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John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

THE CAPTURED SHADOW: A short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald


  


BASIL DUKE LEE shut the front door behind him and turned on
the dining-room light. His mother's voice drifted sleepily downstairs :

"Basil, is that you?"

"No, mother, it's a burglar/'

"It seems to me twelve o'clock is pretty late for a fifteen-year-old
boy."

"We went to Smith's and had a soda."

Whenever a new responsibility devolved upon Basil he was "a
boy almost sixteen," but when a privilege was in. question, he was
"a fifteen-year-old boy."

There were footsteps above, and Mrs. Lee, in kimono, descended
to the first landing.

"Did you and Riply enjoy the play?"

"Yes, very much."

"What was it about?"

"Oh, it was just about this man. Just an ordinary play."

"Didn't it have a name?"

"< Are You a Mason?'"

"Oh." She hesitated, covetously watching his alert and eager face,
holding him there. "Aren't you coming to bed?"

"I'm going to get something to eat."

"Something more?"

For a moment he didn't answer. He stood in front of a glassed-in
bookcase in the living room, examining its contents with an equally
glazed eye.

"We're going to get up a play," he said suddenly. "I'm going to
write it."

"Well that'll be very nice. Please come to bed soon. You were
up late last night, too, and you've got dark circles under your
eyes."

From the bookcase Basil presently extracted "Van Bibber and
Others," from which he read while he ate a large plate of straw
softened with a half pint of cream. Back in the living room he sat
for a few minutes at the piano, digesting, and meanwhile staring at
the colored cover of a song from "The Midnight Sons." It showed
three men in evening clothes and opera hats sauntering jovially
along Broadway against the blazing background of Times Square.

Basil would have denied incredulously the suggestion that that was
currently his favorite work of art. But it was.

He went upstairs. From a drawer of his desk he took out a com-
position book and opened it.

BASIL DUKE LEE

ST. REGIS SCHOOL
EASTCHESTER, CONN.
FIFTH FORM FRENCH

and on the next page, under Irregular Verbs :

PRESENT

je connais nous con
tu connais
il connait

He turned over another page.

MR. WASHINGTON SQUARE
A Musical Comedy by

BASIL DUKE LEE
Music by Victor Herbert

ACT I

[The porch of the Millionaires' Club, near New York.
Opening Chorus, LEILIA and DEBUTANTES :

We sing not soft, we sing not loud

For no one ever heard an opening chorus.
We are a very merry crowd

But no one ever heard an opening chorus.
We f re just a crowd of debutantes

As merry as can be
And nothing that there is could ever bore us

We're the wittiest ones, the prettiest ones.

In all society
But no one ever heard an opening chorus.

LEILIA (stepping forward) : Well, girls, has Mr. Washington
Square been around here today?

Basil turned over a page. There was no answer to Leilia's question.
Instead in capitals was a brand-new heading :

HIC! HIC! HIC!

A Hilarious Farce in One Act
by

BASIL DUKE LEE

SCENE

[A fashionable apartment near Broadway, New York City. It is
almost midnight. As the curtain goes up there is a knocking at the
door and a jew minutes later it opens to admit a handsome man in
a full evening dress and a companion. He has evidently been imbib-
ing, for his words are thick, his nose is red, and he can hardly stand
up. He turns up the light and comes down centre.

STUYVESANT: Hicl Hie! Hie!

O'HARA (his companion) : Begorra, you been sayin' nothing else
all this evening.

Basil turned over a page and then another, reading hurriedly, but
not without interest.

PROFESSOR PUMPKIN : Now, if you are an educated man, as you
claim, perhaps you can tell me the Latin word for "this."
STUYVESANT: Hie! Hie! Hie!
PROFESSOR PUMPKIN : Correct. Very good indeed. I

At this point Hie ! Hie ! Hie ! came to an end in midsentence. On
the following page, in just as determined a hand as if the last two
works had not faltered by the way, was the heavily underlined be-
ginning of another :

THE CAPTURED SHADOW
A Melodramatic Farce in Three Acts
by BASIL DUKE LEE

SCENE

[All three acts take place in the library of the VAN BAKERS* house in
New York. It is well furnished with a red lamp on one side and
some crossed spears and helmets and so on and a divan and a general
air of an oriental den.

When the curtain rises Miss SAUNDERS, LEILIA VAN BAKER



The Captured Shadow 349

ESTELLA GARBAGE are sitting at a table. Miss SAUNDERS is an old
maid about forty very kittenish. LEILIA is pretty with dark hair.
ESTELLA has light hair. They are a striking combination.

"The Captured Shadow" filled the rest of the book and ran over
into several loose sheets at the end. When it broke off Basil sat for
a while in thought. This had been a season of "crook comedies" in
New York, and the feel, the swing, the exact and vivid image of the
two he had seen, were in the foreground of his mind. At the time
they had been enormously suggestive, opening out into a world much
larger and more brilliant than themselves that existed outside their
windows and beyond their doors, and it was this suggested world
rather than any conscious desire to imitate "Officer 666" that had in-
spired the effort before him. Presently he printed ACT II at the head
of a new tablet and began to write.

An hour passed. Several times he had recourse to a collection of
joke books and to an old Treasury of Wit and Humor which em-
balmed the faded Victorian cracks of Bishop Wilberforce and Sydney
Smith. At the moment when, in his story, a door moved slowly open,
he heard a heavy creak upon the stairs. He jumped to his feet,
aghast and trembling, but nothing stirred; only a white moth
bounced against the screen, a clock struck the half-hour far across
the city, a bird whacked its wings in a tree outside.

Voyaging to the bathroom at half-past four, he saw with a shock
that morning was already blue at the window. He had stayed up all
night. He remembered that people who stayed up all night went
crazy and, transfixed in the hall, he tried agonizingly to listen to him-
self, to feel whether or not he was going crazy. The things around
him seemed prenaturally unreal, and rushing frantically back into
his bedroom, he began tearing off his clothes, racing after the vanish-
ing night. Undressed, he threw a final regretful glance at his pile of
manuscript he had the whole next scene in his head. As a com-
promise with incipient madness he got into bed and wrote for an
hour more.

Late next morning he was startled awake by one of the ruthless
Scandinavian sisters who, in theory, were the Lees' servants. "Eleven
o'clock!" she shouted. "Five after!"

"Let me alone," Basil mumbled. "What do you come and wake me
up for?"

"Somebody downstairs." He opened his eyes. "You ate all the
cream last night," Hilda continued. "Your mother didn't have any
for her coffee."

"All the cream ! " he cried. "Why, I saw some more."

"That's terrible," he exclaimed, sitting up. "Terrible ! "

For a moment she enjoyed his dismay. Then she said, "Riply
Buckner's downstairs," and went out, closing the door.

"Send him up!" he called after her. "Hilda, why don't you ever
listen for a minute? Did I get any mail?"

There was no answer. A moment later Riply came in.

"My gosh, are you still in bed?"

"I wrote on the play all night. I almost finished Act Two." He
pointed to his desk.

"That's what I want to talk to you about," said Riply. "Mother
thinks we ought to get Miss Halliburton."

"What for?"

"Just to sort of be there."

Though Miss Halliburton was a pleasant person who combined the
occupations of French teacher and bridge teacher, unofficial chaperon
and children's friend, Basil felt that her superintendence would give
the project an unprofessional ring.

"She wouldn't interfere," went on Riply, obviously quoting his
mother. "I'll be the business manager and you'll direct the play, just
like we said, but it would be good to have her there for prompter
and to keep order at rehearsals. The girls' mothers'll like it."

"All right," Basil agreed reluctantly. "Now look, let's see who
we'll have in the cast. First, there's the leading man this gentleman
burglar that's called The Shadow. Only it turns out at the end that
he's really a young man about town doing it on a bet, and not really
a burglar at all."

"That's you."

"No, that's you."

"Come on ! You're the best actor," protested Riply.

"No, I'm going to take a smaller part, so I can coach."

"Well, haven't I got to be business manager?"

Selecting the actresses, presumably all eager, proved to be a diffi-
cult matter. They settled finally on Imogene Bissel for leading lady ;
Margaret Torrence for her friend, and Connie Davies for "Miss
Saunders, an old maid very kittenish."

On Riply's suggestion that several other girls wouldn't be pleased
at being left out, Basil introduced a maid and a cook, "who could
just sort of look in from the kitchen." He rejected firmly Riply's
further proposal that there should be two or three maids, "a sort of
sewing woman," and a trained nurse. In a house so clogged with
femininity even the most umbrageous of gentleman burglars would
have difficulty in moving about.

"I’ll tell you two people we won't have," Basil said meditatively
"that's Joe Gorman and Hubert Blair."

"I wouldn't be in it if we had Hubert Blair," asserted Riply.

"Neither would I."

Hubert Blair's almost miraculous successes with girls had caused
Basil and Riply much jealous pain.

They began calling up the prospective cast and immediately the
enterprise received its first blow. Imogene Bissel was going to
Rochester, Minnesota, to have her appendix removed, and wouldn't
be back for three weeks.

They considered.

"How about Margaret Torrence ?"

Basil shook his head. He had vision of Leilia Van Baker as some-
one rarer and more spirited than Margaret Torrence. Not that Leilia
had much being, even to Basil less than the Harrison Fisher girls
pinned around his wall at school. But she was not Margaret Tor-
rence. She was no one you could inevitably see by calling up half an
hour before on the phone.

He discarded candidate after candidate. Finally a face began to
flash before his eyes, as if in another connection, but so insistently
that at length he spoke the name.

"Evelyn Beebe."

"Who?"

Though Evelyn Beebe was only sixteen, her precocious charms had
elevated her to an older crowd and to Basil she seemed of the very
generation of his heroine, Leilia Van Baker. It was a little like asking
Sarah Bernhardt for her services, but once her name had occurred
to him, other possibilities seemed pale.

At noon they rang the Beebe 's door-bell, stricken by a paralysis of
embarrassment when Evelyn opened the door herself and, with polite-
ness that concealed a certain surprise, asked them in.

Suddenly, through the portiere of the living room, Basil saw and
recognized a young man in golf knickerbockers.

"I guess we better not come in," he said quickly. *

"We'll come some other time," Riply added.

Together they started precipitately for the door, but she barred
their way.

"Don't be silly," she insisted. "It's just Andy Lockheart."

Just Andy Lockheart winner of the Western Golf Championship
at eighteen, captain of his freshman baseball team, handsome, suc-
cessful at everything he tried, a living symbol of the splendid,
glamorous world of Yale. For a year Basil had walked like him and
tried unsuccessfully to play the piano by ear as Andy Lockheart was
able to do.

Through sheer ineptitude at escaping, they were edged into the
room. Their plan suddenly seemed presumptuous and absurd.

Perceiving their condition Evelyn tried to soothe them with pleas-
ant banter.

"Well, it's about time you came to see me," she told Basil. "Here
I've been sitting home every night waiting for you ever since the
Davies dance. Why haven't you been here before?"

He stared at her blankly, unable even to smile, and muttered:
"Yes, you have."

"I have though. Sit down and tell me why you've been neglecting
me! I suppose you've both been rushing the beautiful Imogene
Bissel."

"Why, I understand " said Basil. "Why, I heard from somewhere
that she's gone up to have some kind of an appendicitis that is "
He ran down to a pitch of inaudibility as Andy Lockheart at the
piano began playing a succession of thoughtful chords, which resolved
itself into the maxixe, an eccentric stepchild of the tango. Kicking
back a rug and lifting her skirts a little, Evelyn fluently tapped out
a circle with her heels around the floor.

They sat inanimate as cushions on the sofa watching her. She was
almost beautiful, with rather large features and bright fresh color,
behind which her heart seemed to be trembling a little with laughter.
Her voice and her lithe body were always mimicking, ceaselessly
caricaturing every sound and movement near by, until even those
who disliked her admitted that "Evelyn could always make you
laugh." She finished her dance now with a false stumble and an awed
expression as she clutched at the piano, and Basil and Riply
chuckled. Seeing their embarrassment lighten, she came and sat down
beside them, and they laughed again when she said: "Excuse my
lack of self-control."

"Do you want to be the leading lady in a play we're going to give ?"
demanded Basil with sudden desperation. "We're going to have it at
the Martindale School, for the benefit of the Baby Welfare."

"Basil, this is so sudden."

Andy Lockheart turned around from the piano.

" What're you going to give a minstrel show ?"

"No, it's a crook play named "The Captured Shadow." Miss Halli-
burton is going to coach it." He suddenly realized the convenience of
that name to shelter himself behind.

"Why don't you give something like "The Private Secretary"?"
interrupted Andy. "There's a good play for you. We gave it my last
year at school."

"Oh, no, it's all settled," said Basil quickly. "We're going to put
on this play that I wrote."

"You wrote it yourself?" exclaimed Evelyn.

"Yes."

"My-y gosh ! " said Andy. He began to play again.

"Look, Evelyn," said Basil. "It's only for three weeks, and you'd
be the leading lady."

She laughed. "Oh, no. I couldn't. Why don't you get Imogene?"

"She's sick, I tell you. Listen "

"Or Margaret Torrence?"

"I don't want anybody but you."

The directness of this appeal touched her and momentarily she
hesitated. But the hero of the Western Golf Championship turned
around from the piano with a teasing smile and she shook her head.

"I can't do it, Basil. I may have to go East with the family."

Reluctantly Basil and Riply got up.

"Gosh, I wish you'd be in it, Evelyn."

"I wish I could."

Basil lingered, thinking fast, wanting her more than ever ; indeed,
without her, it scarcely seemed worth while to go on with the play.
Suddenly a desperate expedient took shape on his lips :

"You certainly would be wonderful. You see, the leading man is
going to be Hubert Blair."

Breathlessly he watched her, saw her hesitate.

"Good-by," he said.

She came with them to the door and then out on the veranda,
frowning a little.

"How long did you say the rehearsals would take?" she asked
thoughtfully.

II

On an August evening three days later Basil read the play to the
cast on Miss Halliburton's porch. He was nervous and at first there
were interruptions of "Louder" and "Not so fast." Just as his audi-
ence was beginning to be amused by the repartee of the two comic
crooks repartee that had seen service with Weber and Fields he
was interrupted by the late arrival of Hubert Blair.

Hubert was fifteen, a somewhat shallow boy save for two or three
felicities which he possessed to an extraordinary degree. But one
excellence suggests the presence of others, and young ladies never
failed to respond to his most casual fancy, enduring his fickleness of
heart and never convinced that his fundamental indifference might
not be overcome. They were dazzled by his flashing self-confidence,
by his cherubic ingenuousness, which concealed a shrewd talent for
getting around people, and by his extraordinary physical grace.
Long-legged, beautifully proportioned, he had that tumbler's balance
usually characteristic only of men "built near the ground." He was
in constant motion that was a delight to watch, and Evelyn Beebe
was not the only older girl who had found in him a mysterious prom-
ise and watched him, for a long time with something more than
curiosity.

He stood in the doorway now with an expression of bogus rever
ence on his round pert face.

"Excuse me," he said. "Is this the First Methodist Episcopal
Church ?" Everybody laughed even Basil. "I didn't know. I thought
maybe I was in the right church, but in the wrong pew."

They laughed again, somewhat discouraged. Basil waited until
Hubert had seated himself beside Evelyn Beebe. Then he began to
read once more, while the others, fascinated, watched Hubert's efforts
to balance a chair on its hind legs. This squeaky experiment con-
tinued as an undertone to the reading. Not until Basil's desperate
"Now, here's where you come in, Hube," did attention swing back
to the play.

Basil read for more than an hour. When, at the end, he closed the
composition book and looked up shyly, there was a burst of spon-
taneous applause. He had followed his models closely, and for all its
grotesqueries, the result was actually interesting it was a play.
Afterward he lingered, talking to Miss Halliburton, and he walked
home glowing with excitement and rehearsing a little by himself
into the August night.

The first week of rehearsal was a matter of Basil climbing back
and forth from auditorium to stage, crying, "No ! Look here, Connie ;
you come in more like this." Then things began to happen. Mrs. Van
Schellinger came to rehearsal one day and, lingering afterward, an-
nounced that she couldn't let Gladys be in "a play about crimi-
nals." Her theory was that this element could be removed; for
instance, the two comic crooks could be changed to "two funny
farmers."

Basil listened with horror. When she had gone he assured Miss
Halliburton that he would change nothing. Luckily Gladys played
the cook, an interpolated part that could be summarily struck out,
but her absence was felt in another way. She was tranquil and tract-
able, "the most carefully brought-up girl in town," and at her with-
drawal rowdiness appeared during rehearsals. Those who had only
such lines as "I'll ask Mrs. Van Baker, sir," in Act I and "No,
ma'am," in Act III showed a certain tendency to grow restless in be-
tween. So now it was :

"Please keep that dog quiet or else send him home ! " or :

"Where's that maid ? Wake up, Margaret, for heaven's sake ! " or :

"What is there to laugh at that's so darn funny?"

More and more the chief problem was the tactful management of
Hubert Blair. Apart from his unwillingness to learn his lines, he was
a satisfactory hero, but off the stage he became a nuisance. He gave
an endless private performance for Evelyn Beebe, which took such
forms as chasing her amorously around the hall or flipping peanuts
over his shoulder to land mysteriously on the stage. Called to order,
he would mutter, "Aw, shut up yourself," just loud enough for Basil
to guess, but not to hear.

But Evelyn Beebe was all that Basil had expected. Once on the
stage she compelled a breathless attention, and Basil recognized this
by adding to her part. He envied the half -sentimental fun that she
and Hubert derived from their scenes together and he felt a vague,
impersonal jealousy that almost every night after rehearsal they
drove around together in Hubert's car.

One afternoon when matters had progressed a fortnight, Hubert
came in an hour late, loafed through the first act and then informed
Miss Halliburton that he was going home.

"What for?" Basil demanded.

"I've got some things I got to do."

"Are they important?"

"What business is that of yours?"

"Of course it's my business," said Basil heatedly, whereupon Miss
Halliburton interfered.

"There's no use of anybody getting angry. What Basil means,
Hubert, is that if it's just some small thing why, we're all giving'
up our pleasure to make this play a success."

Hubert listened with obvious boredom.

"I've got to drive downtown and get father."

He looked coolly at Basil, as if challenging him to deny the ade-
quacy of this explanation.

"They why did you come an hour late ?" demanded Basil.

"Because I had to do something for mother."

A group had gathered and he glanced around triumphantly. It was
one of those sacred excuses, and only Basil saw that it was dis-
ingenuous.

"Oh, tripe! "he said.

"Maybe you think so Bossy."

Basil took a step toward him, his eyes blazing.

"What'dyousay?"

"I said 'Bossy.' Isn't that what they call you at school?"

It was true. It had followed him home. Even as he went white
with rage a vast impotence surged over him at the realization that the
past was always lurking near. The faces of school were around him,
sneering and watching. Hubert laughed.

"Get out ! " said Basil in a strained voice. "Go on ! Get right out ! "




Hubert laughed again, but as Basil took a step toward him he re-
treated.

"I don't want to be in your play anyhow. I never did."

"Then go on out of this hall."

"Now, Basil ! " Miss Halliburton hovered breathlessly beside them.
Hubert laughed again and looked about for his cap.

"I wouldn't be in your crazy old show," he said. He turned slowly
and jauntily, and sauntered out the dooj.

Riply Buckner read Hubert's part that afternoon, but there was a
cloud upon the rehearsal. Miss Beebe's performance lacked its cus-
tomary verve and the others clustered and whispered, falling silent
when Basil came near. After the rehearsal, Miss Halliburton, Riply
and Basil held a conference. Upon Basil flatly refusing to take the
leading part, it was decided to enlist a certain Mayall De Bee, known
slightly to Riply, who had made a name for himself in theatricals
at the Central High School.

But next day a blow fell that was irreparable. Evelyn, flushed and
uncomfortable, told Basil and Miss Halliburton that her family's
plans had changed they were going East next week and she couldn't
be in the play after all. Basil understood. Only Hubert had held her
this long.

"Good-by," he said gloomily.

His manifest despair shamed her and she tried to justify herself.

"Really, I can't help it. Oh, Basil, I'm so sorry!"

"Coudn't you stay over a week with me after your family goes?"
Miss Halliburton asked innocently.

"Not possibly. Father wants us all to go together. That's the only
reason. If it wasn't for that I'd stay."

"All right," Basil said. "Good-by."

"Basil, you're not mad, are you?" A gust of repentance swept over
her. "I'll do anything to help. I'll come to rehearsals this week until
you get someone else, and then I'll try to help her all I can. But
father says we've got to go."

In vain Riply tried to raise Basil's morale after the rehearsal that
afternoon, making suggestions which he waved contemptuously
away. Margaret Torrence? Connie Davies? They could hardly play
the parts they had. It seemed to Basil as if the undertaking was
falling to pieces before his eyes.

It was still early when he got home. He sat dispiritedly by his
bedroom window, watching the little Barnfield boy playing a lone-
some game by himself in the yard next door.

His mother came in at five, and immediately sensed his depression.

"Teddy Barnfield has the mumps," she said, in an effort to dis-
tract him. "That's why he's playing there all alone."

"Has he?" he responded listlessly.

"It isn't at all dangerous, but it's very contagious. You had it when
you were seven."

"H'm."

She hesitated.

"Are you worrying about your play? Has anything gone wrong?"

"No, mother. I just want to be alone."

After a while he got up and started after a malted milk at the soda
fountain around the corner. It was half in his mind to see Mr. Beebe
and ask him if he couldn't postpone his trip East. If he could only
be sure that that was Evelyn's real reason.

The sight of Evelyn's nine-year-old brother coming along the
street broke in on his thoughts.

"Hello, Ham. I hear you're going away."

Ham nodded.

"Going next week. To the seashore."

Basil looked at him speculatively, as if, through his proximity to
Evelyn, he held the key to the power of moving her.

"Where are you going now?" he asked.

"I'm going to play with Teddy Barnfield."

"What ! " Basil exclaimed. "Why, didn't you know" He stopped.
A wild, criminal idea broke over him; his mother's words floated
through his mind : "It isn't at all dangerous, but it's very contagious."
If little Ham Beebe got the mumps, and Evelyn couldn't go away

He came to a decision quickly and coolly.

"Teddy's playing in his back yard," he said. "If you want to see
him without going through his house, why don't you go down this
street and turn up the alley?"

"All right. Thanks," said Ham trustingly.

Basil stood for a minute looking after him until he turned the
corner into the alley, fully aware that it was the worst thing he had
ever done in his life.

Ill

A week later Mrs. Lee had an early supper all Basil's favorite
things: chipped beef, French-fried potatoes, sliced peaches and
cream, and devil's food.

Every few minutes Basil said, "Gosh! I wonder what time it is,"
and went out in the hall to look at the clock. "Does that clock work
right?" he demanded with sudden suspicion. It was the first time the
matter had ever interested him.

"Perfectly all right. If you eat so fast you'll have indigestion and
then you won't be able to act well."

"What do you think of the program ?" he asked for the third time.
"Riply Buckner, Jr., presents Basil Duke Lee's comedy, 'The Cap-
tured Shadow/ "

"I think it's very nice."

"He doesn't really present it."

"It sounds very well though."

"I wonder what time it is?" he inquired.

"You just said it was ten minutes after six."

"Well, I guess I better be starting."

"Eat your peaches, Basil. If you don't eat you won't be able to
act."

"I don't have to act," he said patiently. "All I am is a small part,
and it wouldn't matter " It was too much trouble to explain.

"Please don't smile at me when I come on, mother," he requested.
"Just act as if I was anybody else."

"Can't I even say how-do-you-do?"

"What?" Humor was lost on him. He said good-by. Trying very
hard to digest not his food but his heart, which had somehow slipped
down into his stomach, he started off for the Martindale School.

As its yellow windows loomed out of the night his excitement be-
came insupportable ; it bore no resemblance to the building he had
been entering so casually for three weeks. His footsteps echoed
symbolically and portentously in its deserted hall; upstairs there
was only the janitor setting out the chairs in rows, and Basil won-
dered about the vacant stage until someone came in.

It was Mayall De Bee, the tall, clever, not very likeable youth they
had imported from Lower Crest Avenue to be the leading man.
Mayall, far from being nervous, tried to engage Basil in casual con-
versation. He wanted to know if Basil thought Evelyn Beebe would
mind if he went to see her sometime when the show was over. Basil
supposed not. Mayall said he had a friend whose father owned a
brewery who owned a twelve-cylinder car.

Basil said, "Gee!"

At quarter to seven the participants arrived in groups Riply
Buckner with the six boys he had gathered to serve as ticket takers
and ushers ; Miss Halliburton, trying to seem very calm and reliable ;
Evelyn Beebe, who came in as if she were yielding herself up to
something and whose glance at Basil seemed to say : "Well, it looks
as if I'm really going through with it after all."

Mayall De Bee was to make up the boys and Miss Halliburton the
girls, Basil soon came to the conclusion that Miss Halliburton knew
nothing about make-up, but he judged it diplomatic, in that lady's
overwrought condition, to say nothing, but to take each girl to Mayall
for corrections when Miss Halliburton had done.

An exclamation from Bill Kampf, standing at a crack in the cur-
tain, brought Basil to his side. A tall bald-headed man in spectacles
had come in and was shown to a seat in the middle of the house,
where he examined the program. He was the public. Behind those
waiting eyes, suddenly so mysterious and incalculable, was the secret
of the play's failure or success. He finished the program, took off his
glasses and looked around. Two old ladies and two little boys came
in, followed immediately by a dozen more.

"Hey, Riply," Basil called softly. "Tell them to put the children
down in front."

Riply, struggling into his policeman's uniform, looked up, and the
long black mustache on his upper lip quivered indignantly.

"I thought of that long ago."

That hall, filling rapidly, was now alive with the buzz of conversa-
tion. The children in front were jumping up and down in their seats,
and everyone was talking and calling back and forth save the several
dozen cooks and housemaids who sat in stiff and quiet pairs about
the room.

Then, suddenly, everything was ready. It was incredible. "Stop!
Stop ! " Basil wanted to say. "It can't be ready. There must be some-
thing there always has been something," but the darkened audi-
torium and the piano and violin from Geyer's Orchestra playing
Meet Me in the Shadows belied his words. Miss Saunders, Leilia Van
Baker and Leilia's friend, Estella Carrage, were already seated on
the stage, and Miss Halliburton stood in the wings with the prompt
book. Suddenly the music ended and the chatter in front died away.

"Oh, gosh ! " Basil thought. "Oh, my gosh ! "

The curtain rose. A clear voice floated up from somewhere. Could
it be from that unfamiliar group on the stage ?

I will, Miss Saunders. I tell you I will!

But, Miss Leilia, I don't consider the newspapers proper for young ladies
nowadays.

I don't care. I want to read about this wonderful gentleman burglar they
call The Shadow.

It was actually going on. Almost before he realized it, a ripple of
laughter passed over the audience as Evelyn gave her imitation of
Miss Saunders behind her back.

"Get ready, Basil," breathed Miss Halliburton.

Basil and Bill Kampf, the crooks, each took an elbow of Victor
Van Baker, the dissolute son of the house, and made ready to aid
him through the front door.

It was strangely natural to be out on the stage with all those eyes
looking up encouragingly. His mother's face floated past him, other
faces that he recognized and remembered.

Bill Kampf stumbled on a line and Basil picked him up quickly
and went on.


Miss SAUNDERS: So you are alderman from the Sixth Ward?
RABBIT SIMMONS: Yes, ma'am.

Miss SAUNDERS (shaking her head kittenishly) : Just what is an alderman?
CHINAMAN RUDD: An alderman is halfway between a politician and a
pirate.

This was one of Basil's lines that he was particularly proud of
but there was not a sound from the audience, not a smile. A moment
later Bill Kampf absent-mindedly wiped his forehead with his
handkerchief and then stared at it, startled by the red stains of
make-up on it and the audience roared. The theatre was like that.

Miss SAUNDERS : Then you believe in spirits, Mr. Rudd.
CHINAMAN RUDD: Yes, ma'am, I certainly do believe in spirits. Have you
got any?

The first big scene came. On the darkened stage a window rose
slowly and Mayall De Bee, "in a full evening dress," climbed over
the sill. He was tiptoeing cautiously from one side of the stage to
the other, when Leilia Van Baker came in. For a moment she was
frightened, but he assured her that he was a friend of her brother
Victor. They talked. She told him naively yet feelingly of her admira-
tion for The Shadow, of whose exploits she had read. She hoped,
though, that The Shadow would not come here tonight, as the family
jewels were all in that safe at the right.

The stranger was hungry. He had been late for his dinner and so
had not been able to get any that night. Would he have some crackers
and milk ? That would be fine. Scarcely had she left the room when
he was on his knees by the safe, fumbling at the catch, undeterred
by the unpromising word "Cake" stencilled on the safe's front. It
swung open, but he heard footsteps outside and closed it just as
Leilia came back with the crackers and milk.

They lingered, obviously attracted to each other. Miss Saunders
came in, very kittenish, and was introduced. Again Evelyn mimicked
her behind her back and the audience roared. Other members of the
household appeared and were introduced to the stranger.

What's this? A banging at the door, and Mulligan, a policeman,
rushes in.

We have just received word from the Central Office that the notorious
Shadow has been seen climbing in the window! No one can leave this house
tonight !

The curtain fell. The first rows of the audience the younger
brothers and sisters of the cast were extravagant in their enthusi-
asm. The actors took a bow.

A moment later Basil found himself alone with Evelyn Beebe on
the stage. A weary doll in her make-up she was leaning against a
table.

"Heigh-ho, Basil," she said.

She had not quite forgiven him for holding her to her promise after
her little brother's mumps had postponed their trip East, and Basil
had tactfully avoided her, but now they met in the genial glow of
excitement and success.

"You were wonderful," he said "Wonderful ! "

He lingered a moment. He could never please her, for she wanted
someone like herself, someone who could reach her through her
senses, like Hubert Blair. Her intuition told her that Basil was of a
certain vague consequence; beyond that his incessant attempts to
make people think and feel, bothered and wearied her. But suddenly,
in the glow of the evening, they leaned forward and kissed peace-
fully, and from that moment, because they had no common ground
even to quarrel on, they were friends for life.

When the curtain rose upon the second act Basil slipped down a
flight of stairs and up another to the back of the hall, where he stood
watching in the darkness. He laughed silently when the audience
laughed, enjoying it as if it were a play he had never seen
before.

There was a second and a third act scene that were very similar.
In each of them The Shadow, alone on the stage, was interrupted by
Miss Saunders. Mayall De Bee, having had but ten days of rehearsal,
was inclined to confuse the two, but Basil was totally unprepared for
what happened. Upon Connie's entrance Mayall spoke his third-act
line and involuntarily Connie answered in kind.

Others coming on the stage were swept up in the nervousness and
confusion, and suddenly they were playing the third act in the mid-
dle of the second. It happened so quickly that for a moment Basil
had only a vague sense that something was wrong. Then he dashed
down one stairs and up another and into the wings, crying :

"Let down the curtain ! Let down the curtain ! "

The boys who stood there aghast sprang to the rope. In a minute
Basil, breathless, was facing the audience.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "there's been changes in the cast
and what just happened was a mistake. If you'll excuse us we'd like
to do that scene over."

He stepped back in the wings to a flutter of laughter and applause.

"All right, Mayall ! " he called excitedly. "On the stage alone. Your
line is: 'I just want to see that the jewels are all right/ and Connie's
is: 'Go ahead, don't mind me.' All right! Curtain up!"

In a moment things righted themselves. Someone brought water
for Miss Halliburton, who was in a state of collapse, and as the act
ended they all took a curtain call once more. Twenty minutes later
it was over. The hero clasped Leilia Van Baker to his breast, confess-
ing that he was The Shadow, "and a captured Shadow at that" ; the
curtain went up and down, up and down; Miss Halliburton was
dragged unwillingly on the stage and the ushers came up the aisles
laden with flowers. Then everything became informal and the actors
mingled happily with the audience, laughing and important, con-
gratulated from all sides. An old man whom Basil didn't know came
up to him and shook his hand, saying, "You're a young man that's
going to be heard from some day," and a reporter from the paper
asked him if he was really only fifteen. It might all have been very
bad and demoralizing for Basil, but it was already behind him. Even
as the crowd melted away and the last few people spoke to him and
went out, he felt a great vacancy come into his heart. It was over, it
was done and gone all that work, and interest and absorption. It
was a fyollowness like fear.

"Good night, Miss Halliburton. Good night, Evelyn."

"Good night, Basil. Congratulations, Basil. Good night."

"Where's my coat? Good night, Basil."

"Leave your costumes on the stage, please. They've got to go
back tomorrow."

He was almost the last to leave, mounting to the stage for a mo-
ment and looking around the deserted hall. His mother was waiting
and they strolled home together through the first cool night of the
year.

"Well, I thought it went very well indeed. Were you satisfied ?" He
didn't answer for a moment. "Weren't you satisfied with the way it
went?"

"Yes." He turned his head away.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," and then, "Nobody really cares, do they?"

"About what?"

"About anything."

"Everybody cares about different things. I care about you, fo;
instance."

Instinctively he ducked away from a hand extended caressingly
toward him: "Oh, don't. I don't mean like that."

"You're just overwrought, dear."

"I am not overwrought. I just feel sort of sad."

"You shouldn't feel sad. Why, people told me after the play "

"Oh, that's all over. Don't talk about that don't ever talk to me
about that any more."

"Then what are you sad about?"

"Oh, about a little boy."

"What little boy?"

"Oh, little Ham you wouldn't understand."

"When we get home I want you to take a real hot bath and quiet
your nerves."

"All right."

But when he got home he fell immediately into deep sleep on the
sofa. She hesitated. Then covering him with a blanket and a com-
forter, she pushed a pillow under his protesting head and went
upstairs.

She knelt for a long time beside her bed.

"God, help him! help him," she prayed, "because he needs help
that I can't give him any more."