Part 26 (2/2)
”No,” says Jared, ”I've been doing the dreaming.”
CHAPTER VII
ART IS WRONG
Every time some guy goes over the top to notoriety and money in this movie called life, they is some 5,678,954 also rans which wags their heads from side to side and says, ”Well--no wonder. He was born that way and couldn't help himself!” Then, they go back to their dub jobs and wish they was lucky.
That stuff is all wrong! A guy may be born with different color hair from the next guy, but he's never born with any secret of success that the kid in the adjoinin' crib ain't got. All you need to be born with in order to get the world familiar with your last name is the usual number of arms, legs and etc. and a mad habitual yearnin' to make good that a sudden hypodermic of success don't kill. Anything but failure is possible to a hustler, and by a hustler I don't mean one of them breezy birds which makes a lotta noise, thinks they is only one letter in the alphabet and that's the one after ”H,” but the guy which takes setbacks as encouragement and quits tryin' the day the undertaker is called in.
They's many a big artist whose ancestors thought paint was used for the sides of barns only, they's many a famous actor whose father figured Shakespeare was the name of a puddin', they's many a big league author come from families which confined their readin' matter to the city directory, and so it goes all along the line--Columbus's old man was a cotton picker. You don't inherit success, you take it by force, usin'
your ambition, nerve and ability as the weapons.
The above information was handed on to me by Alex. He says Broadway is too narrow and Vermont moonlight had it lookin' dark at night and he then proceeds to wed one of the prettiest girls that ever looked over the Winter Garden footlights--she makes homemade bread now, too! The first time he went to the Metropolitan Opera House he claims he'd like grand opera if they wouldn't sing and when does the acrobats come out, yet the next week he's able to take a apartment on Riverside Drive.
This here is just a few of the things Alex done to break up the dull monotony of life in a burg where that and death is mere incidents.
The wife and I is sittin' together in the parlor one night and she's knittin' a sweater for me that will prob'ly make me off her for life, whilst I'm readin' aloud to her from the only novel in which true love and the like don't win out in the end. It's called ”Simpson's Universal Educator” and the subject we are on is how wet is the Pacific, or some such hot stuff as that. They is a ring at the bell and the wife grabs the book outa my hand and slings about thirty dollars' worth of wool over my arms.
[Ill.u.s.tration: She's knittin' a sweater for me that will prob'ly make me off her for life.]
”Sit up straight,” she says, ”and look interested in this! You're helpin' me knit--get that? Look as if you like it and the minute the door opens call me dear.”
”What's the idea?” I says, sittin' there with my arms out straight and stiff before me like a doll or the like. ”I don't get--”
”Sss.h.!.+” she whispers. ”That's probably Ruth Hopper and her husband.
She's trying to get him to quit playing pinochle all night and she wants to show him what a ideal husband does.”
”A pinochle fiend, hey?” I says. ”Well, lead him on! We got a little game down at the corner and he'll just make up the set. It's gettin'
around time for me to leave anyways. I been in a half hour now and--”
Well, at that moment our charmin' maid leads in no less than Alex and his wife Eve. Speakin' of good lookers, this dame would make Morgan forget about Wall Street, and she's wearin' a dress that must of put some Fifth Avenue store over. But the wife begins bein' pleasant to gaze upon and a delight to the naked eye where Eve leaves off. Why, she's got a movie contract which she holds over my head every time I stay out till ten o'clock and the like. Them two dames in the one room is more than the average guy can stand and how they ever come to fall for a coupla guys like me and Alex is a subject for bigger brains than mine. They say women is peculiar, hey? Well, it's a good thing for the average guy that they are!
”Well!” remarks Eve, lookin' from me to the wife. ”How perfectly sweet! If you two only knew what a pretty picture you make!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”How perfectly sweet! If you two only knew what pretty picture you make!”]
”Yeh,” I says, gettin' up and dumpin' the near sweater on the table.
”You'd almost think we wasn't married, hey?”
”Speaking of pictures,” says the wife, allowin' Alex to kiss her--a thing I loathe, ”let's all go down and see 'Wronged By Mistake.' They tell me--”
”Nothin' stirrin',” I b.u.t.ts in. ”I wanna see Beryldine Nearer in 'The Woman Which Lost.' She's some dame, believe me! If I was the leadin'
man in her pictures I'd work for nothin'.”
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