we shall do awfully badly in Syracuse the last half of this week.
And why? For one thing, because the show isn't a show at all at
present. Why should people flock to pay for seats for what are
practically dress-rehearsals of an unknown play? Half the principals
have had to get up in their parts in two weeks, and they haven't had
time to get anything out of them. They are groping for their lines all
the time. The girls can't let themselves go in the numbers, because
they are wondering if they are going to remember the steps. The show
hasn't had time to click together yet. It's just ragged. Take a look
at it in another two weeks! I _know_! I don't say musical comedy is a
very lofty form of art, but still there's a certain amount of science
about it. If you go in for it long enough, you learn the tricks, and
take it from me that, if you have a good cast and some catchy numbers
it's almost impossible not to have a success. We've got an excellent
cast now, and the numbers are fine. I tell you--as I tried to tell
Pilkington, only he wouldn't listen--that this show is all right.
There's a fortune in it for somebody. But I suppose Pilkington is now
sitting in the smoking-car of an east-bound train, trying to get the
porter to accept his share in the piece instead of a tip!"

If Otis Pilkington was not actually doing that, he was doing
something like it. Sunk in gloom, he bumped up and down on an
uncomfortable seat, wondering why he had ever taken the trouble to
make the trip to Rochester. He had found exactly what he had expected
to find, a mangled caricature of his brain-child playing to a house
half empty and wholly indifferent. The only redeeming feature, he
thought vindictively, as he remembered what Roland Trevis had said
about the cost of musical productions, was the fact that the new
numbers were undoubtedly better than those which his collaborator had
originally supplied.

And "The Rose of America," after a disheartening Wednesday matinee and
a not much better reception on the Wednesday night, packed its baggage
and moved to Syracuse, where it failed just as badly. Then for another
two weeks it wandered on from one small town to another, up and down
New York State and through the doldrums of Connecticut, tacking to and
fro like a storm-battered ship, till finally the astute and discerning
citizens of Hartford welcomed it with such a reception that hardened
principals stared at each other in a wild surmise, wondering i