Octavus Roy Cohen

“ D'you think I'd be doing the square thing if I tied her up with me for life, when she's crazy ambitious to get to the top of the heap, and has the stuff to do it too, and me always going to be—well, just short of a real, lasting star? ”

“ Parodies always go, if they're good. He's a fine guy, that chap is, and he'd sell his shirt for me. He'll dope us out a real act. Then we'll beat it into New York, put in a couple of weeks' hard rehearsal, take our try-out and eat up the Big Time—what?"
"It—it sounds too good to be true. I've dreamed of such a thing—"
"It's business," he said seriously. "It aint no charity with me—not by a long shot. One of the biggest booking-agents in the country advised me to team up if I could get the right partner. ”

“ The eminent booking-agent shook his head sagely.
"You've more common-sense than most vaudevillians," he remarked easily. "Most guys on the two-a-day think us managers has a grudge against 'em—when, as a matter of fact, we are combing this country from end to end for real talent. There's too many that thinks they ought to be put on seventeen times in succession in the same show at the Palace. They're too stuck on themselves. They go on pullin' the same stuff year after year, never knowin' why we want 'em less and less. ”

“ Billy nodded.
"The gink who was off his bean and who went around with a chip on his shoulder looking for trouble?"
"The same. Well, he lived a long, long time ago. There aint been another guy like him in the limelight for many a year. I wouldn't try to pull his act if I were you."
"But—"
"But nothing. When you get my age, son, you'll know that there aint nothing in the world that means half as much to a woman as marriage to the man she loves. Dolly—"
"She aint soft for me!" ”

“ Of course, to be honest, there are a lot of things about your act that need polishing. You ought to have a few weeks under a real dancing-teacher. Your patter is stale—syndicate stuff, almost. It's been pulled until it has whiskers. But you've got the goods. You aint been at it long, have you?"
She flushed slightly, and then dimpled delightfully.
"It's a secret," she murmured. "Even the house-manager doesn't know. This is my fourth week!"
"What?" Billy was astounded. "No!" ”

“ Hard lines; that's what I call it. You've got the goods, and you'll always be a good Big-Timer—but there's a kink somewheres. That's the trouble with vaudeville: we know it's there, and yet we can't find it. Maybe,"—speculatively,—"maybe a two-act—"
Billy laughed.
"Me take a partner? Aw, say—"
And so Billy had grinned, taken a proffered perfecto, and left to play twenty-one weeks on Central Time. And in Omaha he had strolled into the Majestic, which was running small-time stuff, and had heard and been charmed with Dolly Veerden. ”

“ And the managers recognized the existence of the flaw, for while Billy had been featured in almost every large vaudeville house in the country, and although he had been headlined on the biggest of road-time, he'd never reached the eminence which had been attained by other singles—the eminence, for instance, of Bert Fitzgibbon or Jack Wilson—or, among the women, of Eva Tanguay or Belle Baker. ”

“ And then, when the earth had again righted itself, and the foolish young couple had descended from the heaven of their bliss, she snuggled c1ose to him and remarked that she had a confession to make, and he kissed her and asked her to make it. ”