcett Rowe. In an instant my first telegram changed into a joyous acceptance. I was studying my part at night, my mother was ripping, picking out and pressing at skirts and things by day. Congratulating myself upon my good fortune in having once seen the play in New York, I went to Philadelphia, and after just one rehearsal of this strange play, I opened my starring engagement. Can I ever forget the thrill I felt when I received my first thousand dollars? I counted it by twenties, then by tens, but I got the most satisfaction out of counting it by fives-it seemed so much more that way. I was spending it with the aid of a sheet of foolscap paper and a long pencil until after two o’clock in the morning. My mother to this day declares that that was the very best black silk dress she has ever owned-that one out of that first thousand she means, and on the wall here beside me hangs a fine and rare engraving of the late Queen Victoria in her coronation robes that I gave myself as a memento of that first wonderful thousand. That, when the other managers saw that Mr. Hall kept faith with me, and had apparently not lost by his action, they followed suit and all my engagements were filled-thanks to Mr. Palmer’s kindness and Mr. Hall’s pluck as well as generosity.