CHAPTER XXII.A STRANGE SOUBRETTE.
Delvin Riddle!
The name gave Frank Merriwell a shock, for Riddle was the advance agent of the “Julian King Stock Company.”
In a flash, Merry understood the fellow’s little game.
It had signally failed.
King had not been able to pump the new advance man of the “Empire Theater Comedy Company,” although he had tried hard enough.
Not a bit of information had he drawn from Merriwell’s lips.
“Hello, Riddle!” cried Lawrence, stepping forward swiftly. “What are you doing with Merriwell?”
“Not a thing,” confessed Riddle, as he lay back lazily and puffed at his cigar.
“But you—you are working him! I know it!”
“Tried to,” coolly admitted Riddle. “No go. He’s a clam. Won’t talk at all. Couldn’t get him to answer questions, but he turned round and started in asking me questions. Seemed suspicious. Wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t smoke, wouldn’t do anything. What sort of a bird has Haley found, anyhow?”
There was a mild disgust in the baffled fellow’s manner and voice.
A look of satisfaction came to Lawrence’s face.
“So you didn’t get anything out of him?” he said, beginning to smile.
“Not a blamed thing,” acknowledged Riddle.
“I compliment you, Merriwell!” exclaimed Lawrence, heartily. “You have started in well on your new duties. You’ll have to do considerable talking sometimes; but there will be other times when you’ll need to keep your mouth closed. If you talk as well as you have started in to keep still, you are a winner. The laugh is on you, Riddle.”
“That’s right. What’ll you have?”
“A little brandy will do me. I’ve been off my feet, you know.”
Drinks were ordered and brought, Frank refusing to take anything. Lawrence proposed a toast, and they drank.
“How did you get hold of Merriwell?” he asked of Riddle. “Why, how do you happen to be here, anyway?”
“Business,” was the laconic answer.
“But it’s strange I didn’t hear you were here.”
“Came a short time ago. Dropped into the office and heard a Yankee and a Dutchman talking about Frank Merriwell being Haley’s new advance man. They didn’t know me, so I pumped them. Got a description of Merriwell and found out lots of particulars about him. When he came into the office, I thought it must be him, and I made a crack at him. Hit him, all right. Pretended I had known him at college. That went, but I might have saved my breath. Didn’t get a thing out of him.”
Riddle showed his disgust, but he was good-natured about it. Then he complimented Merry on keeping still. Frank laughingly assured him it had required no effort at all, which caused Lawrence to “jolly” Riddle unmercifully.
Frank got away in a few minutes, leaving Lawrence and Riddle together. He went to his room, taking a railroad map with him, and there studied over the route he was to follow, making himself familiar with the names of the towns, distances to be “jumped,” time of trains, population of the different places, and many other things he considered worth knowing.
Thus Merry was starting out, as he started on everything he undertook, by learning everything possible that might assist him in any way.
He looked over the different notices, given him by Manager Haley, so that he might become familiar with them and know just what kind of stuff he was working onto the newspapers.
Those notices were a disappointment to Merry. They seemed too conventional, too tame, too much like other notices of traveling shows, too plainly reading advertisements.
“They are poor stuff,” he muttered. “Nearly half of them show in the first or second sentence that they are advertisements. They are dry as chips. There is no life or snap in them.”
Then he sat down and wrote three new notices. Over these he spent some time, and of one of them he was particularly proud.
“That will be great for ‘Hayseed Valley’!” he exclaimed. “That’s the piece the company opens with in almost every place where they stay more than one night, and they play it pretty often on one-night stands. I believe that will be worth more than all the other notices.”
In “Hayseed Valley,” a farce comedy of the rural order, one of the characters was a French adventurer who pretended to be a count, and who was persistently seeking a rich wife. This is the notice Frank had written:
“The inhabitants of this city (town) and surrounding places are warned to be on the watch for a certain Frenchman who has been creating considerable excitement in this vicinity by his persistent and obnoxious attention to ladies of wealth, both married and unmarried. This fellow is an unscrupulous adventurer, who is masquerading under the name of ‘Count Cavaignac,’ but it is safe to say that he is actually no a-count, and he is certain to have a number of furious husbands and brothers after him, if he does not cease his annoying demonstrations and attentions toward the fair sex. The base slander that every American girl is eager for a title and ready to marry on sight any foreigner who happens along and pretends to rightfully own a title has been refuted by the treatment ‘Count Cavaignac’ has received from every sensible young lady of this vicinity whose heart, hand and fortune he has vainly sought to make his own. All of the bold count’s adventures are highly ludicrous and doubly worth the price of admission to ‘Hayseed Valley,’ in which the fake nobleman appears. ‘Hayseed Valley’ is a rattling three-act farce comedy, and it will be played at the —— Opera House on (date here) by the ‘Empire Theater Comedy Company,’ Haley & Havener, managers and proprietors. Don’t fail to see ‘Count Cavaignac.’”
The other notices were of the unusual order, and Frank believed they would prove of value. He slipped them into his pocket, deciding to show them to Barnaby Haley and seek his approval of their use.
Then Merry went over to the theater, where the afternoon rehearsal was to take place. He found the company assembled and the rehearsal about to begin.
Roscoe Havener came forward at sight of Frank.
“Well, Merriwell,” he said, “Lawrence has been telling us how you played the clam with Riddle, and I congratulate you on starting out well. Just what Riddle was up to I don’t understand, but he had some object in seeking to learn our route. Haley is ready to shoot him on sight, and he has gone in search of him.”
Cassie, the soubrette, approached. She looked pale and thin and wretched.
“I’m sorry you’re not going to be with the company any more, Frank,” she said; “but I hope you’ll have luck in advance. You’ve been a good friend to me—and to Ross.”
“Yes, yes,” said Havener, quickly; “he has done a good turn for us both.”
Then he moved away to give some directions about setting the stage, leaving Frank and Cassie together.
The girl looked at Merriwell, a mournful expression in her face and eyes. Frank thought how great the change when she came on the stage at night, bounding, buoyant, vigorous, her eyes seeming to sparkle with life.
Merry knew the cause of that great change, and he wondered that Ross Havener did not see and understand. It seemed impossible that Havener should attribute the change entirely to excitement, for he must know that the sameness of stagework made it seem to the girl like any other occupation.
“I shall miss you, Frank,” said Cassie, in her melancholy manner. “You’re not like the rest of the crowd. You’re not common. Somehow, there seems to be something dreadfully common about actors.”
“That is not the general opinion of them,” smiled Frank.
“Oh, I know people generally think they’re freaks, but that’s because they don’t know the real truth about them. Actors are always posing so as to make folks believe they are out of the ordinary. You can see that in their photographs and everything. But you don’t have to pose, Frank, to show that you’re no common duffer.”
“Cassie! Cassie! spare my blushes!”
“I’m giving you straight goods. There’s a kind of air about you that shows you ain’t no common stuff. I can’t tell just what it is, but it’s there, all right. And I want to tell you something that I’ll bet my hat on; I’ll bet you’ll make a top-notch actor, if you stick to the profession. You won’t be satisfied to be just an ordinary twenty-five a week sidelight, but you’ll just climb up and up till you are a star.”
“Gracious, Cassie! but you are putting it on thick!”
“I’ve been thinking of this since I saw how you filled Lawrence’s place. On the dead quiet, I think you can do just as good a job now as he can, and he’s given leads almost all the time. When you have to play gentleman parts, you’ve got the natural air, and Lawrence lacks that, for he never had the breeding. I wish they’d kept you pegging away, instead of shoving you on ahead.”
“I don’t mind it, Cassie, for I want to learn every branch of the business. I may not stick to the profession, but it is fascinating to me, and——”
“You like it?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t mind the knocking around?”
“Rather enjoy that.”
“Poor beds and poor grub?”
“I can stand it.”
“Poor business?”
“That’s different, but I don’t get discouraged very easily, especially when the work is so interesting.”
“Say, Frank!”
“What is it?”
“You’ve got it!”
“Got what?”
“Stage fever. When they can stand all the hard knocks and still find the work interesting and fascinating, they’ve got it. You’re liable to stick to the stage the rest of your life. Well, if you do, I hope I’ll live to see you away up in the pictures, but I’m afraid I won’t be that lucky.”
“Now, Cassie, I don’t like to hear you talk like that.”
“Well, it’s true, Frank. You know my trouble, and I guess it’ll throw me down for keeps. I can’t shake the habit.”
“Thought you were going to make a try at it this coming summer?”
“Am. Don’t believe it’s any use. If I fail, I’m going to tell Havener the whole business, and we’ll cry quits. That’ll be rough on me, for you know how much I think of Ross; but I’ll never tie to him as I am.”
“Oh, you’ll come out all right, Cassie.”
“Mebbe so. I know you want to encourage me, Frank; but I’ve got the Old Scratch to fight. If I was religious, there might be a chance for me; I could pray then, and somehow it does seem that the prayers of real good folks are answered.”
This was a remarkable thing for the girl to say, and Frank wondered at it not a little. It was unlike Cassie, but he said:
“It won’t do any harm to pray, even if you are not religious, Cassie.”
“Oh, what’s the use! God wouldn’t hear prayers from such as me.”
“You do not know that,” came soberly and impressively from Frank Merriwell’s lips. “You know it is said He notes even the sparrow’s fall.”
“But it would seem foolish for an actress to get down on her knees and pray.”
“Why not an actress, as well as anybody else?”
“Oh, but you know how religious people regard us. They don’t reckon we have any show of heaven.”
“Narrow-minded persons may think so, but there is no reason why an actor or actress should not be a good Christian and stand as good chance of reaching heaven as a doctor, a merchant, or a person in any other profession or business.”
There was a strange look on the girl’s face.
“Do you believe that?” she whispered; “do you really and truly believe it?”
“I certainly do.”
“I wish I might be sure of it.”
The strange look on the sad face of the girl deepened, and an infinite longing came into her weary eyes.
Somehow, Frank Merriwell felt that his words at that moment might have great influence on her future, and he was almost frightened by his position.
“Cassie,” he said, softly, his voice full of music and persuasion, “I believe you can be sure of it.”
“How?”
There was eagerness in her manner now, in contrast to her usual listlessness.
“Don’t be afraid to pray, if you feel like it. I am not a professor of religion, yet I have prayed more than once, and more than once, I firmly believe, my prayers have been answered.”
“You did that?”
“Yes.”
“Why, Frank! you are so young and strong and healthy! Why should you pray?”
“The young and strong and healthy should pray as much as the weak and ill and diseased. Prayer was not made exclusively for invalids, by any means.”
“And you prayed?”
She could not seem to get over that. It was a wonder to her.
“I did.”
“I said you were not like other people; I knew it all the time. To look at you, one would think you the last person in the world to pray.”
“You can’t always judge by appearances.”
“That’s so. If I was going to pray, how would I go about it, Frank?”
She asked the question hesitatingly, timidly, with an effort.
“Just get down on your knees in your room, Cassie, and pray. That is the way. There is no rule to follow.”
“Perhaps—perhaps I’ll try it.”
“Do it, Cassie,” urged Frank, earnestly. “It won’t do any harm, if it doesn’t do any good.”
“It won’t be blasphemy for me to do it?”
“Not if you are sincere.”
“Then I’m going to try it, Frank—I’m going to try it! I’m not strong enough to break the dreadful habit alone, and I believe the only way is for me to have some aid from Heaven. You have given me new hope. If I should—if I could get help that way, I’d owe everything to you.”
“No,” he said, with deep impressiveness, “you would owe it to no earthly power.”
Looking into her weary face, he softly added:
“I will pray for you, too, Cassie.”