And that's why,Marguerite de Monahan,I want you to buy in with the madam here.Let 'em keep on calling it Troyon's as much as they want,but you're to be a partner on the money I'll give you.
If this fairy story lasts,it'll be your own,Mag--a sort of commission you get on my take-off of you.But if anything happens to the world--if it should go crazy,or get sane,and not love Nancy Olden any more,why,here'll be a place for me,too.
Does it look that way?Divil a bit,you croaker!It looks--it looks--listen and I'll tell you how it looks.
It looks as though Gray and the great Gray rose diamond and the three Charities had all become a bit of background for Nance Olden to play upon.
It looks as though the audience likes the sound of my voice as much almost as I do myself;anyway,as much as it does the sight of me.
It looks as though the press,if you please,had discovered a new stage star,for down comes a little reporter to interview me--me,Nancy Olden!Think of that,Mag!I receive him all in my Charity rig,and in Obermuller's office,and he asks me silly questions and I tell him a lot of nonsense,but some truths,too,about the Cruelty.Fancy,he didn't know what the Cruelty was!S.P.C.C.,he calls it.And all the time we talked a long-haired German artist he had brought with him was sketching Nance Olden in different poses.Isn't that the limit?
What d'ye think Tom Dorgan'd say to see half a page of Nancy Olden in the X-Ray?Wouldn't his eyes pop?Poor old Tom!.No danger--they won't let him have the papers.My old Tommy!
What is it,Mag?Oh,what was I saying?Yes--yes,how it looks.
Well,it looks as though the Trust--yes,the big and mighty T.
T.--short for Theatrical Trust,you innocent--had heard of that same Nance Olden you read about in the papers.For one night last week,when I'd just come of and the house was yelling and shouting behind me,Obermuller meets me in the wings and trots me of to his private office.
"What for?"I asked him on the way.
"You'll find out in a minute.Come on."
I pulled up my stocking and followed.You know I wear it in that act without a garter,and it's always coming down the way yours used to,Mag.Even when it doesn't come down I pull it up,I'm so in the habit of doing it.
A little bit of a man,bald-headed,with a dyspeptic little black mustache turned down at the corners,watched me come in.He grinned at my make-up,and then at me.
"Clever little girl,"he says through his nose."How much do you stick Obermuller for?""Clever little man,"say I,bold as brass and through my own nose;"none of your business.""Hi--you,Olden!"roared Obermuller,as though I'd run away and he was trying to get the bit from between my teeth."Answer the gentleman prettily.Don't you know a representative of the mighty T.T.when you see him?Can't you see the Syndicate aureole about his noble brow?This gentleman,Nance,is the great and only Max Tausig.He humbleth the exalted and uplifteth the lowly--or,if there's more money in it,he gives to him that hath and steals from him that hasn't,but would mighty well like to have.He has no conscience,no bowels,no heart.But he has got tin and nerve and power to beat the band.In short,and for all practical purposes for one in your profession,Nancy Olden,he's just God.
Down on your knees and lick his boots--Trust gods wear boots,patent leathers--and thank him for permitting it,you lucky baggage!"I looked at the little man;the angry red was just fading from the top of his cocoanut-shaped bald head.
"You always were a fool,Obermuller,"he said cordially."And you were always over-fond of your low-comedian jokes.If you hadn't been so smart with your tongue,you'd had more friends and not so many enemies in--""In the heavenly Syndicate,eh?Well,I have lived without--""You have lived,but--"
"But where do I expect to go when I die?Good theatrical managers,Nance,when they die as individuals go to Heaven--they get into the Trust.After that they just touch buttons;the Trust does the rest.Bad ones--the kickers--the Fred Obermullers go to--a place where salaries cease from troubling and royalties are at rest.It's a slow place where--where,in short,there's nothing doing.And only one thing's done--the kicker.It's that place Mr.Tausig thinks I'm bound for.And it's that place he's come to rescue you from,from sheer goodness of heart and a wary eye for all there's in it.Cinch him,Olden,for all the traffic will bear!"I looked from one to the other--Obermuller,big and savage underneath all his gay talk,I knew him well enough to see that;the little man,his mouth turned down at the corners and a sneer in his eye for the fellow that wasn't clever enough to get in with the push.
"You must not give the young woman the big head,Obermuller.Her own is big enough,I'll bet,as it is.I ain't prepared to make any startling offer to a little girl that's just barely got her nose above the wall.The slightest shake might knock her off altogether,or she mightn't have strength enough in herself to hold on.But we'll give her a chance.And because of what it may lead to,if she works hard,because of the opportunities we can give her,there ain't so much in it in a money way as you might imagine."Obermuller didn't say anything.His own lips and his own eyes sneered now,and he winked openly at me,which made the little man hot.
