And so amid kindliness and good will, the tiny apartment was got into shape, while the dark wild days without turned to snow, and the frosted panes showed nothing through but white and desolation. The dormice lay snug in their nest, and though their money ebbed, and the cupboard was next to bare, and the household work at times weighed hardly on unaccustomed, slender shoulders, perhaps they were too near Heaven to complain.
Adair had never been a very respectable nor popular member of the Thespian Club, that influential organization from which the New York stage is so largely recruited; and the return of the lost sheep was not accompanied by any particular enthusiasm. But Adair was too noticeable a man, and his talent too well remembered for his presence not to cause some stir, and soon there was comment on his extraordinary change for the better. He was certainly no longer the loud, swaggering, over-dressed Adair of the old days, with the dubious geniality, and the restless eyes. He did not drink; he seemed to have lost his surly streak; in many other ways more indefinite he had softened and improved. The Thespians, who were nothing if not good-natured and generous, very willingly let bygones be bygones, and some of the more important began to suggest his name to managers.
But the managers were made of sterner stuff than the actors and playwrights; they had longer memories, and skins that still smarted. They brightened at the name of Adair for the unexpected pleasure it gave them to say "No." Each had his special wrong to avenge, each his emphatic and passionate denunciation of a man they abominated. "I’ve only two rules in running my theaters," said Mr. Fielman. "The first is to give the public the best that money can buy; the second, never to engage Mr. Cyril Adair!"--Mr. Paw went further: "My poy, they say in our peeziness that the box-office talks, but if it said Adair all day and all night, I’d sooner get out and sell shoe-laces on the street than see his damn sneering face in any broduction of mine!" Niedringer was no more encouraging, and the Fordingham Brothers were curt and profane.
But the New York theatrical world is a big one; and these giants, while of enormous importance, do not rule all the roost. There are always new producers bobbing up; stars themselves make ventures into management and branch out; many others, independent on a smaller scale, choose the companies that support them. Then there are the second class houses, the vaudeville houses, the stock companies--all requiring an army of professional people. Then, too, hardly a season passes without several incoming actors from some woolly, wild, unheard-of region, arriving, full of eagerness to add Broadway laurels to brows already crowned in Teepee City or Nuggetville, Nevada. Add to these, imported English companies with the lesser parts often unfilled, and "angels," both male and female, with barrels of money for some stagestruck pet, who, desirous of a short cut to greatness, insists on beginning (and usually ending) at the top;--and you will have some small conception of what New York is--theatrically.