Part 12 (2/2)

His first real meeting with Sid Hahn had had much to do with the fixing of this image. Of course he had seen Hahn hundreds of times in the office and about the theatre. They had spoken, too, many times. Hahn called him vaguely, ”Heh, boy!” but he grew to know him later as Wallie.

From errand-boy, office-boy, call-boy he had become, by that time, a sort of unofficial a.s.sistant stage manager. No one acknowledged that he was invaluable about the place, but he was. When a new play was in rehearsal at the Thalia, Wallie knew more about props, business, cues, lights, and lines than the director himself. For a long time no one but Wallie and the director were aware of this. The director never did admit it. But that Hahn should find it out was inevitable.

He was nineteen or thereabouts when he was sent, one rainy November evening, to deliver a play ma.n.u.script to Hahn at his apartment. Wallie might have refused to perform an errand so menial, but his wors.h.i.+p of Hahn made him glad of any service, however humble. He b.u.t.toned his coat over the ma.n.u.script, turned up his collar, and plunged into the cold drizzle of the November evening.

Hahn's apartment--he lived alone--was in the early fifties, off Fifth Avenue. For two days he had been ill with one of the heavy colds to which he was subject. He was unable to leave the house. Hence Wallie's errand.

It was Saki--or Saki's equivalent--who opened the door. A white-coated, soft-stepping j.a.p, world-old looking like the room glimpsed just beyond.

Someone was playing the piano with one finger, horribly.

”You're to give this to Mr. Hahn. He's waiting for it.”

”Genelmun come in,” said the j.a.p, softly.

”No, he don't want to see me. Just give it to him, see?”

”Genelmun come in.” Evidently orders.

”Oh, all right. But I know he doesn't want--”

Wallie turned down his collar with a quick flip, looked doubtfully at his shoes, and pa.s.sed through the glowing little foyer into the room beyond. He stood in the doorway. He was scarcely twenty then, but something in him sort of rose, and gathered, and seethed, and swelled, and then hardened. He didn't know it then but it was his great resolve.

Sid Hahn was seated at the piano, a squat, gnomelike little figure, with those big ears, and that plump face, and those soft eyes--the kindest eyes in the world. He did not stop playing as Wallie appeared. He glanced up at him, ever so briefly, but kindly, too, and went on playing the thing with one short forefinger, excruciatingly. Wallie waited. He had heard somewhere that Hahn would sit at the piano thus, for hours, the tears running down his cheeks because of the beauty of the music he could remember but not reproduce; and partly because of his own inability to reproduce it.

The stubby little forefinger faltered, stopped. He looked up at Wallie.

”G.o.d, I wish I could play!”

”Helps a lot.”

”You play?”

”Yes.”

”What?”

”Oh, most anything I've heard once. And some things I kind of make up.”

”Compose, you mean?”

”Yes.”

”Play one of those.”

So Wallie Ascher played one of those. Of course you know ”Good Night--Pleasant Dreams.” He hadn't named it then. It wasn't even published until almost two years later, but that was what he played for Sid Hahn. Since ”After The Ball” no popular song has achieved the success of that one. No doubt it was cheap, and no doubt it was sentimental, but so, too, are ”The Suwanee River” and ”My Old Kentucky Home,” and they'll be singing those when more cla.s.sical songs have long been forgotten. As Wallie played it his dark, thin face seemed to gleam and glow in the lamplight.

When he had finished Sid Hahn was silent for a moment. Then, ”What're you going to do with it?”

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