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Episodes in Van Bibber's Life By: Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) |
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By Richard Harding Davis
CONTENTS Her First Appearance
Van Bibber's Man Servant
The Hungry Man was Fed
Love Me, Love my Dog
Her First Appearance It was at the end of the first act of the first night of "The Sultana,"
and every member of the Lester Comic Opera Company, from Lester himself
down to the wardrobe woman's son, who would have had to work if his
mother lost her place, was sick with anxiety. There is perhaps only one other place as feverish as it is behind the
scenes on the first night of a comic opera, and that is a newspaper
office on the last night of a Presidential campaign, when the returns
are being flashed on the canvas outside, and the mob is howling, and
the editor in chief is expecting to go to the Court of St. James if the
election comes his way, and the office boy is betting his wages that it
won't. Such nights as these try men's souls; but Van Bibber passed the
stage door man with as calmly polite a nod as though the piece had been
running a hundred nights, and the manager was thinking up souvenirs for
the one hundred and fiftieth, and the prima donna had, as usual, begun
to hint for a new set of costumes. The stage door keeper hesitated and
was lost, and Van Bibber stepped into the unsuppressed excitement of
the place with a pleased sniff at the familiar smell of paint and
burning gas, and the dusty odor that came from the scene lofts above. For a moment he hesitated in the cross lights and confusion about him,
failing to recognize in their new costumes his old acquaintances of the
company; but he saw Kripps, the stage manager, in the centre of the
stage, perspiring and in his shirt sleeves as always, wildly waving an
arm to some one in the flies, and beckoning with the other to the
gasman in the front entrance. The stage hands were striking the scene
for the first act, and fighting with the set for the second, and
dragging out a canvas floor of tessellated marble, and running a throne
and a practical pair of steps over it, and aiming the high quaking
walls of a palace and abuse at whoever came in their way. "Now then, Van Bibber," shouted Kripps, with a wild glance of
recognition, as the white and black figure came towards him, "you know
you're the only man in New York who gets behind here to night. But you
can't stay. Lower it, lower it, can't you?" This to the man in the
flies. "Any other night goes, but not this night. I can't have it.
I Where is the backing for the centre entrance? Didn't I tell you
men " Van Bibber dodged two stage hands who were steering a scene at him,
stepped over the carpet as it unrolled, and brushed through a group of
anxious, whispering chorus people into the quiet of the star's
dressing room. The star saw him in the long mirror before which he sat, while his
dresser tugged at his boots, and threw up his hands desperately. "Well," he cried, in mock resignation, "are we in it or are we not?
Are they in their seats still or have they fled?" "How are you, John?" said Van Bibber to the dresser. Then he dropped
into a big arm chair in the corner, and got up again with a protesting
sigh to light his cigar between the wires around the gas burner. "Oh,
it's going very well. I wouldn't have come around if it wasn't. If
the rest of it is as good as the first act, you needn't worry." Van Bibber's unchallenged freedom behind the scenes had been a source
of much comment and perplexity to the members of the Lester Comic Opera
Company. He had made his first appearance there during one hot night
of the long run of the previous summer, and had continued to be an
almost nightly visitor for several weeks. At first it was supposed
that he was backing the piece, that he was the "Angel," as those weak
and wealthy individuals are called who allow themselves to be led into
supplying the finances for theatrical experiments. But as he never
peered through the curtain hole to count the house, nor made frequent
trips to the front of it to look at the box sheet, but was, on the
contrary, just as undisturbed on a rainy night as on those when the
"standing room only" sign blocked the front entrance, this supposition
was discarded as untenable... Continue reading book >>
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Fiction |
Literature |
Short stories |
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