Books › The Red Book 1911-01: Vol 16 Iss 3, 1911 › scan 173
Scan 173
The Red Book 1911-01: Vol 16 Iss 3, 1911
14 lines. Read by computer on 14 September 2026. Printed page 556. See the scan on archive.org.
1"Tell me of yourself," the girl said at last. And "Toothbrush" recounted the story of how for years he had been teaching in Rochester, Wellsville, and Olean, all the while perfecting himself in his art, with the hope that some day he might obtain a booking in vaudeville. The fabulous salaries paid to artists in that branch of "the profession" had made the cosmos of "Toothbrush" tingle, and to appear in vaudeville had become his fetish. There was something almost pathetic about his yearning to get into the "big time," and as he talked on, the girl, who was not unacquainted with the hazards of the varieties and who felt many misgivings, let her whole heart go out to the blue-eyed, gentle-voiced, tousle-haired little violinist.
3And when she bade him good-night, she gave him her hand with the sweet cordiality of an old friendship.
5"Tell me about Professor Goldilocks," said Jimmie Grant to Virginia the following evening. "I hear you've been holding a séance with him."
7Virginia sang the praises of her new friend with vigor and enthusiasm. "He is thinking of going into vaudeville," she concluded.
9"Vaudeville, eh?" returned the reporter. "He has a slim chance of putting anything over in the line of a violin stunt. It's as hard for a straight violinist to break in as it is for the traditional rich man to negotiate the journey to Heaven. It's a case of the camel and the eye of a needle, and then some. Now, if your man could scrape his fiddle while standing on his head on a trapeze, with one hand tied behind him and the other lighting a pipe, it would be different."
11"Mr. Grant, how you talk!" interrupted Virginia.
13The scribe acknowledged the reproof with a word of apology and continued: "My dear little painter-person, you have no idea what it means to break into vaudeville. I have seen classy actors hang around the booking offices until the clothes on their backs were literally in rags and finally they were forced to take a job lugging a hod or juggling hash for a living. And these were folks who had been making good in the legit., who knew the game, and who had been cavorting in the festive spot-light for years. It takes fifty per-cent of genuine genius and fifty per-cent of sheer luck to get near these kings of vaudeville. I don't want to drop anything like a wet blanket on little 'Toothbrush,' but he'd better take my advice and hie himself back to Reuben-ville and give up the
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.