Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1920)

48 Photoplay Magazine The boys flocked to\Villiam from the time he nailed up his first poster. Then they be^an to help him. and somehow profanity, cigarette-smoking, and mischief-making dropped from them. to be a personality instead of a propram," I rather proud of that sentence, and William "Vou want said. I was beamed. "So I have been wondering what business would naturally bring me in touch with the most people, and I think it is one of those nt'ighi)orhoo(l ihealcrs. The proprietor of one of them would get to know all the people for blocks around, wouldn't he?" "Yon would," I admitted. "He'd find out all their troubles and weaknesses and help them work out their problems. He'd be in a position to lift the whole neighborhood to higher ideals, with his pictures, wouldn't he?'' "Von would," I admitted again. "We could study all the social problems at first hand, because (he folks wouldn't know were studying them. We wouldn't have lo disarm the suspicion that an institutional worker always has to overcome. We'd be just plain folks trying to make a living." By this time I was as enthusiastic as William. We talked until milk bottles began to rattle in the courts below, and when I went to sleep I dreamed I was selling tickets through a little round hole in a window and our rector came to the show with Theda Bara. Just three months later we moved ourselves and our household belongings into a building next to the comer of two crowded streets in the East Side. The corner building was a saloon — practically every comer was a saloon in those days. Our building had had a beer garden on its first floor, a Tammany club on its second. Now the beer garden, remodeled, was to be our theater, the club rooms our living quarters. The exits from our theater, our second floor, and the back room of the saloon, all came into a hallway which joined the two buildings. By the terms of the lease, this hallway belonged to us. At first I was all for compelling the saloon to close up its exit there. But William shook his head. "Let's wait a little," he suggested. "We want to know our neighbors, and I suspect that a large proportion of them are pretty regular visitors in there." "Well, they shouldn't be!'' I declared, a little crossly. I fear. "No, they shouldn't be. That's why I want to get acquainted with my neighbor, the saloon,'" he said, soberly. Our neighbor the saloon was not long in introducing itself. We were having a bit of lunch when there was a hearty rap at the door. William opened it and there stood a tall young man with cleancut features and good Irish eyes. "I'm John O'Reilly, your neighbor below," he said. "Your piano's come, downstairs, and the boys'U give you a lift with it. if vou 11 show us where it's to go." "Fine!" said William. "This is mv wife, Mr. O'Reilly." I'll confess I felt a bit dazed and uncertain. I never had been introduced to a saloon-keeper, in fact I never had seen one except on the stage. Maybe I subconsciously expected the hand he extended to be a hoof. But it wasn't. It was a big. clean hand with a strong grip. "It's nice of you to help us," I said, trying to rise to the occasion. "Not at all. You folks are the worst enemies I've got in my business, but as long as a show had to open there I'm glati there's a Christian running it.'' "Your wor^t i.ncniies?" William questioned. "Certainly. Before the movies came, we were the poor man's one place to go. He came in after supper and he spent the whole evening with us. And we got a dollar out of him. Now he can take the whole family to the movies for less than he used to spend in my place, and they do it — a lot of them. Maybe they drop in for a drink before or after the show — and mavbe thev don't! Oh. it's put a crimp in our business, all right!" They went down stairs, to put the piano in the theater. In a *fcw minutes I heard the notes of a popular song, and a chorus of men's voices came up melodiously. "The boys" were trying it out. But I sat for a long time beside my unfinished luncheon, thinking, planning. Somehow, my meeting with O'Reilly had made me see. as I hadn't quite seen before, that in this new world I was vastly better fitted to be a student than a teacher! .^nd I learned such a lot in the year that followed! William did, too, though he knew (Conlitiucd on page 114)