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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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"But she ruins my work." "No, she don’t," returned the former, soothingly. "It’s only a little fun on the side." "It is, eh?" exclaimed the big comedian. "She killed my hand all right. I’m not going to stand that." "Well, wait until after the show. Wait until tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do." The next act, however, settled what was to be done. Carrie was the chief feature of the play. The audience, the more it studied her, the more it indicated its delight. Every other feature paled beside the quaint, teasing, delightful atmosphere which Carrie contributed while on the stage. Manager and company realised she had made a hit. The critics of the daily papers completed her triumph. There were long notices in praise of the quality of the burlesque, touched with recurrent references to Carrie. The contagious mirth of the thing was repeatedly emphasised. "Miss Madenda presents one of the most delightful bits of character work ever seen on the Casino stage," observed the sage critic of the "Sun." "It is a bit of quiet, unassuming drollery which warms like good wine. Evidently the part was not intended to take precedence, as Miss Madenda is not often on the stage, but the audience, with the characteristic perversity of such bodies, selected for itself. The little Quakeress was marked for a favourite the moment she appeared, and thereafter easily held attention and applause. The vagaries of fortune are indeed curious." The critic of the "Evening World," seeking as usual to establish a catch phrase which should "go" with the town, wound up by advising: "If you wish to be merry, see Carrie frown." The result was miraculous so far as Carrie’s fortune was concerned. Even during the morning she received a congratulatory message from the manager. "You seem to have taken the town by storm," he wrote. "This is delightful. I am as glad for your sake as for my own." The author also sent word. That evening when she entered the theatre the manager had a most pleasant greeting for her. "Mr. Stevens," he said, referring to the author, "is preparing a little song, which he would like you to sing next week." "Oh, I can’t sing," returned Carrie. "It isn’t anything difficult. ‘It’s something that is very simple,’ he says, ‘and would suit you exactly.’" "Of course, I wouldn’t mind trying," said Carrie, archly. "Would you mind coming to the box-office a few moments before you dress?" observed the manager, in addition. "There’s a little matter I want to speak to you about." "Certainly," replied Carrie. In that latter place the manager produced a paper. "Now, of course," he said, "we want to be fair with you in the matter of salary. Your contract here only calls for thirty dollars a week for the next three months. How would it do to make it, say, one hundred and fifty a week and extend it for twelve months?" "Oh, very well," said Carrie, scarcely believing her ears. "Supposing, then, you just sign this." Carrie looked and beheld a new contract made out like the other one, with the exception of the new figures of salary and time. With a hand trembling from excitement she affixed her name. "One hundred and fifty a week!" she murmured, when she was again alone. She found, after all-as what millionaire has not?- that there was no realising, in consciousness, the meaning of large sums. It was only a shimmering, glittering phrase in which lay a world of possibilities. Down in a third-rate Bleecker Street hotel, the brooding Hurstwood read the dramatic item covering Carrie’s success, without at first realising who was meant. Then suddenly it came to him and he read the whole thing over again. "That’s her, all right, I guess," he said. Then he looked about upon a dingy, moth-eaten hotel lobby. |
