Experience had come back to town with us. Before leaving the mountains, Will had jestingly asked her whether she would like to see Broadway. She took him at his word. We flattered ourselves she had become fond of us. We discovered later that it was the profession, not the family, which lured her. She had found a new volume of faery lore. Will was the faery prince. Sometimes I wondered just how Experience reconciled Will's morning grumpiness with her preconceived notion of a hero. I recall how after seeing Will in a new rôle he had asked her how she liked him. She expressed herself as pleased with the play in general and with him in particular. But after he left the room she confided to me the following: "Ain't he the naturalest thing when he yells at that man with the powdered hair, Jackwees or somethin' like that--'Jackwees, bring me my sword!' I declare, ma'am, I jumped a foot and started for that sword! It was so natural; that's just the way he yells when I forget the morning papers."
The reliability of Experience brought me more leisure. I was free to go about without worry over the boy. I felt that intellectually I needed stimulus and I planned a winter's work. Of course everything depended upon the play "getting over," to use the vernacular. Will said he did not see how it could fail. Everyone connected with the production said the same thing. Success was in the air. Several times I had dropped in to see a rehearsal. I was interested to know the "method" of this particular manager about whom so much had been written. His productions were always effectively mounted. Magazine articles, full-page interviews had from time to time printed his recipes for evolving successful stars as well as money-making plays. One thrilling account in particular--supposedly his own words--told of the strenuous training of the tyro; how he aroused in his actors the precise degree of emotion necessary to a given scene. "I dragged her by the hair!" or "I pictured her own mother lying dead, foully murdered, before her until she cried aloud at the picture I had conjured." Again, "I tied my wrists together, I rolled about the floor, struggling to free myself; I wanted to feel just what a man would feel under similar conditions!" These and other highly coloured statements had from time to time been served up to the public. It is amazing how gullibly the public bites at the press-agent's worm. In nearly all such instances nothing could be farther from the truth. My own observation convinced me that the man's genius lay in his ability to select the right person for the right place. Having made the selection he played upon the _amour propre_ of his puppets. He led them to believe he had supreme confidence in their ability. The ruse was successful. It is the better part of human nature to want to measure up to the good opinion of others.