sucking voluptuously at radsikoff's cigar, pinchas plunged from the steam-heated, cheerful café into the raw, unlovely street, still hummocked with an ancient, uncleared snowfall. he did not take the horse-car which runs in this quarter; he was reserving the [269]five cents for a spirituous nightcap. his journey was slow, for a side street that he had to pass through was, like nearly all the side streets of the great city, an abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of frozen, dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and scarcely by them. pinchas was glad of his cane; an alpenstock would not have been superfluous. but the theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby and flamboyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was already up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof to floor. rebuffed by the janitors, pinchas haughtily asked for goldwater. goldwater was on the stage, and could not see him. but nothing could down the poet, whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery. this great theatre was his, this mighty audience his to melt and fire.

'i will await him in a box,' he said.

'there's no room,' said the usher.

pinchas threw up his head. 'i am the author of "hamlet"!'

the usher winced as at a blow. all his life he had heard vaguely of 'hamlet'—as a great play that was acted on broadway. and now here was the author himself! all the instinctive snobbery of the ghetto toward the grand world was excited. and yet this seedy figure conflicted painfully with his ideas of the uptown type. but perhaps all dramatists were alike. pinchas was bowed forward.

in another instant the theatre was in an uproar. a man in a comfortable fauteuil had been asked to accommodate the distinguished stranger and had refused.

'i pay my dollar—what for shall i go?'

[270]'but it is the author of "hamlet"!'

'my money is as good as his.'

'but he doesn't pay.'

'and i shall give my good seat to a schnorrer!'

'sh! sh!' from all parts of the house, like water livening, not killing, a flame. from every side came expostulations in yiddish and american. this was a free republic; the author of 'hamlet' was no better than anybody else. goldwater, on the stage, glared at the little poet.

at last a compromise was found. a chair was placed at the back of a packed box. american boxes are constructed for publicity, not privacy, but the other dozen occupants bulked between him and the house. he could see, but he could not be seen. sullen and mortified he listened contemptuously to the play.

it was, indeed, a strange farrago, this romantic drama with which the vast audience had replaced the sabbath pieties, the home-keeping ritual of the ghetto, in their swift transformation to american life. confined entirely to jewish characters, it had borrowed much from the heroes and heroines of the western world, remaining psychologically true only in its minor characters, which were conceived and rendered with wonderful realism by the gifted actors. and this naturalism was shot through with streaks of pure fantasy, so that kangaroos suddenly bounded on in a masque for the edification of a russian tyrant. but comedy and fantasy alike were subordinated to horror and tragedy: these refugees from the brutality of russia and rumania, these inheritors of the wailing melodies of a persecuted synagogue, craved morbidly for gruesomeness and gore. the 'happy endings' of [271]broadway would have spelled bankruptcy here. players and audience made a large family party—the unfailing result of a stable stock company with the parts always cast in the same mould. and it was almost an impromptu performance. pinchas, from his proximity to the stage, could hear every word from the prompter's box, which rose in the centre of the footlights. the yiddish prompter did not wait till the players 'dried up'; it was his r?le to read the whole play ahead of them. 'then you are the woman who murdered my mother,' he would gabble. and the actor, hearing, invented immediately the fit attitude and emphasis, spinning out with elocutionary slowness and passion the raw material supplied to him. no mechanical crossing and recrossing the stage, no punctilious tuition by your stage-manager—all was inspiration and fire. but to pinchas this hearing of the play twice over—once raw and once cooked—was maddening.

'the lazy-bones!' he murmured. 'not thus shall they treat my lines. every syllable must be engraved upon their hearts, or i forbid the curtain to go up. not that it matters with this fool-dramatist's words; they are ink-vomit, not literature.'

another feature of the dialogue jarred upon his literary instinct. incongruously blended with the yiddish were elementary american expressions—the first the immigrants would pick up. 'all right,' 'sure!' 'yes, sir,' 'say, how's the boss?' 'good-bye.' 'not a cent.' 'take the elevated.' 'yup.' 'nup.' 'that's one on you!' 'rubber-neck!' a continuous fusillade of such phrases stimulated and flattered the audience, pleased to find themselves on [272]such easy terms with the new language. but to pinchas the idea of peppering his pure yiddish with such locutions was odious. the prince of palestine talking with a twang—how could he permit such an outrage upon his hebrew hamlet?

hardly had the curtain fallen on the act than he darted through the iron door that led from the rear of the box to the stage, jostling the cursing carpenters, and pushed aside by the perspiring principals, on whom the curtain was rising and re-rising in a continuous roar. at last he found himself in the little bureau and dressing-room in which goldwater was angrily changing his trousers. kloot, the actor-manager's factotum, a big-nosed insolent youth, sat on the table beside the telephone, a peaked cap on his head, his legs swinging.

'son of a witch! you come and disturb all my house. what do you want?' cried goldwater.

'i want to talk to you about rehearsals.'

'i told you i would let you know when rehearsals began.'

'but you forgot to take my address.'

'as if i don't know where to find you!'

kloot grinned. 'pinchas gets drinks from all the café,' he put in.

'they drink to the health of "hamlet,"' said pinchas proudly.

'all right; kloot's gotten your address. good-evening.'

'but when will it be? i must know.'

'we can't fix it to a day. there's plenty of money in this piece yet.'

'money—bah! but merit?'

[273]'you fellows are as jealous as the devil.'

'me jealous of kangaroos! in central park you see giraffes—and tortoises too. central park has more talent than this scribbler of yours.'

'i doubt if there's a bigger peacock than here,' murmured goldwater.

'i'll write you about rehearsals,' said kloot, winking at goldwater.

'but i must know weeks ahead—i may go lecturing. the great continent calls for me. in chicago, in cincinnati——'

'go, by all means,' said goldwater. 'we can do without you.'

'do without me? a nice mess you will make of it! i must teach you how to say every line.'

'teach me?' goldwater could hardly believe his ears.

pinchas wavered. 'i—i mean the company. i will show them the accent—the gesture. i'm a great stage-manager as well as a great poet. there shall be no more prompter.'

'indeed!' goldwater raised the eyebrow he was pencilling. 'and how are you going to get on without a prompter?'

'very simple—a month's rehearsals.'

goldwater turned an apoplectic hue deeper than his rouge.

kloot broke in impishly: 'it is very good of you to give us a month of your valuable time.'

but goldwater was too irate for irony. 'a month!' he gasped at last. 'i could put on six melodramas in a month.'

'but "hamlet" is not a melodrama!' said pinchas, shocked.

[274]'quite so; there is not half the scenery. it's the scenery that takes time rehearsing, not the scenes.'

the poet was now as purple as the player. 'you would profane my divine work by gabbling through it with your pack of parrots!'

'here, just you come off your perch!' said kloot. 'you've written the piece; we do the rest.' kloot, though only nineteen and at a few dollars a week, had a fine, careless equality not only with the whole world, but even with his employer. he was now, to his amaze, confronted by a superior.

'silence, impudent-face! you are not talking to radsikoff. i am a poet, and i demand my rights.'

kloot was silent from sheer surprise.

goldwater was similarly impressed. 'what rights?' he observed more mildly. 'you've had your twenty dollars. and that was too much.'

'too much! twenty dollars for the masterpiece of the twentieth century!'

'in the twenty-first century you shall have twenty-one dollars,' said kloot, recovering.

'make mock as you please,' replied the poet superbly. 'i shall be living in the fifty-first century even. poets never die—though, alas! they have to live. twenty dollars too much, indeed! it is not a dollar a century for the run of the play.'

'very well,' said goldwater grimly. 'give them back. we return your play.'

this time it was the poet that was disconcerted. 'no, no, goldwater—i must not disappoint my printer. i have promised him the twenty dollars to print my hebrew "selections from nietzsche."'

[275]'you take your manuscript and give me my money,' said goldwater implacably.

'exchange would be a robbery. i will not rob you. keep your bargain. see, here is the printer's letter.' he dragged from a tail-pocket a mass of motley manuscripts and yellow letters, and laid them beside the telephone as if to search among them.

goldwater waved a repudiating hand.

'be not a fool-man, goldwater.' the poet's carneying forefinger was laid on his nose. 'i and you are the only two people in new york who serve the poetic drama—i by writing, you by producing.'

goldwater still shook his head, albeit a whit appeased by the flattery.

kloot replied for him: 'your manuscript shall be returned to you by the first dustcart.'

pinchas disregarded the youth. 'but i am willing you shall have only a fortnight's rehearsals. i believe in you, goldwater. i have always said, "the only genius on the yiddish stage is goldwater." klostermann—bah! he produces not so badly, but act? my grandmother's hen has a better stage presence. and there is davidoff—a voice like a frog and a walk like a spider. and these charlatans i only heard of when i came to new york. but you, goldwater—your fame has blown across the atlantic, over the carpathians. i journeyed from cracow expressly to collaborate with you.'

'then why do you spoil it all?' asked the mollified manager.

'it is my anxiety that europe shall not be disappointed in you. let us talk of the cast.'

'it is so early yet.'

[276]'"the early bird catches the worm."'

'but all our worms are caught,' grinned kloot. 'we keep our talent pinned on the premises.'

'i know, i know,' said pinchas, paling. he saw mrs. goldwater tripping on saucily as ophelia.

'but we don't give all our talent to one play,' the manager reminded him.

'no, of course not,' said pinchas, with a breath of hope.

'we have to use all our people by turns. we divide our forces. with myself as hamlet you will have a cast that should satisfy any author.'

'do i not know it?' cried pinchas. 'were you but to say your lines, leaving all the others to be read by the prompter, the house would be spellbound, like moses when he saw the burning bush.'

'that being so,' said goldwater, 'you couldn't expect to have my wife in the same cast.'

'no, indeed,' said pinchas enthusiastically. 'two such tragic geniuses would confuse and distract, like the sun and the moon shining together.'

goldwater coughed. 'but ophelia is really a small part,' he murmured.

'it is,' pinchas acquiesced. 'your wife's tragic powers could only be displayed in "hamlet" if, like another equally celebrated actress, she appeared as the prince of palestine himself.'

'heaven forbid my wife should so lower herself!' said goldwater. 'a decent jewish housewife cannot appear in breeches.'

'that is what makes it impossible,' assented pinchas. 'and there is no other part worthy of mrs. goldwater.'

"you compare my wife to a kangaroo!"

"you compare my wife to a kangaroo!"tolist

[277]'it may be she would sacrifice herself,' said the manager musingly.

'and who am i that i should ask her to sacrifice herself?' replied the poet modestly.

'fanny won't sacrifice ophelia,' kloot observed drily to his chief.

'you hear?' said goldwater, as quick as lightning. 'my wife will not sacrifice ophelia by leaving her to a minor player. she thinks only of the play. it is very noble of her.'

'but she has worked so hard,' pleaded the poet desperately, 'she needs a rest.'

'my wife never spares herself.'

pinchas lost his head. 'but she might spare ophelia,' he groaned.

'what do you mean?' cried goldwater gruffly. 'my wife will honour you by playing ophelia. that is ended.' he waved the make-up brush in his hand.

'no, it is not ended,' said pinchas desperately. 'your wife is a comic actress——'

'you just admitted she was tragic——'

'it is heartbreaking to see her in tragedy,' said pinchas, burning his boats. 'she skips and jumps. rather would i give ophelia to one of your kangaroos!'

'you low-down monkey!' goldwater almost flung his brush into the poet's face. 'you compare my wife to a kangaroo! take your filthy manuscript and begone where the pepper grows.'

'well, fanny would be rather funny as ophelia,' put in kloot pacifyingly.

'and to make your wife ridiculous as ophelia,' [278]added pinchas eagerly, 'you would rob the world of your hamlet!'

'i can get plenty of hamlets. any scribbler can translate shakespeare.'

'perhaps, but who can surpass shakespeare? who can make him intelligible to the modern soul?'

'mr. goldwater,' cried the call-boy, with the patness of a reply.

the irate manager bustled out, not sorry to escape with his dignity and so cheap a masterpiece. kloot was left, with swinging legs, dominating the situation. in idle curiosity and with the simplicity of perfectly bad manners, he took up the poet's papers and letters and perused them. as there were scraps of verse amid the mass, pinchas let him read on unrebuked.

'you will talk to him, kloot,' he pleaded at last. 'you will save ophelia?'

the big-nosed youth looked up from his impertinent inquisition. 'rely on me, if i have to play her myself.'

'but that will be still worse,' said pinchas seriously.

kloot grinned. 'how do you know? you've never seen me act?'

the poet laid his finger beseechingly on his nose. 'you will not spoil my play, you will get me a maidenly ophelia? i and you are the only two men in new york who understand how to cast a play.'

'you leave it to me,' said kloot; 'i have a wife of my own.'

'what!' shrieked pinchas.

'don't be alarmed—i'll coach her. she's just the age for the part. mrs. goldwater might be her mother.'

[279]'but can she make the audience cry?'

'you bet; a regular onion of an ophelia.'

'but i must see her rehearse, then i can decide.'

'of course.'

'and you will seek me in the café when rehearsals begin?'

'that goes without saying.'

the poet looked cunning. 'but don't you say without going.'

'how can we rehearse without you? you shouldn't have worried the boss. we'll call you, even if it's the middle of the night.'

the poet jumped at kloot's hand and kissed it.

'protector of poets!' he cried ecstatically. 'and you will see that they do not mutilate my play; you will not suffer a single hair of my poesy to be harmed?'

'not a hair shall be cut,' said kloot solemnly.

pinchas kissed his hand again. 'ah, i and you are the only two men in new york who understand how to treat poesy.'

'sure!' kloot snatched his hand away. 'good-bye.'

pinchas lingered, gathering up his papers. 'and you will see it is not adulterated with american. in zion they do not say "sure" or "lend me a nickel."'

'i guess not,' said kloot. 'good-bye.'

'all the same, you might lend me a nickel for car-fare.'

kloot thought his departure cheap at five cents. he handed it over.

the poet went. an instant afterwards the door reopened and his head reappeared, the nose adorned with a pleading forefinger.

[280]'you promise me all this?'

'haven't i promised?'

'but swear to me.'

'will you go—if i swear?'

'yup,' said pinchas, airing his american.

'and you won't come back till rehearsals begin?'

'nup.'

'then i swear—on my father's and mother's life!'

pinchas departed gleefully, not knowing that kloot was an orphan.