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."