XII

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.