LETTER XIII
IN WHICH I MISS ANOTHER HALF DINNER
Dear Mom:
Of course I was on pins and needles all day waiting for Mr. Edgerton to call me so as I could find out what had happened between him and his wife. And just when I was done work and ready to go out of the beauty parlor he phoned and gee then I had to break a date with Adaire Huggins to go to a show with her and all the girls is getting more and more sorer because I am so up-stage with them having an affair with a gentleman and not telling them nothing.
Well Mr. Edgerton took me to the Chink place again and we et some more chop-guey and there was no detective watching us and we had a good chat. And he says that Mrs. Edgerton is so angry she says she will never speak to him again, and then she tells him that she is going to write to the Spokesman about how her husband is taking a manicure girl to dinners with him and pretending that this girl gives him the ideas that the Spokesman has to say to all the newspaper reporters of the whole world. And of course if she does that it will mean that Mr. Edgerton will be out of his job because of course the Spokesman is a very moral man and therefore somewhat suspicious and it would not be possible to persuade Him that it was just for my ideas that Mr. Edgerton was taking me to dinner and anyhow if it was true it would be worse because it would insult Him to know where His ideas comes from.
And so Mr. Edgerton is very much worried and I says to him, “Do you really think that she will do such a mean thing?”
He says, “I do not know for is it possible to say what a woman will do when she is very angry?”
I says, “Yes it is possible,” I says, “if you do not mind answering me a very personal question.”
“What is that Miss Riggs?”
“Will you tell me whether Mrs. Edgerton has got any money of her own?”
“No she has not.”
“Then Mr. Edgerton,” I says, “you may rest quite easy for she is not going to say a word to the Spokesman nor to anyone else that will tell because don’t you see that if she done that she would be throwing her bread and butter in the mud?” I says.
“But she is frightfully angry Miss Riggs almost hysterical.”
“That is all right,” I says. “But when a woman gets hysterical she always keeps one corner of her brains that knows what she is doing and why. Mrs. Edgerton has got a swell apartment and an electric coop and a squirrel-skin coat and all them things is very nice and what is making her angry is the idea that I am getting a part of them away from her. But that is not going to make her give up the rest,” I says.
“Really now,” he says, “you are too cynical about women.”
“No,” I says, “but women have had to get what they have got from men and they have had to learn how. But maybe these is things that it is not right for women to tell to men so if you do not mind I will talk to you about the Spokesman and what He thinks about my idea that He should have a lot of pictures took showing Himself as a farmer’s Boy back on the old homestead.”
Well he tells me that he has talked about the idea with the Spokesman who is very much enthused about it and thinks it will be a great publicity stunt. And He is going to send up word for them to water the hay on the old place and grow it just as quick as they can and when it is high enough He will take His private train with about a hundred newspaper reporters up there and they can take pictures of the great Man riding a hayrake and that will surely be better than riding a camelephant. And Mr. Edgerton says he has spoke to the reporters also and they are keen about it and one of them has got the promise of a picture of the Spokesman with His arm about His favorite cow that He milked when He was a boy and when the general manager of theAmalgamated Press Association or something like that got wind about what they was planning he telegraphed for a life-size picture of the Spokesman leading old Dobbin home from the pasture.
Mr. Edgerton says it is a shame that hay grows so late in them artic regions and there is no way you can imitate it in a motion picture studio. And then I says, “Look-a-here Mr. Edgerton,” I says, “I have got a crow to pick with you and now is the time.”
“Did you get it out of the chop-guey?” he says because of course he is feeling jolly over that idea I have give him and what a blow it will be to Senator Buttles that grew up in a town and went to a college and is no good at all for the old homestead stuff.
“But this is no joke,” I says. “I have had it in mind ever since you sent out that story about the Spokesman buying a dozen spring suits to help the wholesale clothing trade. What I want to know is has He honestly bought them?”
“Well Miss Riggs,” he says, “I think we can feel reasonably certain that He has because he is fifty-three years old and He surely must of bought a spring suit every four years of His life.”
“That may be,” I says, kind of shocked, “but that is not what anybody is going to make out of that story Mr. Edgerton it was meant to be took that He had bought all them suits this year. And what I have got to say to you is I have always been brought up to tell the truth and I thought that I was helping to get the truth told to the plain people and if them that is in charge is all cynical about it then I could not be happy and I would rather have nothing to do with it.”
Well Mom he sees that I am serious and he says again that I am just like the Spokesman I have a natural deep reverence for great ideals and that is why I am able to understand Him so good. I says, “Yes but then why does He let you give out stories about Him that is not true?”
He thinks for a while and then he says, “Miss Riggs I am going to explain something to you that at first you may find hard to understand. There is a difference between public life and other life and there is a kind of truth for each. I think maybe it will be easier for you to understand because you tell me that your mother was once an actress.”
“Yes,” I says, “she was a great actress she played Eliza in Uncle Tom’s Cabin for many years.”
“Well,” he says, “then you must of been to plays andmaybe behind the scenes and you know that a play can be true as a play and yet it don’t have to be true in other ways. For instance suppose your mother is playing the part of a young girl well she makes up that way and she pretends to be happy and the audience is all delighted and they get a truth out of that play. But it may be that really your mother is older and has got children at home and one of them has got the croup—I believe you told me one of them had—and your mother is not feeling happy that night at all yet she has got to play that she is happy because that is the play-truth but if she was to act the real truth and cry on the stage why she would spoil the show and the audience would not get the truth of the play at all and they would go home sore.”
Of course I can see that. But I says, “This that we are talking about is real life—”
“But are you sure?” he says. “Suppose you was to get behind the scenes and discover that this game of politics is another kind of a play and that everybody in it has got to pretend that they are different from their real selves.”
Well of course I am kind of stunned and he can see it in my face and he says, “Does that shock you so much?” he says. “Don’t you see that the people have got to have ideals they have got to believe in great men?”
“Yes,” I says, “but aren’t there no real great men?”
“There is now and then a great man,” he says, “but he is very scarce and most generally you will find that he is not available for Spokesman. There can be a thousand different reasons maybe he is not acceptable to the Knights of Columbus or maybe he was born in Kishineff or maybe he believes in evolution or maybe his wife has divorced him or maybe none of the big bankers is ever met him. So you have got to take somebody that has been careful and not made no enemies and then when you have got him you have got to do the best you can by him and the daughter of a famous actress should ought to understand how much a skillful make-up and the right costumes can do to say nothing of a highly skilled press agent and a good lady assistant,” he says with a bow.
But his little compliment don’t help him for I says, “Then you are all the time fooling the plain people!” I says.
“Miss Riggs,” he says, “you are a serious young lady and I want you to stop and think what would happen to this country if the people was to lose their reverence for theSpokesman that lives up in the big white house and tells them what to think and what to do?”
Well of course I cant think what would happen but Mr. Edgerton he says, “Look here I have got a piece out of a paper from a town in the middle west and there was a man from that town that come to Washington and he shook the hand of the Spokesman and then he went back home and when the word got out that he had actually shook the hand of the Spokesman the members of his lodge passed a resolution and they stood him up by the door and every one of the seventy-five men in the lodge filed by him and shook the hand that had shook the hand of the Spokesman. And that is what you call Faith Miss Riggs that is having an ideal and if all them seventy-five men was to lose it what would happen to them the whole seventy-five would get drunk and go home and beat their wives.”
And he goes on, “Yes Miss Riggs,” he says, “it would mean riot and red revolution. You can go and ask any of them Bolshivikis if there is anything they would like better than to have the American people get the idea that the Man they have got for Spokesman is a poor little Feller with carroty hair and a sallow skin that suffers from constitutional timidity and has got where He is by always waiting for His mind to be made up for Him—just you ask them Bolshivikis and hear them whoop with delight.”
“Mr. Edgerton,” I says, “you must know I have never met no Bolshivikis and don’t never expect to.”
“There is a plenty of them,” he says, “right here in Washington D. C. some of them is in the Senate and I tell you it puts a grave responsibility on you and me and other loyal Americans. Because this is what has happened Miss Riggs right in the middle of the show the leading Gentleman has went and died and the Understudy has took His place and it is the most awful job that has ever fell onto a theatrical management in the entire history of the American drama,” he says. “Because in this here political play there is no way that the Understudy can ever have a chance to rehearse with the rest of the company, one minute He is just a sort of callboy sitting out on a cracker-box and the next minute He must put on full regimentals and walk out into the spotlight and make a speech. And that means Miss Riggs a most dreadful problem for the rest of the cast that has got to get behind and support Him and for the stage-directors and the scene-shifters and worst of all the critics that has got to write up the show next morning. And that is theGod’s truth about my job and why I have got to have help so bad and you as a good loyal citizen and the daughter of a great actress has got to understand me and help with your great experience.”
Well Mom of course I am floored. All I can do is to sit there and at last I says, “Mr. Edgerton I have heard what you tell me and I suppose it is right but I hope you won’t mind it has shocked me so that I do not think I can eat no more Chinese dinner,” I says, “but I will go home and think it over and decide what I can do to help my country.”
Your bewildered daughter
Mame.