HEN Beverly Dinwiddie, the daughter of one of the finest families of Virginia, became a professional co-respondent in the divorce case of a New York millionaire, she was actuated not by a mad ambition for riches but because she found herself penniless in New York. She needed ten cents to buy subway tickets for herself and her highly respectable Aunt Maria Randolph to the flat she had rented on the top floor rear of an apartment house on 199th Street. She needed money for the taxes at home, $175 for an old family mortgage, $55 for Mammy Judy's allowance-in all she was in immediate need of $411.76. She knew nobody in the city to borrow money from except her childhood sweetheart and cousin, Watt Dinwiddie. Watt was a young and very promising lawyer, with a fine office in a big sky-scraper down-town. At least, so Beverly and her Aunt Maria thought, Watt was very prosperous.

'But when the curtain rises on the opening act of Paul Kester's charming and delicate little comedy, "Bev

appear, and Watt learns that Beverly has lost her voice, that all the money she had been earning has been spent, to gratify grand-opera yearnings, upon lessons from a scoundrelly Italian vocal teacher, and that the two women have been driven into most desperate circumstances. Conquering their family pride, they have come to ask for aid from one of their own family.

BEVERLY. I asked them to keep the position in the choir open for me; but they said they couldn't see their way to it. Well, so much for the church. I managed for a while by pawning mother's ring and things. I began to study typewriting, but I was slow at learning. The bills kept mounting up, so I went looking for work of some sort I could do at once. Finally an agent told me he thought he could get me a position in the chorus of a comic opera company-where my voice didn't matter.

WATT. They offered you a position in the chorus of a comic opera company?

BEVERLY. I wasn't to be actually in the chorus. I was in the carnival scene among what they called "a bunch of classy dames."

WATT. Beverly, you're joking!

BEVERLY. Oh, no, Watty, and you know

the great carnival scene of "Step Lively") is said to be none other than the famous kissing girl from Dixie. Her repertoire consists of what she terms floral kisses, kiss, the warm rich magnolia flower, the and includes the chaste lily-of-the-valley

heated cotton blossom and the scorching crimson rambler." Good Lord! Of all the outrageous impudence-they'll apologize or I'll break every bone in their bodies the infernal scoundrels! Some one has got to pay for this!

BEVERLY. Hold on a minute, Watty! WATT. Some one has got to pay for this! BEVERLY. I have.

AUNT MARIA. I should say she had. WATT. What do you mean?

AUNT MARIA. When she was leaving the theater, an odious Yankee leaned out

of the show-case of his limousine and said he'd like to meet the clinging kisser and try a crimson rambler.

kiss you! Well, I'll get him, too. What WATT. He spoke to you, he wanted to

was the number of his car?

you're in New York, not in Virginia! BEVERLY. Oh, don't be foolish, Watt, WATT. Well, I'll get him just the same; but first I'll settle with this paper.

BEVERLY. Watt, don't you realize that the paper wouldn't have printed it if it hadn't been sent them? Back of that ridiculous stage name nothing matters,

Anglin is delighting New Yorkers at the Lyceum Theater, we know at once that Watt too is "broke." Despite his letters and his "front," he is so poor that he is forced to sleep in his offices on a delapidated old Morris-chair and to import a meager bit of food in his overcoat pocket-so poor that when a message announcing the intention of his cousin Beverly to call, and the janitor demands twenty-five cents for it, he is forced to pay him with stamps and a post-card. He receives an invitation from the agents of the office building to vacate that very day, and he is too much the proud young Southerner to ask his college friend, John Courtland Redlaw, whose people are the owners of the sky-scraper, to allow him to remain until a client comes into his office.

While Beverly and Aunt Maria are under the impression that Watt is a most successful and enterprizing young lawyer, with a suite at the St. Regis, Watt has heard that Beverly, who was a charming young choir singer at home, has been made principal soloist in the choir of St. Stephen's in New York. But Beverly and Aunt Maria soon

I

have come to New York and landed in the chorus. My only trouble was couldn't stay there.

WATT. I should say not!

BEVERLY. You see, when I hired myself out as a "classy dame," I didn't tell them my real name, of course. I gave the name of Mary Robinson. AUNT MARIA. And her aunt, Maria Jones

BEVERLY. But the name of Mary Robinson didn't seem to make a strong appeal to the press agent, so, for program purposes, I was re-christened Bobbie St.

Ledger.

WATT. Bobbie St. Ledger! You? BEVERLY. Oh, that would have been altheater somehow got it into his head that right! But the same press-agent at the there was a mystery about me. I suppose because I was different, and he tried to find out what it was; and when he couldn't, being ambitious, he decided to invent one of his own and he got it printed in last evening's paper. (Takes newspaper out of bag.)

AUNT MARIA. Read it!

WATT. "Bobbie St. Ledger, the kissing girl from Dixie"-Good Lord!

AUNT MARIA. Such language to apply to one of Beverly's lineage!

WATT. "The mysterious Bobbie St. Ledger (who appears to-morrow night in

Aunt Maria.

WATT. But here's a likeness of you in the paper!

BEVERLY. No, that's not a likeness, it's a sketch-no one could ever recognize me from that. But if you go to the newspaper and make any fuss, the whole thing -who we really are-might come out. Now let's forget all about it. It is of no importance, except that on account of it I had to give up the position just as I was on the eve of earning a salary.

So Beverly is forced to ask Watt for help. She asks him to give up his suite at the St. Regis and to take the vacant bedroom in her flat, and, if possible, to lend her the $411.76 that are so essential to retain the old home down in Virginia. Watt confesses his inability to help her, that he has never lived at the St. Regis, that the steamship lines and railroads were only dreams of his, that he is to be turned out of his offices. Beverly laughs. "Think of the three of us sitting here claims. "Everything seems out of balwithout a cent in our pockets!" she exance and I don't see how to put it right. It does seem as tho Humanity might strike a balance but I don't see how to adjust the scales."

Al

While Watt is praying for a client, the telephone rings. It is Jack Redlaw, asking to see Watt on business. ready the papers had announced Mrs. Redlaw's intention of divorcing her husband in order to marry a British aristocrat, Lord Ardmay. When Jack Redlaw enters the office he discovers

the newspaper containing the Bobbie St. Ledger "story," and begins to read it. Aunt Maria's indignation explodes and she reveals the fact that Beverly is no one else than Bobbie St. Ledger. When the two women retire to the other room, Jack recounts to Watt his domestic shipwreck, and asks him to secure a divorce for Mrs. Redlaw with the utmost expediency. "Ardmay is the eldest son of the Duke of Islay," he explains confidentially, "and Elsie feels that she can't afford to lose this chance of be

ing an eventual duchess." They are already engaged, but she has only told a few of her most intimate friends of her engagement to Ardmay. "The date of the wedding isn't set," continues this amusing type of the perfect husband. "She really can't do anything definite until she gets her divorce. Ardmay is cross and so is Elsie, and they both blame me." She is sailing for England in the morning, and she has given orders to her husband to get a divorce for her as soon as possible.

JACK. That's it, exactly.

WATT. Well! Can't you pretend to beat her or something? Cruelty is sufficient grounds in some States. I'll look up the law.

JACK. You needn't bother-I can't beat Elsie; and that isn't the sort of divorce Elsie wants. When you are planning to be a Duchess you don't want any rebate. WATT. Incompatibility? JACK. It's worn threadbare. WATT. Non-support? JACK. Absolutely ridiculous. Elsie has ten or twelve millions of her own. WATT. Desertion?

JACK. Always respectable and frequent, but it takes too much time. With Elsie already engaged to Lord Ardmay, things must move forward.

WATT. I should think so!

JACK. What Elsie wants is a good oldfashioned New York divorce. You understand me, Watt, one that won't fade in the wash-a woman in the case-the usual grounds-sealed papers before a referee the regular time - honored, respectable thing! Elsie doesn't want any of your gold brick divorces. She doesn't want to be married to me in one State

again; and she says I should think of my future wife's feelings; but I say what's the use of borrowing trouble!

WATT. Of course, there is something in what she says. Any lady in the case, Jack?

JACK. No, strange to relate, none. None at all, to tell you the truth. I may have been thoughtless, but I have never been sentimental. Of course, you know Elsie was never in love with me in the usual steamheated fashion, but we've always been such bully friends. But Elsie says if we go on being married it certainly will break up our friendship. It all comes to just this, Watty, the whole disagreeable business is up to me. I've got to find a co-respondent, and find her quick. That's what I come to see you about, old man!

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WATT. So that's what. you've come. for? That's your idea of the sort of law I practice on the eighteenth floor of your offensive sky-scraper? Do you seriously suppose I make a business of supplying idiots with co-respondents in divorce cases? Do you think I keep a list of professional homewreckers on my books? What do you take me for any way, Jack?

JACK. Oh, hang it, Watty, don't get in a huff. It's legal business, isn't it? WATT. It makes legal business sometimes-romance is about the quickest way into the court.

JACK. But there is no romance or idle nonsense about my idea! It's all strictly business, and it's no joking matter. Hang it all, old man, I can't go home until I find a co-respondent. I promised Elsie I'd fix it up to-day.

WATT. Can't you select some eligible female with a compromizing attractiveness ? A little sentiment usually goes with these matters, and a touch of pref

erence.

to sue

tions in cold storage. One decent divorce is scandal enough for me. I'm willing to do my little part to entertain the city, but there's to be no encore. I'm not going in for a continual performance. It's all perfectly sane, it's what we're coming to -what I want is a plain, cold-blooded business arrangement with a platonic corespondent, with no nonsense about her, who will take a lump sum down and let it go at that. That's what I'm after, and I want you to help me find her.

WATT. Do you imagine there are in New York any guaranteed, professional co-respondents of good character and unimpeachable respectability?

JACK. That's exactly what there should be! Almost everybody requires a COrespondent sooner or later.

WATT. Your idea is that an unhappy husband should be able to take up his morning paper and read, "Mamie Swift, the old reliable co-respondent; divorces. guaranteed; best references given and required."

a possible co-respondent in his divorce case. "I'm sure she'd comprehend my position," declares Redlaw. "Of course you'd have to make her understand that it is all strictly business." Angry and out of temper, Watt Dinwiddie, in spite of his penniless condition, refuses to be retained in the case, and bids Redlaw a cold good morning, when Beverly enters the office from her hiding place.

BEVERLY. I overheard your conversation, and I believe your idea is extremely modern, entirely ethical, and intensely progressive.

WATT. Are you mad?

JACK. You indorse my idea? BEVERLY. I do. And to prove how thoroly, I offer myself as the co-respondent in this divorce case.

WATT. What! BEVERLY. Mr. Redlaw, allow me to be your Mamie Swift.

JACK. Splendid! If I'd searched the world over, I couldn't have found any

one so ideal.

BEVERLY. My name, Bobbie St. Ledger, has a certain something in it which might be helpful before a jury, to say nothing of the kissing-girl story, which certainly should have a commercial value in an ethical divorce.

JACK. Then it's agreed? It's a bargain?

WATT. Nothing of the kind! Absolutely no! This preposterous idea will

not be carried out.

BEVERLY. Why not, when it can be done so simply? Mr. Redlaw might take the vacant room in our flat. What could be more compromizing? According to the New York newspapers, board and lodging is almost an offence in itself. . . . WATT. Stop talking this rot and nonsense!

BEVERLY. But perhaps to dine with us three times a week would be sufficiently incriminating. Let me explain. My relation to Mr. Redlaw will be that which an actress sustains to an actor who takes

the opposite part in a play. Mr. Redlaw makes believe he is infatuated with me. I make believe I adore him. When the arrangement terminates, we shake hands and say good-by. There will be no entangling aftermath—the acquaintance will end with purely business relations - no compromizing letters-no husband waiting around the corner. Because I wish to assure you, Mr. Redlaw, that I am not now and never have been previously married. And, of course, our agreement will do away with all danger of proceedings on my part for breach of promise.

Redlaw thereupon suggests a drawing up of a contract, so that everything

The contract between Redlaw and Beverly is drawn up by Miss Dinwiddie herself. Beverly obtains "a dollar in hand paid❞—one of the most urgent terms of the contract-a check for $411.76, gives Redlaw her address on 199th Street, makes an appointment for dinner with him the following Tuesday evening.

The storm of scandal and publicity descends upon Redlaw and Beverly Dinwiddie, who is now known by everyone except her cousin Watt as "Bobbie St. Ledger, the kissing girl from Dixie." Hordes of reporters camp on the trail of the two. Beverly is forced to move from one flat to another to escape the limelight of notoriety. Tenants all move out upon learning that the notorious adventuress Bobbie St. Ledger is living in the same building. Several weeks later we discover Aunt Maria and Beverly in an old house on Twentieth Street, holding the fort against the newspaper people. We learn that Mrs. Redlaw herself has been reading the New York newspapers, and is so alarmed at the stories they are publishing about her husband and Bobbie St. Ledger that she no longer believes their relations merely platonic and professional. In

are

a letter to Watt Dinwiddie she announces her intention of returning immediately to New York. And Watt himself, who has always been in love with Beverly, but for some reason cannot express this love, is becoming madly jealous of Jack Redlaw. Το make matters even more serious, Jack himself is beginning to fall under the spell of Beverly's charm. He still believes that she is really Bobbie St. Ledger.

JACK. What would you consider a fair compensation?

BEVERLY. Let me think! Twenty-five thousand and four hundred and eleven dollars and seventy-six cents the four hundred and eleven dollars and seventysix cents strictly in advance.

marry again, if I choose?

BEVERLY. Yes, I suppose so.

JACK. I do wish you would show a little more enthusiasm about it. After all, a man who has been divorced once is scarcely shop-worn in New York. He's almost as good as new, isn't he? BEVERLY. Perhaps, almost.

BEVERLY. Oh, I don't say I've given up all hope; but you know some nice men are just a little bit stupid.

JACK. And is this Mr. Somebody a nice man?

BEVERLY. Yes, awfully nice.

JACK. And just a little bit stupid?

BEVERLY. Well, that's what I'm basing my hope on. Meanwhile, it isn't half bad just being a co-respondent-it almost spoils one for marriage.

One hears a lot said against it, I know, JACK. Oh, marriage has its good points.

but at least it is a venerable institution and a great career for a woman. Just think of the alimony some of them get!

BEVERLY. But, Jack, if you are thinking of marrying again, wouldn't it save all the bother and expense for you to stay married?

JACK. Yes, but you remember, don't you, about six days ago the newspapers saying that you and I would marry each other? I don't want to be vulgar about this; but you know I am rottenly rich, and I could really give you a wonderful

time.

BEVERLY. Are you proposing marriage to me?

JACK. Yes, I am.

BEVERLY. In earnest?

JACK. Of course I'm in earnest. BEVERLY. Why, Jack, even if I cared for you I couldn't dream of such a thing. JACK. Dream of what?

BEVERLY. Marrying a divorced man, of course. What can you be thinking about? ... No, bless your heart, you're not and never could be. Jack, dear, there's only one somebody in the world for anybody and nobody else can ever be that somebody no matter what anybody says, and I want to make you be

lieve that too, and I almost think I have got you trained to a point now where I can make you believe it. Oh, Jack, why can't you and Elsie patch things up? JACK. No, it wouldn't do any good. Besides, it's too late now. I tell you, Bobbie, there's nothing to do. BEVERLY (leaning across table). Oh, There must be! Can't yes, there is! you cable, or something? If you two could only talk this all over together, away from aunts and relations, and your flippant, fashionable friends, everything would be all right. You know, when I was a little girl of seven, I had a sweetheart of six; but we both had so many toys in our garden that all the other children of the neighborhood came there to play, and so for days and days we never were alone. We'd fall out and quarrel and we could not make up. One morning I got so jealous because I could never have him alone, I decided to invent a new game. I called it the Desert Island. There was a little island down

407

long and left all the toys for the other children, so they never mistrusted. Our desert island was a great success. He was the king and I was the queen, and we had sixty-five children and they all had golden hair, and we lived happy at play ever after, at least until we were ten, and that's ever after when you are only seven. Ever since then, I've been a great believer in desert islands. Now what you and Elsie need is just to play desert island.

JACK. Yes, if I had her at sea on a yacht or if we'd been cast away on some desert island or other, and she needed a man to do things for her comfort, instead of a maid or a butler or a fourth at bridge or something like that, I'd make good with her - yes! I bet my head I could soon enough make her forget about Ardmay. But that sort of thing can't be managed. I can't import Elsie by wire to-day and smuggle her off. And even if Elsie were here- there's no desert island in New York!

BEVERLY. There's a desert island everywhere, if you only know how to find it.

luck until to-morrow-now play desert island." She runs out, locking them in behind her.

Presently Watt Dinwiddie appears with the news that Mrs. Redlaw has arrived in New York. Beverly loses no time in making Watt call the distressed lady on the telephone, and urging her to call upon him at once at the residence of his cousin, whom, of course, Mrs. Redlaw never suspects as Bobbie St. Ledger. Beverly then dismisses Watt from the house and prepares for an interview with Elsie Redlaw herself. When that lady enters, it does not take the perspicacious Beverly long to discover that she is as truly in love with her husband as he is with her.

In the midst of their conversation, Jack Redlaw returns, and before he becomes aware of the presence of his wife has called Beverly by her assumed

name.

Then Elsie discovers that Beverly is the notorious Bobbie St. Ledger, and Jack discovers that Bobbie St. Ledger is in reality Beverly Dinwiddie. The reconciliation seems ruined by this revelation. But undismayed, Beverly decides to make a desert island for the young couple out of the threadbare old furnished flat. She cuts the telephone wires. "The building is empty," she informs them. "There is no one in the building but Murphy, and I'll send him to Brooklyn. No one can let you out until I come back. I'm going to give you a chance to talk things over. Good

BEVERLY. May I come in?
JACK. You bet.

BEVERLY. I thought I'd not delay any longer in coming back, as you've only got an hour to get to court.

ELSIE. We're not going to court! JACK. No, you've settled this out of court, Bobbie.

BEVERLY. I'm so glad, and since you are going to stay here, I hope you're as properly hungry as two happy people on a desert island should be. Perhaps you'd like me to make you a cup of coffee; and, incidentally, I'll get myself thawed out.

JACK. Why, Bobbie, you look perished. BEVERLY. I'm nearly frozen. JACK. Where is Aunt Marie? BEVERLY. The last time I saw her she was sitting bolt up-right in the Pennsylvania Station, and trying to sleep with a discarded hat from the flat above on her left ear and Murphy's overcoat wrapped tight about her character. JACK. In the Pennsylvania Station? What's she doing there?

BEVERLY. Finishing a quiet, uneventful night, which we spent there together. It's not usually resorted to as a lodging house, I know, but it's really quite clean and spacious, with such nice high ceilings.

Finally we discover that Watt Dinwiddie's jealousy had led him to secure. a marriage license for Beverly and himself; but he has carried it about in his pocket so long that it is falling to pieces. The final scene-practically the only "love scene" of the little comedy-is unique for its brevity and laconicism. Suddenly realizing all that Beverly had been trying to do, Watt takes the dilapidated old marriage license out of his pocket and sits down at the table staring at it.

WATT. In having me?

BEVERLY. Well, if you're what I want more than anything else in the world, and But I can't ask you if you want me. that, can I? But you know you could ask me.

WATT. Then I may?

BEVERLY. If you will. (Pause.) Well, why don't you?

WATT. Because I can't believe it's true. BEVERLY. You dear stupid - and how am I going to convince you? How long is this license good for?

WATT. Forever.
BEVERLY. Oh, heavens!
WATT. If we use it to-day.
BEVERLY. Do you mean that?
WATT. Yes, I do.

BEVERLY. Then why don't we?
WATT. Do you mean that?
BEVERLY. Yes.

WATT. Then we wili.

T

HEATRICAL revivals that bloom in the spring are doubly interesting this year. These old-fashioned plays awaken a flattering feeling of extreme modernity in their new-fashioned audiences, and the two principal revivals this year "Trilby" and "A Celebrated Case"-representing two diametrically opposed types of entertainment, suggest the interesting question which The Dramatic Mirror propounds: What causes us to preserve interest in a play we have seen perhaps several times, while we profess less interest in other plays once as popular? What, in other words, is the test of vitality in a play? "A Celebrated Case," the Dramatic Mirror points out, is a masterwork of ingenious construction, a clever piece of dramaturgic architecture, a fine example of the "well-made" play that is usually associated with the name of Scribe. Paul Potter's dramatization of George du Maurier's novel is deficient in thrilling climaxes and situations, devoid of intense moments of suspense. "It lacks the story interest of its rival, that most potent of all novelties in a play or story, the criminal element, the finely calculated effet of the French playwrights, which 'A Celebrated Case' has as few plays even of French origin have... Yet the impartial critic will probably concede that 'Trilby' is a play of more enduring interest than 'A Celebrated Case.'"

It is, the theatrical paper points out, the old difference between plot and character. This authority is of the opinion that, in the theater as in literature, we retain our interest in the revelation of character rather than in the skilful unfolding of a plot.

The mechanics of dramaturgy, the critic of the Brooklyn Eagle points out in comparing the two old plays, are

OF THE PAST

subject to fashion and fads. He refers to William Archer's dictum that a playwright could do almost anything but keep his audience in the dark.

"The success of 'A Celebrated Case,' when first produced, might have been cited by Mr. Archer with as much assurance as we now cite 'On Trial' and 'Under Cover,' to prove him entirely wrong. the motion pictures have done their part in upsetting the theory. The best plotters in the American theater are the audiences.

Of course

You can fool them, but it must be cleverly done. You can't tell them the answer in the first act and hold their interest by repeating a question in every succeeding act. The only way to hold the modern audience after it has sensed the plot is by true characterization, sympathy, clash and suspense otherwise provided.

"A Celebrated Case' has none of these

elements. In a modern sense it is a oneact play, with a five-act epilog. It could should make a splendid feature film so be played backward with telling effect, and played. The audience knows the melodramatic story in a few minutes after the curtain goes up. Succeeding acts merely start over and repeat some phase of it, leading up to a theatrical climax, from which the punch has been extracted by the foreknowledge of what is to take place. All the intricate mechanism is bare, and there is nothing to do but watch the wheels go round.

"Trilby is entirely different. Simplicity is the keynote of the story, and sympathy and suspense are its driving. force. It is human, and its acting possibilities cannot be impaired by age."

Montrose J. Moses attributes the change in the attitude of modern audiences to the influence of Ibsen upon the modern drama. Ibsen was opposed to the mechanical and theatrical in construction, even tho he was too closely allied to the theater of his own time to escape the charge he brought against

by D'Ennery. But, notwithstanding, Ibsen helped to antiquate the 'well-made play.' A few years ago we were given an all-star revival of 'The Two Orphans,' and however elemental and sentimental and melodramatically effective it seemed to us, we could not but wonder how our elders could ever have thought it a great drama in the sense that it reflected truth! So it is with 'A Celebrated Case.' It is easy guesswork to determine from the very beginning what the solution of the plot is to be."

In the opinion of a reviewer of the Boston Transcript, Ibsen still remains the master dramatist of the modern stage. His skill in construction has not