You know the screen stars, of course; but maybe you
do not know those larger celestial bodies, the dark
and silent and invisible stars from which the shining
ones derive their energies. So, permit me to
introduce you to T-S, the trade abbreviation for a
name which nobody can remember, which even his secretaries
have to keep typed on a slip of paper just above their
machine—Tszchniczklefritszch. He came
a few years ago from Ruthenia, or Rumelia, or Roumania—one
of those countries where the consonants are so greatly
in excess of the vowels. If you are as rich as
he, you call him Abey, which is easy; otherwise, you
call him Mr. T-S, which he accepts as a part of his
Americanization.
He is shorter than you or I, and has found that he
can’t grow upward, but can grow without limit
in all lateral directions. There is always a
little more of him than his clothing can hold, and
it spreads out in rolls about his collar. He
has a yellowish face, which turns red easily.
He has small, shiny eyes, he speaks atrocious English,
he is as devoid of culture as a hairy Ainu, and he
smells money and goes after it like a hog into a swill-trough.
“Hello, everybody! Madame, vere’s
de old voman?
“She ees being dressed—”
“Vell, speed her up! I got no time.
I got—Jesus Christ!”
“Yes, exactly,” said Mary Magna.
The great man of the pictures stood rooted to the
spot. “Vot’s dis? Some joke
you people playin’ on me?” He shot a suspicious
glance from one to another of us.
“No,” said Mary, “he’s real.
Honest to God!”
“Oh! You bring him for an engagement.
Vell, I don’t do no business outside my office.
Send him to see Lipsky in de mornin’.”
“He hasn’t asked for an engagement,”
said Mary.
“Oh, he ain’t. Vell, vot’s
he hangin’ about for? Been gittin’
a permanent vave? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Cut it out, Abey,” said Mary Magna.
“This is a gentleman, and you must be decent.
Mr. Carpenter, meet Mr. T-S.”
“Carpenter, eh? Vell, Mr. Carpenter, if
I vas to make a picture vit you I gotta spend a million
dollars on it—you know you can’t make
no cheap skate picture fer a ting like dat, if you
do you got a piece o’ cheese. It’d
gotta be a costume picture, and you got shoost as
much show to market vun o’ dem today as you got
vit a pauper’s funeral. I spend all dat
money, and no show to git it back, and den you actors
tink I’m makin’ ten million a veek off
you—”
“Cut it out, Abey!” broke in Mary.
“Mr. Carpenter hasn’t asked anything of
you.”
“Oh, he ain’t, hey? So dat’s
his game. Vell, he’ll find maybe I can
vait as long as de next feller. Ven he gits ready
to talk business, he knows vere Eternal City is, I
guess. Vot’s de matter, Madame, you got
dat old voman o’ mine melted to de chair?”
“I’ll see, I’ll see, Meester T-S,”
said Madame, hustling out of the room.
