The big town - Katie Wins A Home - (1)

Oh yes, we been back here quite a wile. And we’re liable to be here quite a wile. This town’s good enough for me and it suits the Mrs. too, though they didn’t neither one of us appreciate it till we’d give New York a try. If I was running the South Bend Boosters’ club, I’d make everybody spend a year on the Gay White Way. They’d be so tickled when they got to South Bend that you’d never hear them razz the old burg again. Just yesterday we had a letter from Katie, asking us would we come and pay her a visit. She’s a regular New Yorker now. Well, I didn’t have to put up no fight with my Mrs. Before I could open my pan she says, “I’ll write and tell her we can’t come; that you’re looking for a job and don’t want to go nowheres just now.”
    Well, they’s some truth in that. I don’t want to go nowheres and I’ll take a job if it’s the right kind. We could get along on the interest from Ella’s money, but I’m tired of laying round. I didn’t do a tap of work all the time I was east and I’m out of the habit, but the days certainly do drag when a man ain’t got nothing to do and if I can find something where I don’t have to travel, I’ll try it out.
    But the Mrs. has still got most of what the old man left her and all and all, I’m glad we made the trip. I more than broke even by winning pretty close to $10,000 on the ponies down there. And we got Katie off our hands, which was one of the objects of us going in the first place--that and because the two gals wanted to see Life. So I don’t grudge the time we spent, and we had some funny experiences when you look back at them. Anybody does that goes on a tour like that with a cuckoo like Katie. You hear a lot of songs and gags about mother-in-laws. But I could write a book of them about sister-in-laws that’s twenty years old and pretty and full of peace and good will towards Men.
    Well, after the blow-off with Daley, Long Island got too slow, besides costing us more than we could afford. So the gals suggested moving back in Town, to a hotel called the Graham on Sixty-seventh Street that somebody had told them was reasonable.
    They called it a family hotel, but as far as I could see, Ella and I was the only ones there that had ever forced two dollars on the clergy. Outside of the transients, they was two song writers and a couple of gals that had their hair pruned and wrote for the papers, and the rest of the lodgers was boys that had got penned into a sixteen-foot ring with Benny Leonard by mistake. They looked like they’d spent many an evening hanging onto the ropes during the rush hour.
    When we’d staid there two days, Ella and Katie was ready to pack up again.
    “This is just a joint,” said Ella. “The gals may be all right, but they’re never in, only to sleep. And the men’s impossible; a bunch of low prize-fighters.”
    I was for sticking, on account of the place being cheap, so I said:
    “Second prize ain’t so low. And you’re overlooking the two handsome tune thiefs. Besides, what’s the difference who else lives here as long as the rooms is clean and they got a good restaurant? What did our dude cellmates out on Long Island get us? Just trouble!”
    But I’d of lose the argument as usual only for Kate oversleeping herself. It was our third morning at the Graham and her and Ella had it planned to go and look for a better place. But Katie didn’t get up till pretty near noon and Ella went without her. So it broke so’s Sis had just came downstairs and turned in her key when the two bellhops reeled in the front door bulging with baggage and escorting Mr. Jimmy Ralston. Yes, Jimmy Ralston the comedian. Or comic, as he calls it.
    Well, he ain’t F. X. Bushman, as you know. But no one that seen him could make the mistake of thinking he wasn’t somebody. And he looked good enough to Kate so as she waited till the clerk had him fixed up, and then ast who he was. The clerk told her and she told us when the Mrs. come back from her hunt. Ella begin to name a few joints where we might move, but it seemed like Sis had changed her mind.
    “Oh,” she says, “let’s stay here a wile longer, a week anyway.”
    “What’s came over you!” ast Ella. “You just said last night that you was bored to death here.”
    “Maybe we won’t be so bored now,” said Kate, smiling. “The Graham’s looking up. We’re entertaining a celebrity--Jimmy Ralston of the Follies.”
    Well, they hadn’t none of us ever seen him on the stage, but of course we’d heard of him. He’d only just started with the Follies, but he’d made a name for himself at the Winter Garden, where he broke in two or three years ago. And Kate said that a chorus gal she’d met--Jane Abbott--had told her about Ralston and what a scream he was on a party.
    “He’s terribly funny when he gets just the right number of drinks,” says Kate.
    “Well, let’s stay then,” says Ella. “It’ll be exciting to know a real actor.”
    “I would like to know him,” says Katie, “not just because he’s on the stage, but I think it’d be fun to set and listen to him talk. He must say the screamingest things! If we had him round we wouldn’t have to play cards or nothing for entertainment. Only they say it makes people fat to laugh.”
    “If I was you, I’d want to get fat,” I said. “Looking like an E string hasn’t started no landslide your way.”
    “Is he attractive?” ast the Mrs.
    “Well,” said Kate, “he isn’t handsome, but he’s striking looking. You wouldn’t never think he was a comedian. But then, ain’t it generally always true that the driest people have sad faces?”
    “That’s a joke!” I said. “Did you ever see Bryan when he didn’t look like somebody was tickling his feet?”
    “We’ll have to think up some scheme to get introduced to him,” says Ella.
    “It’ll be tough,” I says. “I don’t suppose they’s anybody in the world harder to meet than a member of the Follies, unless it’s an Elk in a Pullman washroom.”
    “But listen,” says Kate: “We don’t want to meet him till we’ve saw the show. It’d be awfully embarrassing to have him ask us how we liked the Follies and we’d have to say we hadn’t been to it.”
    “Yes,” said the Mrs., “but still if we tell him we haven’t been to it, he may give us free passes.”
    “Easy!” I said. “And it’d take a big load off his mind. They say it worries the Follies people half sick wondering what to do with all their free passes.”
    “Suppose we go to-night!” says Kate. “We can drop in a hotel somewheres and get seats. The longer we don’t go, the longer we won’t meet him.”
    “And the longer we don’t meet him,” I says, “the longer till he gives you the air.”
    “I’m not thinking of Mr. Ralston as a possible suitor,” says Katie, swelling up. “But I do want to get acquainted with a man that don’t bore a person to death.”
    “Well,” I says, “if this baby’s anything like the rest of your gentleman friends, he won’t hardly be round long enough for that.”
    I didn’t make no kick about going to the show. We hadn’t spent no money since we’d moved back to Town and I was as tired as the gals of setting up in the room, playing rummy. They said we’d have to dress, and I kicked just from habit, but I’d got past minding that end of it. They was one advantage in dolling up every time you went anywheres. It meant an hour when they was no chance to do something even sillier.
    We couldn’t stop to put on the nose bag at the Graham because the women was scared we’d be too late to get tickets. Besides, when you’re dressed for dinner, you at least want the waiter to be the same. So we took a taxi down to the Spencer, bought Follies seats in the ninth row, and went in to eat. It’s been in all the papers that the price of food has came down, but the hotel man can’t read. They fined us eleven smackers for a two-course banquet that if the Woman’s Guild, here, would dast soak you four bits a plate for it, somebody’d write a nasty letter to the News-Times.
    We got in the theater a half hour before the show begin. I put in the time finding out what the men will wear, and the gals looked up what scenes Ralston’d be in. He was only on once in each act. They don’t waste much time on a comedian in the Follies. It don’t take long to spring the two gags they can think up for him in a year, and besides, he just interferes with the big gal numbers, where Bunny Granville or somebody dreams of the different flappers he danced with at the prom, and the souvenirs they give him; and one by one the different gals writhes in, dressed like the stage director thinks they dress at the female colleges--a Wesley gal in pink tights, a Vassar dame in hula-hula, and a Smith gal with a sombrero and a sailor suit. He does a couple of steps with them and they each hand him a flower or a vegetable to remember them by. The song winds up:
    But my most exclusive token Is a little hangnail broken Off the gal from Gussie’s School for Manicures.
    And his real sweet patootie comes on made up as a scissors.
    You’ve saw Ralston? He’s a good comedian; no getting away from that. The way he fixes up his face, you laugh just to look at him. I yelled when I first seen him. He was supposed to be an office boy and he got back late from lunch and the boss ast him what made him late and he said he stopped to buy the extra. So the boss ast him what extra and he says the extra about the New York society couple getting married. So the boss said, “Why, they wouldn’t print an extra about that. They’s a New York society couple married most every day.” So Ralston said, “Yes, but this couple is both doing it for the first time.”
    I don’t remember what other gags he had, and they’re old anyway by now. But he was a hit, especially with Ella and Kate. They screamed so loud I thought we’d get the air. If he didn’t say a word, he’d be funny with that fool make-up and that voice.
    I guess if it wasn’t for me the gals would of insisted on going back to the stage door after the show and waiting for him to come out. I’ve saw Katie bad a lot of times, but never as cuckoo as this. It wasn’t no case of love at first or second sight. You couldn’t be stuck on this guy from seeing him. But she’d always been kind of stage-struck and was crazy over the idear of getting acquainted with a celebrity, maybe going round to places with him, and having people see her with Jimmy Ralston, the comedian. And then, of course, most anybody wants to meet a person that can make you laugh.
    I managed to persuade them that the best dope would be to go back to the Graham and wait for him to come home; maybe we could fix it up with the night clerk to introduce us. I told them that irregardless of what you read in books, they’s some members of the theatrical profession that occasionally visits the place where they sleep. So we went to the hotel and set in the lobby for an hour and a half, me trying to keep awake wile the gals played Ralston’s part of the show over again a couple thousand times. They’s nothing goes so big with me as listening to people repeat gags out of a show that I just seen.
    The clerk had been tipped off and when Ralston finally come in and went to get his key, I strolled up to the desk like I was after mine. The clerk introduced us.
    “I want you to meet my wife and sister-in-law,” I said.
    “Some other time,” says Ralston. “They’s a matinée to-morrow and I got to run off to bed.”
    So off he went and I got bawled out for Ziegfeld having matinées. But I squared myself two days afterwards when we went in the restaurant for lunch. He was just having breakfast and the three of us stopped by his table. I don’t think he remembered ever seeing me before, but anyway he got up and shook hands with the women. Well, you couldn’t never accuse Ella of having a faint heart, and she says:
    “Can’t we set down with you, Mr. Ralston? We want to tell you how much we enjoyed the Follies.”
    So he says, sure, set down, but I guess we would of anyway.
    “We thought it was a dandy show,” says Katie.
    “It ain’t a bad troupe,” says Ralston.
    “If you’ll pardon me getting personal,” said Ella, “we thought you was the best thing in it.”
    He looked like he’d strain a point and forgive her.
    “We all just yelled!” says Katie. “I was afraid they’d put us out, you made us laugh so hard.”
    “Well,” says Ralston, “I guess if they begin putting people out for that, I’d have to leave the troupe.”
    “It wouldn’t be much of a show without you,” says Ella.
    “Well, all that keeps me in it is friendship for Ziggy,” says Ralston. “I said to him last night, I says, ‘Ziggy, I’m going to quit the troupe. I’m tired and I want to rest a wile.’ So he says, ‘Jim, don’t quit or I’ll have to close the troupe. I’ll give you fifteen hundred a week to stay.’ I’m getting a thousand now. But I says to him, I said, ‘Ziggy, it ain’t a question of money. What I want is a troupe of my own, where I get a chance to do serious work. I’m sick of making a monkey of myself in front of a bunch of saps from Nyack that don’t appreciate no art but what’s wrapped up in a stocking.’ So he’s promised that if I’ll stick it out this year, he’ll star me next season in a serious piece.”
    “Is he giving you the five hundred raise?” I ast him.
    “I wouldn’t take it,” said Ralston. “I don’t need money.”
    “At that, a person can live pretty cheap at this hotel,” I says.
    “I didn’t move here because it was cheap,” he said. “I moved here to get away from the pests--women that wants my autograph or my picture. And all they could say how much they enjoyed my work and how did I think up all them gags, and so forth. No real artist likes to talk about himself, especially to people that don’t understand. So that’s the reason why I left the Ritz, so’s I’d be left alone, not to save money. And I don’t save no money, neither. I’ve got the best suite in the house--bedroom, bath and study.”
    “What do you study?” ast Kate.
    “The parts I want to play,” he says; “Hamlet and Macbeth and Richard.”
    “But you’re a comedian,” says Kate.
    “It’s just a stepping stone,” said Ralston.
    He’d finished his breakfast and got up.
    “I must go to my study and work,” he says. “We’ll meet again.”
    “Yes, indeed,” says Ella. “Do you always come right back here nights after the show?”
    “When I can get away from the pests,” he says.
    “Well,” says Ella, “suppose you come up to our rooms to-night and we’ll have a bite to eat. And I think the husband can give you a little liquid refreshments if you ever indulge.”
    “Very little,” he says. “What is your room number?”
    So the Mrs. told him and he said he’d see us after the show that night, and walked out.
    “Well,” said Ella, “how do you like him?”
    “I think he’s wonderful!” says Katie. “I didn’t have no idear he was so deep, wanting to play Hamlet.”
    “Pretty near all comedians has got that bug,” I says.
    “Maybe he’s different when you know him better,” said Ella.
    “I don’t want him to be different,” says Kate.
    “But he was so serious,” said the Mrs. “He didn’t say nothing funny.”
    “Sure he did,” I says. “Didn’t he say artists hate to talk about themselfs?”
    Pretty soon the waiter come in with our lunch. He ast us if the other gentleman was coming back.
    “No,” said Ella. “He’s through.”
    “He forgot his check,” says the dish smasher.
    “Oh, never mind!” says Ella. “We’ll take care of that.”
    “Well,” I says, “I guess the bird was telling the truth when he said he didn’t need no money.”
    I and the gals spent the evening at a picture show and stopped at a delicatessen on the way home to stock up for the banquet. I had a quart and a pint of yearling rye, and a couple of bottles of McAllister that they’d fined me fifteen smackers apiece for and I wanted to save them, so I told Kate that I hoped her friend would get comical enough on the rye.
    “He said he drunk very little,” she reminded me.
    “Remember, don’t make him talk about himself,” said the Mrs. “What we want is to have him feel at home, like he was with old friends, and then maybe he’ll warm up. I hope we don’t wake the whole hotel, laughing.”
    Well, Ralston showed about midnight. He’d remembered his date and apologized for not getting there before.
    “I like to walk home from the theater,” he says. “I get some of my funniest idears wile I walk.”
    I come to the conclusion later that he spent practically his whole life riding.
    Ella’s and my room wasn’t no gymnasium for size and after the third drink, Ralston tried to get to the dresser to look at himself in the glass, and knocked a $30 vase for a corpse. This didn’t go very big with the Mrs., but she forced a smile and would of accepted his apology if he’d made any. All he done was mumble something about cramped quarters. They was even more cramped when we set the table for the big feed, and it was my tough luck to have our guest park himself in the chair nearest the clothes closet, where my two bottles of Scotch had been put to bed. The fourth snifter finished the pint of rye and I said I’d get the other quart, but before I could stop her, Ella says:
    “Let Mr. Ralston get it. It’s right there by him.”
    So the next thing you know, James has found the good stuff and he comes out with both bottles of it.
    “McAllister!” he says. “That’s my favorite. If I’d knew you had that, I wouldn’t of drank up all your rye.”
    “You haven’t drank it all up,” I says. “They’s another bottle of it in there.”
    “It can stay there as long as we got this,” he says, and helped himself to the corkscrew.
    Well, amongst the knickknacks the gals had picked up at the delicatessen was a roast chicken and a bottle of olives, and at the time I thought Ralston was swallowing bones, stones and all. It wasn’t till the next day that we found all these keepsakes on the floor, along with a couple dozen assorted cigarette butts.
    Katie’s chorus gal friend had told her how funny the guy was when he’d had just the right number of shots, but I’d counted eight and begin to get discouraged before he started talking.
    “My mother could certainly cook a chicken,” he says.
    “Is your mother living?” Kate ast him.
    “No,” he says. “She was killed in a railroad wreck. I’ll never forget when I had to go and identify her. You wouldn’t believe a person could get that mangled! No,” he says, “my family’s all gone. I never seen my father. He was in the pesthouse with smallpox when I was born and he died there. And my only sister died of jaundice. I can still----”
    But Kate was scared we’d wake up the hotel, laughing, so she says: “Do you ever give imitations?”
    “You mustn’t make Mr. Ralston talk about himself,” says Ella.
    “Imitations of who?” said Ralston.
    “Oh, other actors,” said Katie.
    “No,” he says. “I leave it to the other actors to give imitations of me.”
    “I never seen none of them do it,” says Kate.
    “They all do it, but they don’t advertise it,” he says. “Every comic in New York is using my stuff.”
    “Oh!” said Ella. “You mean they steal your idears.”
    “Can’t you go after them for it?” ast Katie.
    “You could charge them with petit larceny,” I said.
    “I wouldn’t be mean,” said Ralston. “But they ain’t a comic on the stage to-day that I didn’t give him every laugh he’s got.”
    “You ain’t only been on the stage three or four years,” I says. “How did Hitchcock and Ed Wynn and them fellas get by before they seen you?”
    “They wasn’t getting by,” he says. “I’m the baby that put them on their feet. Take Hitchy. Hitchy come to me last spring and says, ‘Jim, I’ve ran out of stuff. Have you got any notions I could use?’ So I says, ‘Hitchy, you’re welcome to anything I got.’ So I give him a couple of idears and they’re the only laughs in his troupe. And you take Wynn. He opened up with a troupe that looked like a flop and one day I seen him on Broadway, wearing a long pan, and I says, ‘What’s the matter, Eddie?’ And he brightened up and says, ‘Hello, there, Jim! You’re just the boy I want to see.’ So I says, ‘Well, Eddie, I’m only too glad to do anything I can.’ So he says, ‘I got a flop on my hands unlest I can get a couple of idears, and you’re the baby that can give them to me.’ So I said, ‘All right, Eddie.’ And I give him a couple of notions to work on and they made his show. And look at Stone! And Errol! And Jolson and Tinney! Every one of them come to me at one time another, hollering for help. ‘Jim, give me a couple of notions!’ ‘Jim, give me a couple of gags!’ And not a one of them went away empty-handed.”
    “Did they pay you?” ast Ella.
    Ralston smiled.
    “I wouldn’t take no actor’s money,” he says. “They’re all brothers to me. They can have anything I got, and I can have anything they got, only they haven’t got nothing.”
    Well, I can’t tell you all he said, as I was asleep part of the time. But I do remember that he was the one that had give Bert Williams the notion of playing coon parts, and learnt Sarah Bernhardt to talk French.
    Along about four o’clock, when they was less than a pint left in the second McAllister bottle, he defied all the theater managers in New York.
    “I ain’t going to monkey with them much longer!” he says. “I’ll let you folks in on something that’ll cause a sensation on Broadway. I’m going to quit the Follies!”
    We was all speechless.
    “That’s the big secret!” he says. “I’m coming out as a star under my own management and in a troupe wrote and produced by myself!”
    “When?” ast Kate.
    “Just as soon as I decide who I’m going to let in as part owner,” said Ralston. “I’ve worked for other guys long enough! Why should I be satisfied with $800 a week when Ziegfeld’s getting rich off me!”
    “When did he cut you $200?” I says. “You was getting $1,000 last time I seen you.”
    He didn’t pay no attention.
    “And why should I let some manager produce my play,” he says, “and pay me maybe $1,200 a week when I ought to be making six or seven thousand!”