Evening Star Newspaper, July 30, 1922, Page 61

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTO! D. €, JULY 30, 1922_PART 4 +~When the Wise City Dweller Reverts to the Primitive| It Is the Best Safety Valve for Relief From the Injurious Pressure of the Artificial Life That Is Created by, What We Call Civilization. BY MARJORIE WILSON. F city people thought more care- fully concerning the problem of the employment of their lelsure time, & rural soclologist informs me thev would all revert to the prim- Itive during their hours of leisure. Tley would seek not-entertalnment, Lut true recreation of themselves in activities that are old in the history of the human race, so familiar that we instinctively relax and enjoy en- zuging in them after the strain of warking and living under civilized conditions. Many of them try to do so now. This counts for the prevalence of the »m of mortgaging one's house or living in a furnished apartment so that one may buy an automobile. It explains the keeping of pet dogs and anaries by apartment house dwel- lers. It gives a certain sanction to the haunting of poolrooms, billiard parlors and bowling alle Tt is at the bottom of all sorts of hobbles and self-expressive activities to which ¥ city dwellers are unconsciously driven as a reaction against life in a modern urban community. t all too few urbanites realize the henefits to be derived from the use of their leisure time—from the spending «f that time in occupations that are natural because they are as old as humans. . W. Whitney, rural sociologist in the New York State College of Agriculture, who has conducted much research into the subject of the psy- chology of play. holds that the reason why American city dwellers do not pend their time after work wisely, leneficially to themselves, s because of leisure time is new “THE RELAXATION THAT A MAN RERIVES FROM SMOKING IS FROM THE PL] A FIRE. TO THE the problem America “The employment, the question of improvement of leisure time, is com- paratively a recently recognized prob- biem in this country. In the olden lays people weren't bothered by it ecause there was no leisure time. The pioneers had to work all day and then were tired they slept all night,” he reminded me. ““Then came the growth of the cities, machinery, union hours—and the Jeisure-time problem was much with Commercial amusements became T AND FEED HIMSELF AND FAMI DAYS WHEN HE BUILT FIRES TO PROTE by watching some picture or spectacle | brought to their attention in which activity of others. they were overwhelmingly and in- “What are some ‘real rccreations’|stinctively interested. In the soclal in which one uses the primitive nerve | rendezvous on the corner ‘they did paths of his brain?’ I asked this 50- |have an instinctive interest” ex- ciologist. Tn reply he mentioned|plained Mr. Whitney. many, a long list from which any-| It is a primitive interest that draws body should be able to choose one|voung men to poolrooms and billiard that he would like. parlors, Mr. Whitney says. Here they Gardening. Raising chickens. Keep-|may enjoy each other's compasy and | ing animals—a crow. a horse, pets of | here they may try their skill in com- any kind that require attention. Out.|petition with each other In games door games, such as ball, golf, tennis, | that call for such muscular and men- leven croqu Hiking, swimming.!tal action as the race has been en- Picnies. Camping, hunting, fishing, |gaging in since the beginning. “That poolrooms are considered ‘bad places’ or arms in which they engage all day. <o comfortable. * ¥ ok % T us. popular.” * ox kK you may actively engage. The writer knows of a WHITNEY would plead for an ive, use of MF®, EASURE OF RUILDING HIS PLEASURE IN BUILDING A TINY FIRE IN A PJPE AND WATCHING IT BURN HARKS BACK haps just one or two mevements of the an activity far removed from the occupa- tion of primitive days when men hunted and found and fashioned for themselves all the things that made them more HE quickest and most satisfactory way out of a humdrum existence made up of drudgery and tiredness is to find something in which you are instinctively interested and in which woman who BY ARTHUR JAMES, OR a number of years past ‘Washington has been the town selected for the premier pro- duction of numerou theatricsl enterprises. In stage parlance, se lecting & town In which to “try oul a show is called, “trying it on the dog,” yet Washington s & sort of & superdog Wwien it comes to the working out of thése problems. It Is a well established fact in the theatrical mind that if & show can ‘get over” in Washington, it will meet with success in most any other place. Managers and producers are in accord that Washington audiences are mot wildly demonstrative, but they also agree that, in the main, the audlences here are just critics—that is, they agree that they are, almost, just critics, for few theatrical man- agers ever concede that any audience is exactly fair unless sald audience recelves the offering with loud ac- claim. T is not an easy matter for pro- ducers to pick out an offering that will be a “sure-fire hit,” and many a plece which during the rchearsal period appeals most strongly to cast, manager and producer is anything but accepted by the public when it is presented for observation. This condition is caused, no doubt, by the ever Increasing demand of the public that the theater purveyor must pre- sent a ware that is 100 per cent to the good. In staging a play a thousand and one things must be taken Into con- sideration. Not only must the speeches, or lines as they are termed, be of such a character to hold the attention and win the approval of the audience; not only must the costumes, more especially If it is a musical comedy, be pleasing to' the eve; not only must the music be touching and tuneful, tuneful to the extent that at least some of the airs will be whistled on the street, but also the scenery must appeal to the eye and perforce the acting must be such as to leave a pleasing and last- ing impression. For the past two weeks the pre- liminary rehearsals of a sizable pro- * ko ¥ covnruny Pt C way of politios, and that the guy that sits down and tries to figure out how he can beat the income tax and get pre-war ‘hooch’ for $3 a bottle is facing hard times, you have ctive, not a pas goink off in the country away from; |cisure; for a change of 0CCUPALion. |¢n. ciore or the factory, away from|is no reflection on the game, but|found this in hunting up old furn-{ im0 : : another mental disturbance coming, 1ot a cessation of activity, when the [\o1. voneq and telegraphs and rail- |rather on the ‘thinking’ people of the |lture and refinishing it herself. She en carried on In | because If all of them had their trou- day's work is done; for a reversiol |, ,qs Interest in the fine arts—|community. Many of them seem to|knows of a lawyer who raises chick- to some primitive way of bUSYINg | noing or playing an instrument,|have the idea that the young fellow |ens, of a printer who has a rare col- one's self after the strain of the| ..., or drawing or designing.|goes there for some other reason than [lection of books, of a business man highly specialized, more unnatural|ye i (hings. Carpentering. Pho-|that he meets his friends and tries|who breeds dogs. of a senator who functioning now necessary in most| oo.” Rugie. Tinkering with an’ his skill and gets a little exercise. |likes to cook, of workingmen who trades, professions and businesses. |4, 1omo] or any kind of mlChineryIT!wy would prefer to ‘wipe out' such [ have found joy in building their own “True relaxation of the whole being | .\ jicrests one. Collecting things. ;a place rather than go to any trouble | houses. is to be gained by allowing the nerves| . ... Companionship with the|to make it unobjectionable,” Mr.| There is much enjoyment in “belng to function in the racially oldest] .o io sox. Playing pool or bil-| Whitney said. in a cause.” The child who sits in his nerve paths.)” Mr. Whitney 0bServes.|,..... .. powling. Acting in plays.! Another primitive pastime of adults, | high chair at table and drops his spoon. laughs with glee clatter on the floor. it up. “This Is real recreation. ‘Play is a blanket term used for 411 sorts of free, spontaneous activi- ties of children, enjoyable but serious Just the same. The child lives in its play and through play it grows. Play i< creation for the child. Play activi- ties for adults should be recreation. Passive entertainment does not come Having a hobby of any kind that arouses wbur keen interest. Perhaps even taking a night school course-in some subject of which you are very fond and to which your tal- ents seem to be adapted wiil prove to be the right recreation for you if vour daily work happens to be dis- tasteful, according to Mr. Whitney. | which is relaxing but not constructive, |is smoking. Mr. Whitney holds that the relaxation that men deriVe from smok- ing is from the pleasure of building a fire. that fire has been an Important element in the history of man, and that now his pleasure In buflding a tiny fire in a pipe and watching it burn harks back to the days when he bullt fires to must pick up the spoon. is merely being obstinate. pleasure in achievement. in sometis : uner s heads tashen sameiing ok ok x {protect and to feed himself and his|things to happen. In “being in a work Y S 1 lite makes it possibl “Work Is an activity carrled on for | THIS was the case with a boy whu“‘m”Y ::f‘e.r;nln later life mak “““y; ”1',‘: for work to turn into play. recently was granted a scholar-j Mr. Whitney told of a worker in the ship which enbales him to study art { Chicago stockyards, one of the most de- for three years in Rome. ‘“This boy,” jpendable, capable and highest pald, sald Mr. Whitney, “was following a)Whose work, home life and character special interest. He worked in the|Were entirely unassailable, who always daytime. At night, while hundreds drank himself drunk immediately upon of thousands of other boys were |recelving his pay every Saturday after- standing on the street corners, he at- inoon. A welfare worker for the com- tended night school. losing himself, [pany asked him why he did it. “It's the recreating himself, in art work. He|quickest way out of the stockyards, has an unusual future before him,|was his reason. undoubtedly, a prospect of greatness,| The majority of workers in a city, because he spent his lelsure time to | while they like their work in a way and advantage. When the prospect|have & certain pride in their skill at it, opened to advantage he was prepared [are not so enthused by it that work Is play. They are usually glad when work is over. They welcome a holiday so that the can get away for a time from the labor at which they earn their liv ing. It is usually wpecialized work, per- T A FARMER’S LAMENT ABOUT DAYLIGHT SAVING with the other half of the people wh remote end rather than for the en- ment of the operation itself. Work d play we usually think of as at opposite poles, but sometimes it is impossible to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. It's all in the mental attitude. Remember how Tom Sawyer had to whitewash the fence and how he got the other boys to do it for him by appearing to enjoy i* so thoroughly himself?" Adults have a pleasurable attitude toward and take a free, spontaneous enjoyment in doing the things that most anclent in the history of the race. The strain of modern life can he relleved more effectively by rever- sion to these activities than by “tak- ing it easy,” drooping around the house after work or being entertained life of their children. have sympathy with the play of chlidren. whole childhood is play activity tha will shape their lives. than in school. own, without pets to care for, with to run and jump. because of the peo. ple downsairs, has a tremendous han dicap. to take it Not that one should blame the other boys who were on the street corner while he was at art school. It was just that nothing had been out (Copyright, 1922.) ‘cause ‘my President’ had the old man working before daylight. “Jake Fenton, who draws a seine in the river when the tide is right, hollered to me as he went by on the road: ‘Say, Dave, I see that President of your'n has fixed the sun so they get an extra hour of daylight in Washington. We need all the sleep we can get these days, and I'd be obleeged to ye' it you'd get him to regulate the moon so the ebb flow in the river will come at 8 o'clock tonight instead of 12." “To top it all, my cdws have balked on the daylight savin'. They been stayin' in their pasture until sun- down, but since I been goin' to bed at 7 o'clock to git up at 3 I've had to bring 'em in earlier. At first they just looked at the settin' sun and then looked at me in a protestin’ way; later I had to drive 'em out of the pasture one at a time, and today when 1 came heme from the city I found thas they had gone on.a hun- ger strike, goin’ dry, and puttin’ me out of business entirely. My wife ain’t had a night's sleep since this daylight-savin’ business begun, and I tell you it's made her powerful irritable, with doin’ all the cookin’ and keepin' boarders. Her first meal begins at 0 a.m., when me and the hired hand eats. and after that she's servin’ 'em all day. Four of the children go to the ocounty school, where the time ain’t changed none, and my oldest girl goes to the high school in Washington, where she and two of our boarders who are government clerks have to be at their desks accordin’ to the new hours. They have to ride in my milk wagon to the city at 5§ am. every day, ‘cause the mornin' train is run- nin’ on the same old schedule and it ‘would gettum in too late: “This mernin’, after deliverin’ the milk, my dsughter and the clerks, I visited 'round to learn what the folks in Washington thought of the change of government working-hours and I found that they were against| it Then F made up my mind that some- and manner won my confidence at once. P said: “Look here, you seem to be a sensible man, who wouldn't do any- body any harm. What do you mean by that crazy statement at the White House and that story about prefer- ring to remain among lunatics be- cause the government employes in Washington g0 to work an hodt ear- lier every morning?” His round face flushed with emo- tion, and, wiping a tear from his eye, he replied: “Friend, I never tried to do no one no harm in my life. I can explain to you why I went to the White House and why it is better that I should stay here for the pres- ent, and I ain’t crazy, neither. But I n't tell you about it unless you plomise mnot to let anybody know where I am, who might git me out of here before I'm willin' {o go.” To obtain the story I was forced to assent to his conditions and he plunged at once into his narrative. “To begin with, I'm a dairy farmer. I live about twelve miles from Wash- ington, and I been bringing milk to my customers in the city here every morning. Most of my custorgers work for the government and I had to get up at 4 o'clock so as to de- liver the milk in time for their break- fast. Lately these customers have been going to work an hour earlier, which gets me up at 3 o'clock. If that was all that bothered me I could sténd It all right, but most of my daylight-savin® troubles have come be- cause I'm a republican. At this statement Mr. John Doe saw from my expression that I did not consider him missplaced in an insane asylum and he hastened to deal with the pelitiéal feature of his story. L “And that, sir, came about In this way “All of my neighbors are truck farmers or dairy farmers and most of their customers are government clerks in Washington, so to make their deliveries in-time they have to get up now at 3 o'clock. They blame me for this, 'cayse President Hard- ing made the clerks go to work ear- lier and I am the only republican voter in the township. “Luke Seaton’s fatier, half asleep from gettin' up so earily, walks into the fleld mower in the “cuttin’ his leg 50 he had to have stitches BY CHARLES J. FERRIS. E'RE all going crazy! L0 We're all going crazy! The cabinet won't tell him. TIl tell him! TNl tell, him!” Shouting these words at the top of his voice, a fat man waving his arms, rushed wildly through the kates at the entrance to the White House grounds. With the dispatch born of long experience in handling violent cranks, Bill Splvvens and Hank Hammer bore the intruder to carth. The resistance offered by his pudgy form soon ceased, but until the man was borne away in the ambu- lance to the asylum he continued to wall, “"We're all going crazy! Some- s got to tell him. I will" wr It was a slow day for news, and as it is my job to supply items of inter- est from the National Capitol to the eager readers of the Stuartsville Bugle, 1 followed the ambulance to St. Elizabeths, hoping that an inter- view with_the unfortunate man would supply & story. I was nof disappoint- ed. The poor fellow was entirely ane, a vietim of extraordinary cfr- of ‘em. wife was cryin’ and goin’ on at eryin’, too. me nothin’, just kept cryin’ to th her from marryin’ a republican. had given the children theirs, an midnight lunch.’ him to apologize, savin’ daylight, and not entirely for sittin’ Jim's times he is kinder quick-tempered, cumstances. At the asylum office he refused to disclose his identity, stating, “I ain't tellin’ you nothin'. What I want to know is, do you try to save some day- light here by trying to make the erazy folks sleep when they ain't sleepy and eat when they ain't hun- gry? ‘Cause if you do, you are crazier'n they are.” ‘When assured that the institution was being run upon the old hours he was greatly relieved, but .replied: *Then agin, I ain’t tellin *you nothin® about myself, ‘cause this is thp place 7 want to be. I'd rather stay here among the crazy folks than' to be driven orazy trying to work under them mixed-up daylight savin’ hours in Weshington.” L Persisting in his refusal to give any Information concerning himself, he was listed on_the books as “John - Iog, residence unknown,” and as- signed to cell No. 13, Crank row. I then obtained the necessary permis- sion and called upon Mr. Doe in his new apartment. { There was nothing abont him to indlcate that he was a violent crank man who wouldn't protect their moth er in their own home. “This got me excited, and I thopgh! the porch, where he was washing hi: house through the screen door. changed her tune to inform the chil no place for me, %0 1 beat it to Wash him the harm these workin' out, befors they drove all my neighbors 1 assured leave 1 sald to him submit to the President?” il and. we've. SRR B when he hears it His father plcksIT The child drops it again and laughs. Again and again the faher If he does not understand he thinks the child In reality the child is finding perhaps his fimt causing Mr. Whitney would sound a warning to city parents concerning the play “We should and understanding Thelr The learning process goes on more out of school A child who lives in an apartment without a room of his out being able to pound and hammer, He can't be the ‘littie savage’ that he has a right to be at this stage of his existence.” Mr. Whitney points were forced to change their workin’ hours, against the will of the majority ‘“When I got back to the farm, my great rate, and she had the children At first she wouldn't tell children that ‘her father had always said that no gocd would ever come to Fi- nally she told me that Jim Bowlder, my hired hand, had come to the house for another breakfast, just after she when she reminded him that she had cooked him one meal that morning, he told her that ‘no six-foot-three-inch man could work all the morning on a She said that Jim had insulted her and that I had to git I figured that both of them were out of their heads from 3e, and the fact that at I would have let it drop, but my wife began to yell at the children to notice that their father was the kind of a T'd speak a word ® Jim about it to soothe her, so I follered him out on hands. As soon as 1 opened my mouth, without walitin' to dry his hands, he knocked me off my feet back into the My wife had never quit cryin’, she jupt dren that I could have licked Jim if I had the sperit. , That house warn't ington to see the Preaident to tell hou ‘were doin’ 80 he could straighten 'elr: my family and crazy. John that I felt as he did with regard ‘to daylight saving and that I would endeavor to get the facts in his case before the authori- ties, As I was about to take my “While I am about it, is there anything else in your case that you would like me to | ?F. pondered & moment and &hen ! Washington. As the ticket holder sits waiting for the curtain to rise on the first act of a production he unconsciously assumes an antagonistio mood. This condition, perhaps, has been occasioned by his having been “bunked” so often by people who took a very nebulous plot and clothed it with a lot of language and a scantiness of costume. * % ¥ * HERE is nothing In the world like the rehearsal of a company of players. It stands alone, is in a class entirely by itself, has no synonym: and while to those who are privi- leged to be present it seems a tangled, Jumbled-up mass of incongruities, vet to the initiated ones it is like the rearing of a building. As each.day's work is ended the play begins to take to his mind the completed structure. 2in3od uvd U0 JUO| I3 Puw ‘WIO) There is, however, a pathetic and at the same time very humorous side of the pitture. The trials and tribu- lations of the stage manager are more multitudinous than the freckles of a | bles rolled into one and compounded monthly, they would have a double- distilled cinch compared with the pleasant little job that I have on my hands at the present moment. “Say” he continued, “just stick around the rest of the day watching us work—that is, watch me work to try to get the rest of those so- called luminaries to put a little—yes, just a tiny—bit of intelligence in their actions. Before we get set and the capricious prima donna arrives with her maid and pet poodle, let me speak a word or two about the people with whom I come In contact every day. “The majority of people in the theatrical world are just big kids, with all the jealousies and manner- ear-old spoiled young- this isms of a six-: ster. Capricious—no, is not the t 0 e d . THE FIRST REHEARSAL. word for it, and I don't think that ‘Webster when he wrote that big dis- connected book called the dictionary did anything but pass over. the word that would properly describe them. Temperamental? They are as tempera- mental as the weather we have been having this summer, and yet under- neath all of it they are just great big warm-hearted children, but there appears to be something about the atmosphere of the stage that makes them unilke any other class of peo- ple in the world. “Take, for instance, Miss X——; she has quite some talent, and probably with two or three years of strict coaching and good luck may land on Broadway as one of the hits of that alley of sorrows and failures and some few successes, but you ought to have seen her when she first bounced in on me three weeks ago. I had heard about her from her former di- rector, so I was not entirely surprised at the rass she was trying to give me when she hopped in. I must con- fess T was knocked off my feet when she commenced to enumerate the ‘things she would do and things she sunburned country: lad who disdains the use of headgear during the sum- mer months. ' Compared with the average stage manager, friend Job of anclent time led a placid and serene existence. His life was like the course of a bark sailing on trou- bled seas, and It is better, perhaps, in order that we may have & de- scription that is accurate, to listen to the tale of woe of the man who for two or three weeks has been busily engaged in preparing a new offering for the fall opening in New York. . Draw yourself a mental picture of & not too tall, slightly gorpulent per- son whose thinning licks are tinged with gray, @ man whose face is lined with deep creases, in whose eyes burns the lght of desife to have something done right and done now. Collarless, with striped silk shirt, he eits astride s chalf on the apronm of the stage: the apron being that part that is rounded and next to the foot- lights. Let him describe his daily work and you will gather some sort of an idea of how a play is built. * % X ¥ PAKE he as follows: “If you think O that President Harding and his cabinet have & hard time with the problems _that confront them; if you uncing along the 2 t s TSI ;{]-\\ SO 7 T - 2N : |ting over 3150 per. but from tne ‘dog’ that she put on when she bounced out of her limousine you might have thought that Sarah Bern- hardt had been an understudy to her and that all the great actresses of the world were simply second fiddles. vhy do you know.” he queried. “that jane pranced down to where I am sitting, and with ever so slight an inclination of the head started in to tell me what we would do—you got that ‘we’ stuff. Even calloused as 1_am, it nearly knocked ine off my feet ‘and caused me to bite through a good ten-cent cigar that 1 had paid real money for. “She followed up this vocal barrage with a lot more of the same kind of stuff, and when I finally got my breath. I said to her: ‘Now, sister. just go over there and take a seat, and when I am ready to have your august presence in this part of the theater I will dispatch a courler to you with the information that you are needed at the front’ Do you know, if looks could kill, I would be ° / % 77 /A deader than the German mark is on the money exchanges of the world at the present time. “I had just about recovered my sangfrold when in comes ‘Cutey,’ such being the name that is applied to lots of guys who sing tenor and ‘who are generally dressed up in navaj officers’ upiforms with army ewords bitched on the sides. The Army and Navy- don't do it that way, but it seems to be a rule among theatrical folks that a tenor must be done up like a naval lieutenant or admiral or Temperament ahd the Woes of the Stage Director AT TSy Calling the Bluff of the "Luminaries” Who Have Turned Down the Big Producers—Obliged g to Shoo th‘e Comedian Who Insists on Springing Some of His Own Jokes—"Cutey's” Lunch- o eon Engagement and the Ingenue’s Baby Talk—Chorus Mishap Produces Movement Like a 9 g Stampede of Cattle—Ral’an als in Washington. ; ¢ 9 DD ></><>\§ 1amped him or because the ponies had not broken right for me yesterday, yet I guess I must have been rather rude to this young thing, because I quite forcefully urged him to go out to 8 nearby restaurant and pack in 2 few ham sandwiches, as the plans for the day did not include having IT IS NOT AN EASY MATTER FOR PRODUCERS TO PICK OUT OFFERINGS THAT WILL BE “SURE FIRE HITS.” luncheon with the ladies or a motor trip in the afternoon. “He drifted over toward number one and for a few minutes they animatedly discussed me. I am certain of that by the looks they cast in my direc- tion. but they did not keep that up long, as each one started to tell the other of the wonderful offers they had received and that they were go- ing to appear in our production only because the Shuberts, Dave Belasco or some other theatrical big-bug had refused to give them a private car while on tour. “Funny that so many of them have received offers from big producers and turned them down, but I guess Shu- bert, Dave and the rest in New York spend many hours of weepful re- morse at not being able to secure some of these, in their own opinion, ‘wonderful stars. “As Umpire Connelly would sa that makes two out and the third on: up to the plate was the alleged com- edian of the show. To give the devil his due, he is not so awfully rotten. and while of course he is not in a class with Willie Collier, De Wolf Hopper, Lew Fields or any others known to fame, he is not haif bad at that—that is, when he has funny lines written for him. But when he gets away with the stuff that some nimble-minded person has written and tries to pull some of his own lines, he is just about as facetious as an undertaker who lives in a commu- nity where the only deaths are cauged by old age and all the inhabitafits are just under thirty. “He prances in and tries to add tn my burden of sorrows by springing 2 gag about a Ford. It might have been a good one in the early days when Henry hed a little two-by-four &hop and had his fellow conspirators, the Dodge brothers and Mayor Couz- ens of Detroit, all of them working on the farmer's delight, that noble animal that has enabled Uncle Josh to bring his produce to market, make goo-goo eyes at the village dressmaker, buy a couple of slabs of chewing tobacco and get home in time to do the chores. EE 4] SHOOED him away, when along came the Ingenue. She hag hers bobbed like the rest of them. but she is a right sweet little thing if it was not for that fool liep that she af- fects, sort of baby stuff, you know. That was all right when we used to have stage-door johnnies, which, by the way, 1 might add, are nearly cx- tinct, something like the dodo bird. “Qutside of these four problems the first pdrt of the morning got along pretty well. Of course, the chorus is green yet, and that combined with having three or four flappers that & just breaking into the game, doesu't make it any too easy for yours truly, but you ought to have seen the blow off about 1 o'clock. ‘Cutey’ seemed to have remembered his luncheon en- gagement and slid three or four notes over, all of them off key; the com- edian stuck in several lines ad lib, while the ‘chief she' tried to muss up the game by saying she was go- ing to faint, but she snapped out of it when I told her that her under- study was a husky young woman and did not know what a faint means. “All of these things are not quite am, bad as the work of the chorus and the grand finale. A couple of the new girls got twisted up in their steps and thus threw out the others, whatever he is, or it must be because way back in ‘Pinafore’ time some one hung a pinsticker on him, and they have done 8o ever since. “He floats down by my chair, which, by the way, is called my throne by the ladies of the chorus, and after pulling out one of those mew Italian silk handkerchiefs and gently mopping his smooth lily white forehead, chirps something about like this: *“I trust that my part may be run over very quickly this morning, as* I have a luncheon engagement with several ladies and we are going to motor in_ the afternoon. coyrse, 1 have gone over my part at my quar- ters, and while I am not yet letter perfect, I will just hum through ti wirs this morning.’ T * ¥ “1 DON'T know whether it be- and instead of being a graceful. un dulating, rhytmic, beautiful move- ment of feminine loveliness, it ra- sembled more a stampede of cattle or & lot of college boys doing a dance on a campus. I blew up right there and then and calied luncheon, but in fifteen minutes we were at it again. “This will give you a slight idea of the things that a stage director has to contend with while whippng gy new show into shape. 1 have oniy entioned just a few of the high spots. The others vou can pick out for yourself if you want to come out again tomorrow. “What do 4 intend to do when I am too old for this game? My am- tion, ke all the rest of the me who have whipped shows into is to have a nice quiet little farm somewhere out in the country. ‘is a dream to all of dream that mever comep true.” . That us, but it is &