in his “klondike monologue” at the orpheum, buford, the actor, made a sudden and unexpected hit. the morning after his first appearance, both dominick and berny read in the paper eulogistic notices of the new star. dominick was particularly interested. he remembered buford’s state of worry while at antelope and was glad to see that the unlucky player was, in the parlance of his own world, “making good.”
the evening papers contained more laudatory paragraphs. buford’s act was spoken of with an enthusiasm which taxed the vocabulary of the writers who found that the phrases they had been using to describe the regular vaudeville performances were not adequate for so sparkling an occasion.
it was a rambling monologue of mining-camp anecdotes, recollections, and experiences, delivered with confidential, simple seriousness. buford’s appearance in an immense, fur-lined overcoat with buttons made of gold nuggets and a voluminous[325] fur cap on his head, was given the last touch of grotesqueness by a tiny tinsel spangle fastened on the end of his nose. this adornment, on his entrance hardly noticeable, was soon the focusing point of every eye. it looked as if it grew on its prominent perch, and as he spoke, a slight, vibrating movement, which he imparted to that portion of his visage, made the tinsel send out continuous, uneasy gleams. the more serious his discourse was and the more portentously solemn his face, the more glimmeringly active was the spangle, and the more hysterically unrestrained became the laughter of the audience. altogether, buford had made a success. three days after his first appearance, people were talking about “the klondike monologue” as a few weeks before they had been talking about the last play of pinero’s as presented by a new york company.
from what buford had told him, dominick knew that the actor’s luck had been bad, and that the period of imprisonment at antelope was a last, crowning misfortune. through it he feared that he had forfeited his sacramento engagement, and the young man had a painful memory of the long jeremiad that buford, in his anxiety and affliction, had poured out to himself and rose cannon. that the actor was evidently emerging from his ill fortune was gratifying to dominick, who, in the close propinquity forced[326] upon them by the restricted quarters of perley’s hotel, had grown to like and pity the kindly, foolish and impractical man.
now, from what he heard, buford’s hard times should be at an end. such a hit as he had made should give him the required upward impetus. men dominick knew, who had theatrical affiliations, told him that buford was “made.” the actor could now command a good salary on any of the vaudeville circuits in the country, and if “he had it in him” he might ascend the ladder toward the heights of legitimate comedy. his humorous talent was unique and brilliant. it was odd, considering his age, that it had not been discovered sooner.
berny was very anxious to see him. hazel and josh had seen him on one of the first evenings and pronounced him “simply great.” she extorted a promise from dominick that, at the earliest opportunity, he would buy tickets for her, and, if he could not accompany her himself, she could go with one of her sisters. dominick did not want to go. he had no desire to see buford and be reminded of the three weeks’ dream which had interrupted the waking miseries of his life, and more than that he hated, secretly and intensely, sitting beside berny, talking to her and listening to her talk, during the three hours of the performance. the horrible falseness of it, the appearance of intimacy with a woman[327] toward whom he only felt a cold aversion, the close proximity of her body which he disliked, even accidentally, to brush against, made him shrink from the thought as from the perpetration of some mean and repulsive deception.
he stopped to buy the tickets one midday on his way to lunch. he made up his mind to buy three, then berny could either take her two sisters, or hazel and josh, whose craving for the theater was an unassuageable passion. the good seats were sold out for days ahead and he had to be content with three orchestra chairs for an evening at the end of the following week. he was turning from the ticket office window when a sonorous voice at his elbow arrested him:
“mr. ryan,” it boomed out, “do i see you at last? ever since my arrival in the city i have hoped for the opportunity of renewing our acquaintance.”
it was buford, but a rejuvenated and prosperous buford, the reflection of his good fortune shining from his beaming face and fashionable figure. the red rasped look had left his features and the hollows beneath his high cheek-bones were filled out. he was dressed in gray with an almost foppish nicety, a fedora hat of a paler tint on his head, and a cravat of a dull red rising in a rich puffed effect below his collar. his shoes shone with the glassy polish of new patent leather; the red-brown kid gloves that he carried exhaled[328] an attractive odor of russia-leather. he held out his hand to dominick, and the young man grasped it with real heartiness.
“glad to see you, buford,” he said, “and glad to hear you’ve made such a success of it. i haven’t seen it myself, but i hear it’s a great show.”
buford, who had seen him buying the tickets, said blandly,
“but you’re going? you’ve been buying tickets, haven’t you? oh, i’ve got to have your opinion—nobody’s i’d think more of than mr. dominick ryan’s.”
dominick, with the consciousness that he had just been planning not to go reddening his face, stammered with embarrassed evasiveness,
“i’ve just been buying tickets and couldn’t get them before the end of next week. you’re such a confounded success that everything’s sold out days ahead. my wife wants to see you, and that’s the best i could do for her. her sister went on the second night and says you’re the hit of the program. and then the papers! you’ll soon be one of the stars of the nation.”
buford acknowledged these compliments with cool, acquiescent complacence.
“i have struck my gait,” he said, nodding his head in condescending acceptance. “i have at last won my spurs.”
“but you didn’t expect to come down here[329] when you were at antelope. didn’t you tell me your engagement was for two weeks in sacramento, and that you were afraid you’d forfeited it by being snowed in there? how was it you came down after all?”
“the luck turned. the tide that comes in the affairs of men came in mine. i must say it had got down to about the lowest ebb. you’re right about forfeiting my engagement. got to sacramento three weeks behind time and found they’d procured a substitute, and all i had for my pains was a blackguarding because the lord had seen fit to snow me in in the sierras.”
dominick laughed, and the actor allowed a slight, sour smile to disturb the professional gravity of his face.
“yes,” he nodded, “that’s the way of the transgressor, especially when his transgressions ain’t of his own doing. after i’d been there two weeks, i hadn’t a v between me and starvation. i looked for jobs with the water squelching in my boots, and finally i had to do a turn in a fifth-rate variety performance that showed in a sort of cellar down a flight of stairs. that’s where the ‘klondike monologue’ was born. like lots of other good things, it had a pretty mean beginning. i just pieced it together from bits and scraps that were the tailings of the two years i had spent in that arctic mill up there. it caught on from the start—let the public alone[330] to recognize a good thing when they see one! that dirty cellar was pretty well sprinkled the first week, and the second they had the standing room signs out. i didn’t introduce the spangle till the end of the engagement. some people think it a great touch.”
he looked with sober questioning at dominick, who said apologetically,
“so i hear, but i haven’t seen it.”
buford raised his flexible brows with an air of stimulated, excusing memory.
“true, true,” he replied, “i had forgotten. two nights after i had introduced the spangle, one of the ‘granada’ people saw me. i didn’t know it at the time, but i am a true artist; whatever my audience, i give it of my best, and, in that instance, it was only one more case of bread cast upon the waters. there’d been a vacancy here. estradilla, the spanish snake dancer, was taken suddenly sick, collapsed after her third performance, tied her intestines up in a knot with her act, they say, and the wonder was she hadn’t done it before. anyhow, they had to substitute in a hurry, heard of my klondike act and sent a man up to see if i’d do to fill in. the next week i was here and—you know the rest.”
“they say every man has his chance. you didn’t suppose the snowstorm that caught you at antelope was going to be the foundation of yours?”
[331]buford raised his brows till they about touched his hair, and said with his most magisterial sonority of tone,
“no, no indeed. the ways of fate—or let me say providence—are truly inscrutable. i thought that lock-up in the sierras would be my undoing, and i’m sure i never imagined the two years i spent in that accursed arctic were going to return to roost as blessings. i turned my face to the north in a bitter hour, and it was in a bitter hour that i adopted the stage.”
dominick was exceedingly surprised. he had supposed buford always to have been an actor, to have been born to it. if he had heard that the man had made his debut as an infant prodigy or even in his mother’s arms in swaddling clothes, he would have felt it was in keeping with buford’s character, and just what he suggested. now, in a tone expressing his surprise, the young man queried,
“then you went on the stage up there? you’ve only been on a few years?”
“nearly four,” said the actor. he looked down at his shoe for a moment as if considering, and repeated without looking up, “it will be four next september. trouble drove me to those far distant lands and hard luck drove me on the stage. i’d never had anything to do with it till then; i hadn’t a stage game about me. there’d even been a time when i had a strong prejudice[332] against the theater and never went to one. but a man must live and——”
he stopped, his attention arrested by a hand laid softly on his sleeve. a youth of hebraic countenance had issued from a door behind him, and, touching his arm with a hesitating, unclean finger, began to speak in a low tone. buford turned to the boy. dominick backed away from them toward the box-office window. as they conferred he took a card out of his wallet, and hastily traced the address of the flat below his name. he had it ready to offer buford, when the actor, his conference over, came toward him.
“duty calls,” said buford. “i am sorry, but they want me inside. but this is not going to be our only meeting. i’m booked for two weeks longer here, and i’m hoping to see something more of you.”
dominick gave him the card, with assurances that he would be glad to see him, and that his own home was a better meeting-place than the bank. at this mark of friendship, the actor was openly gratified. he looked at the card with a smile and said,
“most certainly i’ll avail myself of this privilege. i hope later to be able to place a box at your disposal. madame, you say, is very desirous of seeing me. well, i’ll see to it that she does so under the most favorable conditions. though[333] i have never met her, i think i may ask you to convey my respects to her.”
he bowed impressively as though saluting berny in person, and then, with a last dignified farewell to dominick, turned toward the door which opened at his approach, disclosing the waiting jew boy. as the actor drew near, dominick heard the boy break into low-toned remonstrances, and then the door closed upon buford’s sonorous and patronizing notes of reproval.
