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Chapter LXXII
THE FIVE FATEFUL FISH CAKES AND NUMBER FOUR

Marriage for me had become an incident, not a conquest, now that I had tried and tried again – three times! Ever since my earliest youth I had loved the beautiful in nature. But I never sought these beautiful creatures who sooner or later took my name. On the contrary, as I have shown, my second and third wives were thrust upon me by force of circumstances. Being human I allowed my bark of irresponsibility to sail tranquilly into the harbor of intrigue.

If these two marriages were errors my fourth venture into matrimony was a catastrophe! I fled from a Cleopatra to meet a Borgia.

And a dish of fish cakes proved my undoing!

I am passionately fond of the mixture of salt fish and potato – at least I had been for twenty-five years. Now, for some reason, the mention of the aforetime delicacy makes me shudder.

It was early one morning that I was hurrying to the ferry on my way to Washington when I caught the indescribable odor of fish cakes wafted toward me from the open door of the old Metropole Hotel. Instantly I forgot everything. Fish cakes appealed to me more then than anything in all the world – except only a cup of Child's "surpassing" and a plate of butter cakes, colloquially known as "sinkers." Into the Metropole I went and sat me down to await the execution of my order.

Hardly had I taken my seat when an ex-manager of an ex-champion prize fighter approached me with a proposition which reduced to its simplest terms meant that I become angel for a theatrical troupe. I had little confidence in his managerial ability and knew enough of his past environment to convince me that he was not the man to handle any part of my money. When he told me the enterprise had already been launched and had met with failure after a disastrous tour I was positive I should never be induced to act as its reviver.

I arrived at this sane conclusion, however, before the fish cakes were set before me!

The scenery, it seemed, was held by the sheriff in Jersey City for unpaid debts. The young and handsome woman star was lying in hiding in an apartment house nearby – in a hysterical condition promoted by her discovery of the perfidy of her manager and of the syndicate of backers who had "backed" with spontaneous unanimity at the crucial moment. These gentlemen, my informer continued, had not only refused to rescue the scenery from the vulgar Jersey sheriff, but had also refused to redeem $20,000 worth of jewels which the young and handsome star had pawned in Louisville that the attraction might remain on tour.

Before I had finished the first fish cake I discovered with mild surprise that the ex-champion prize fighter's ex-manager had a hitherto concealed attractive manner of speech and was altogether a magnetic sort of chap. As my digestive processes began work on that first fish cake I found myself interested not a little in this recital of the young woman's sufferings. I must have shown it for my companion waxed more and more enthusiastic and concluded an especially colorful description of her anguish with the whispered statement that she had been ruined!

In response to my sympathetic query he replied that he had intended to qualify the remark with the word financially!

In order further to test the truthfulness of his tale I asked the names of the syndicate of backers. They included a notorious roué, a wealthy stock broker and the ex-champion prize fighter – a versatile trio. It took but a short time for me to discover also the name of the attraction and of the young and handsome star. Fate was again at my elbow. I had heard of both play and player weeks before. The play had been suggested to me for my own use. I had refused to negotiate for it as I was then under the management of Charles Frohman and had no wish to make a change. But I knew that it was a very clever farce. Its failure, I was convinced, was the fault of inadequate acting and bad booking.

This conclusion was not reached until I had masticated five fish cakes!

By the time I had finished the fifth my blood was fairly boiling and the whole universe seemed to me to be calling aloud for a man to step forward and right the wrongs the young and handsome star had suffered. The treatment she had received was inhuman, I was sure of it!

Impulsively I telegraphed the young lady in Washington on whom I had started to call that I was detained in New York on most important business. Then we jumped into a cab and were on our way to the abode of the young and handsome (not to forget hysterical) star.

Oh why did I not go to Washington? Why, oh why, did my mad passion for fish cakes cause me to tarry at the Metropole? Perhaps Demon Fate will answer that when posterity turns gray.

Arrived at our destination we were first, and speedily, ushered into the presence of the mother of our heroine-in-distress. She was a middle aged woman of the modern, alert type – who enjoyed cigarettes when her dear daughter was not in evidence. As we chatted inconsequentially I fancied I had seen her somewhere previously; but as she launched forth on her distracted tale of her daughter's ruin (she did not qualify it!) my truant thoughts were squelched.

Then came radiantly the daughter. She was submerged in sables! Resplendent jewels covered her! Evidently the aspiring Juliet had not left everything in Louisville. I was sure I had to deal with a very thrifty and provident, yes, and young and handsome star!

All the ex-manager had told me was quickly verified by the daughter and her astute mama. As was to be expected I let all my doubts dissolve in pity. Also I felt a combined desire to be philanthropic and heroic. I was almost as quick a thinker in those days as I was rapid as a spender. I was 47 years old! Perhaps, gentle reader, you know how susceptible are we clever men at that time of life, how tranquilly we sit back on the cushions of our thoughts and say to ourselves we are proof against the blandishments of women. We are sure that all the favors we bestow emanate from the bigness of our hearts! We are proof against all temptation. We know that December and May can not mate!

Believe me, my dear reader, I was convinced when I made up my mind that I would assist this young woman I was doing an act of simple charity, combined with a little business tact. It was to be merely a business transaction. Fate might have nudged my elbow, at least once, that I might have foreseen the cost of my vanity.

Within four hours from the moment the young and handsome star appeared on my horizon I had financed this worthy trio to the extent of releasing the scenery and redeeming the jewels. Also and by way of security (!) I found myself owner of the play.

Oh I was some business man in those days!

Five days later I sailed for London.

Alone?

Oh no.

With me I took the just-released scenery, the play (which I had never read but which I "knew" was a clever farce) and a promise from the young and handsome star that she would follow on a steamship three weeks later.

Before I sailed, with what seemed to me unnecessary foresight I cabled Tom Ryley, then lessee of the Shaftesbury Theatre, announcing my coming and asking that he prepare for the opening of my young and handsome star and me in "The Genius." When I reached London I found Ryley had obtained the rights to "The Lion and the Mouse" and was enthusiastic over its production. Charles Frohman had cabled him to endeavor to induce me to play the leading rôle. But I never for one moment believed London would accept "The Lion and the Mouse" and refused to appear in it. (My opinion of London's acceptance of "The Genius" – now that I had read it – was not much more optimistic!) We compromised on a production of "A Gilded Fool." This ran one week. Ryley again approached me with the leading part in "The Lion and the Mouse" and again I refused. And now I urged him to put on "The Genius."

Ryley, ordinarily a brainy chap, showed unexpected lack of appreciation of talent and refused point blank to produce the farce if the young woman from America appeared in it. He seemed not at all impressed by my eloquent description of her ability as an actress. (Later he told me he had seen her on the stage!) (Much later I confided to him that I never had!)

Back I came to New York – bringing with me a young woman I had discovered in London. (I am always "discovering" young women. It's a habit.) This young woman, however, has since made history for herself. The wife of an automobile salesman and earning pin money as an "extra woman" at the Shaftesbury Theatre, she volunteered one day to type extra copies of "A Gilded Fool" which were needed quickly. She did the work so well I engaged her as my secretary. One day she read me a speech from the play and so impressed me with her intelligence I gave her the leading parts in both "A Gilded Fool" and "An American Citizen" to study. Her readings of these two parts led me to engage her then and there as my leading lady – in place of the young and handsome star whom Ryley couldn't "see." (In passing I may say I paid her five pounds per week!) After the opening night's performance I engaged her for three years at a salary of $150 per week!

Thus began the career of Alexandra Carlisle, to-day the highest salaried leading lady in London!

I had a most trying experience with Miss Carlisle. On the railway trip from London to Southampton we had as fellow travellers her father and mother and husband – and we made a very happy quintette. But directly we were aboard the ship Miss Carlisle fell victim to an attack of homesickness. Perhaps it was her sense of loss of her husband, perhaps mal de mer was at the bottom of it. In any event she spent the entire trip in tears and in borrowing all my spare cash to send love messages, via wireless, to the husband for whom she had shown no affection at all – up to the time of our leaving. Of course all the old lady passengers glared at me the first day out! The rumor literally flew all over that ship that I was either abducting the young woman – or, equally heinous offense, was neglecting her!

But to return to the mundane fish cakes – and the consequences thereof!

The ex-champion's ex-manager had remained in London after the departure of the discomfited young and handsome star and her mama – to watch over me! Instructions had been cabled to him later to be especially watchful now that I was at my old game of "discovering" leading ladies. The trio of conspirators were very, very busy those days! The purpose of the ex-manager's presence at my elbow, constantly shown, was to have me land in New York fancy free. In spite of my susceptible nature there was no cause for alarm this time! I was intensely respectable! As yet I had not even thought of divorcing Maxine Elliott.

My idea was to combine two types of beauty, English and American, and with good press work make both my leading women popular favorites. But the hopeless state of mind of Miss Carlisle put rather a damper on my plan. I turned her over to the care of the ex-manager and remained in my stateroom during the entire trip. On our arrival in New York I loaned Miss Carlisle the cost of her passage home and the following week she started back to London – much to the satisfaction of my American beauty, pardon, my young and handsome star.

It struck me as an odd coincidence that on the same ship with Miss Carlisle, also bound for London, was Miss Maxine – who always found it convenient to go to England within a day or two of my arrival in America!

Fate was a busy bee these days, I can tell you. He was weaving his net well – and tightly.

Of course the young and handsome star and her mama met me at the pier. They drove me to a most luxurious flat in Twenty-sixth Street – in a landau drawn by two spanking bays. Truly my young and handsome star was going some! After a hearty luncheon prepared by Martin I went to my hotel and spent the evening with my friends, who were, are and always have been – men!

The next day I arranged a tour for "The Genius."

The less said about that tour —

With my marriage to Edna Goodrich, the young and handsome star, forsooth, the mere mention of fish cakes caused me to shudder!

At the end of that first tour I knew that the end was at hand. Perhaps I was influenced by the fact that my friends told me at every conceivable opportunity of the record of the young woman and her mama. Of course I indignantly refused to listen to these allegations; but the fact that there existed grounds for such allegations may possibly have disturbed me. However, we went along, producing "When We Were Twenty-One," "An American Citizen," one act of "The Merchant of Venice" (thank God it was only one act!) and an original play written by George Broadhurst, which made a tremendous hit in the South but was a failure in the East.

My star-wife complained of being ill at the end of the season and I sent her to a famous specialist in Minnesota for a series of treatments. Her recovery was almost instantaneous! In five days, from the day she left me, she wired me in California that she was in New York about to start for Europe! She asked that I follow her. I replied I had just reached Los Angeles and had business that would keep me there – at least over night.

This was the beginning of the end indeed.

One night at dinner, a month or so later, I received an anonymous letter containing charges against my absent bride. These general allegations interested me less than the statement that the writer could show me a watch which I had mourned as lost for many months. You see I wanted the watch!

I arranged for an interview with my unknown correspondent, by putting a club in the pocket of my dressing gown. Two men appeared. One, a very common sort of person, I kept in my drawing room and the other, a young, respectable looking chap I took into my den. There I began my cross-examination. After promising to show me the long-lost watch the following morning he called in his companion who proved to be a waiter in a café in which my wife had enjoyed her clandestine meetings. His description of the man immediately served to identify him as one of my wife's former admirers – a gentleman-about-town who had squandered $20,000 on her, proposed and been accepted (before our marriage) and, fortunately, gone broke before the ceremony could be performed! My discovery that he was the gentleman in the case made me wonder. I had not heard that his fortunes had been repaired – before this!

The following morning we visited a pawn broker's shop and there in the window, hanging on a line, was my watch. I recognized it, not only from its engraved initials but also because it was one of three which were never duplicated. I had bought all three in Paris years before and given two of them to my two best friends. When it disappeared I was sure it had been stolen and did my best to trace it with the aid of the police. I did not suspect my wife!

The young man had discovered the facts when the man-about-town in a moment of drunken braggadocio boasted of his friendship with my wife and displayed my watch as proof of it!

In the frenzy of the moment my impulse was to drop all else and find this whelp – to drive him at the point of a revolver into that pawn shop and there make him redeem and return to me the property which I could not accuse him of stealing! On second thought I realized that if I ever laid eyes on him I could never refrain from taking just one pop at him – and if the sound appealed to me I was afraid I might continue popping. So I counted ten and my reason returned. To be locked up for murder even if for only a few minutes is not a thing to be courted. Besides there were always my mother and father to consider. Altogether it would have been the act of a fool and for once I determined to play another rôle. In following out this resolve I hastily left Los Angeles and started for London.

Loving wife and fond mama had no intimation of my discovery. They were awaiting me at the station and never did a husband get a warmer greeting! Why, even mama seemed to have absorbed much of loving daughter's excess of affection for me! And thus they conducted me to a snug apartment in the Savoy Hotel. To interrupt such tender solicitude for my well being by vulgar references to other men who yesterday had been the recipients of all I was getting then would have put me too far out of the picture! So I sat tight and waited for morning.

After breakfast the next day I opened the ball by remarking that I had finally come across the trail of the thief who had stolen my watch. Also I added with seeming irrelevancy that I had heard about the clandestine meetings my wife had been indulging in with a gentleman I named.

Her denials were not only positive; they were indignant. The fact that I had absolute proof of all I had thus far said was the only thing that saved me from becoming thoroughly convinced that I was mistaken.

Why is it so many women are such consummate actresses off the stage and such impossible amateurs on?

I did a little acting on my own account, however, and evidenced complete belief in all my wife's denials. She was sure I would eventually find my watch in the top tray of a trunk which had lain in storage in New York for months. I let it go at that. I had acquired all the proof I wanted, in other directions, and was satisfied. Besides, all this happened during the month of June, 1910, and I was in a great hurry to get back to America.

The contest for the heavy-weight pugilistic championship of the world was scheduled to be held July 4, 1910!

My wife remained abroad that summer but the Jeffries-Johnson-fight-disappointment almost offset that benediction.

Preparatory to my going back into my profession I bought a play from George Broadhurst who for some inconceivable (!) reason refused to let me produce it if I allowed my wife to appear in it. This was quite a shock to me but I set it down to the well-known eccentricity of authors. Present in a box at the opening performance of the play was my quondam "young and handsome star" who returned to New York just in time to grace the occasion. Later she descended on our little organization while we were playing in Toronto and this time she hurled accusations of all kinds at my head – any one of which would have enabled her to divorce me even in England! When the trial of her divorce action came along all these charges were disproven – but that one session in Toronto was not conducted along Parliamentary lines, so far as she was concerned.

That she had instituted the proceedings didn't bother me at all. Having done all the affirmative work in two other divorce actions I thought I might as well take it easy this time and let her do it! But I had forgotten all about a certain deed of trust I had made in Paris some time before.

During my mining activities I foresaw the calamity that was inevitable and acting on the advice of an incompetent attorney I foolishly entered into a trust agreement with my wife under the terms of which I placed all my property in the hands of a trustee. In avoiding a possible loss I ran headfirst into a dead sure steal!

As soon as I had been served in the divorce action I began suit on my own account to cancel this trust agreement. It had always been a nuisance even in the days when wife and fond mama were at their loving-est! Now it was imperative that I be allowed to handle my own property alone. The settlement of that action was a long, drawn-out affair as compared with the divorce action. During the several months before my wife finally won (?) her case the newspapers were filled daily with sensational articles about my affairs with women I had never even seen! It seemed to me as if the gentlemen of the press just published any and every photograph of a pretty woman they could find and named her as one of the unfortunate objects of my attentions. In spite of this my wife's able counsel had been able to present no facts to the Referee that could justify him in recommending a decree in her favor – up to the Tuesday before the Saturday on which he was to render his decision.

It never dawned on me that this was the case until my dear old friend, Jim Killduff, who had been following the suit more closely than I had came to me that Tuesday night and congratulated me! "You're winning so easily, it's a laugh," he exclaimed. "Winning?" I echoed feebly. "Do you mean she isn't going to get her divorce?" "She hasn't a chance on earth," replied Jim gleefully. "Every charge she has made against you has been stricken from the Referee's record." "Good Lord," I gasped, "she's got to win! It's the only way I can ever get this trust agreement busted!"

The result of our conversation I can not set forth in detail. The fact remains, however, that before that next Saturday the Referee had presented to him the evidence necessary to make his course of duty plain – and once again the newspapers had grounds (?) for proclaiming me a disciple of Solomon!

Between you and me, gentle reader, Justice must have had to tighten that bandage about her eyes when she learned of that decree! She surely must have loosened it laughing!

I can say, however, that it is a most expensive luxury – being divorced! It's much cheaper to use the active voice of that verb!

Marriages are made in heaven – canceled in Reno.

I have had many sweethearts, but only one survives – my mother.

If a man steal your wife don't kill him – caution him!