Project Gutenberg's Van Bibber and Others, by Richard Harding Davis

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Van Bibber and Others

Author: Richard Harding Davis

Release Date: February 10, 2004 [EBook #11019]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VAN BIBBER AND OTHERS ***

Produced by Janet Kegg and PG Distributed Proofreaders

VAN BIBBER AND OTHERS

By

Richard Harding Davis

1892, 1920

* * * * *

TO

MY FATHER
L. CLARKE DAVIS

WHO HAS BEEN MY KINDEST AND
MY SEVEREST CRITIC

* * * * *

CONTENTS

HER FIRST APPEARANCE
VAN BIBBER'S MAN-SERVANT
THE HUNGRY MAN WAS FED
VAN BIBBER AT THE RACES
AN EXPERIMENT IN ECONOMY
MR. TRAVERS'S FIRST HUNT
LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG
ELEANORE CUYLER
A RECRUIT AT CHRISTMAS
A PATRON OF ART
ANDY M'GEE'S CHORUS GIRL
A LEANDER OF THE EAST RIVER
HOW HEFTY BURKE GOT EVEN
OUTSIDE THE PRISON
AN UNFINISHED STORY

* * * * *

HER FIRST APPEARANCE

It was at the end of the first act of the first night of "The
Sultana," and every member of the Lester Comic Opera Company, from
Lester himself down to the wardrobe woman's son, who would have had to
work if his mother lost her place, was sick with anxiety.

There is perhaps only one other place as feverish as it is behind the
scenes on the first night of a comic opera, and that is a newspaper
office on the last night of a Presidential campaign, when the returns
are being flashed on the canvas outside, and the mob is howling, and
the editor-in-chief is expecting to go to the Court of St. James if
the election comes his way, and the office-boy is betting his wages
that it won't.

Such nights as these try men's souls; but Van Bibber passed the
stage-door man with as calmly polite a nod as though the piece had
been running a hundred nights, and the manager was thinking up
souvenirs for the one hundred and fiftieth, and the prima donna had,
as usual, began to hint for a new set of costumes. The stage-door
keeper hesitated and was