Chapter 7
Chapter 7 of But Gentleman Mary Burnett's by Anita Luz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Jen Broda. Chapter 7 Well, Dorothy says that as far as either she or the public or the critics could note, there
was no more temperament in her interpretations after she learned about life than there had been before. But I think that what really was the matter with Dorothy was that learning about life did not turn out to be so enjoyable to her after all. I mean, Dorothy is never at her best in a tete-a-tete, and nobody realized it more than
Mr. Morgan, so they just let the matter drop. Well, one week the company played at a town called Monterey that is famous for having exclusive hotels full of the best people, and at one of them was a polo team from New York. And the captain of the polo team was nobody else but Charlie Breen, of the famous wealthy
Breen family. Well, one day the polo team had gotten up for early morning practice, and that gave them time to become even more intoxicated by evening than usual. So in the evening they went up to Monterey to attend the Frederick Morgan players, but they paid very little attention to the plot and made rude remarks to the actors, and when
the villains started to attack Mr. Morgan, Charlie Breen called out to sock him on the bustle. Well, things went from bad to worse until finally Dorothy made her entrance in the role of a maid who answered the telephone, and then the polo team began to sit up and take an interest in the drama.
Well their enthusiasm for Dorothy rose by leaps and bounds, and by the time she made her exit, they would not even let the performance proceed. So I really believe that learning about life must have developed Dorothy's art after all. Well the polo team consulted their programs to learn who Dorothy was, so then they started
chant in unison and said, We want Dorothy, we want Dorothy, we want Dorothy, and nothing could stop them. But they were so prominent that they could not be ejected. So finally Mr. Morgan had to send Dorothy out in front to sit with the polo team in order to keep them quiet so that he could act.
And Dorothy was not needed on the stage anymore, as that was the last time the telephone had to ring in that drama. Well, from the moment Dorothy joined the polo team, they calmed down and were all perfect gentlemen, especially Charlie Breen, because it seems that he had fallen madly in love with Dorothy at first sight.
But even when Charlie calmed down, the liquor still rose to the surface and he kept breathing quite heavy breaths in Dorothy's direction and leaning on her support and mumbling remarks that did not seem to connect with each other. And that always bores a girl like Dorothy. So after the performance when they invited her to accompany them to a champagne supper,
she gave them the slip to go out with the property man. And Dorothy says that running out on millionaires has been her specialty ever since. Well the next day the polo team left for the South, but Charlie Breen did not forget the learned to care for. For he wrote her a letter telling her to go right to New York and get into the Ziegfeld
Follies and he would see her there later. And in the letter was a letter of introduction to a New York broker who knew Mr. Ziegfeld and a check for a thousand dollars. But Dorothy paid no attention to the letter or the check because Dorothy was so ignorant that she thought that money had to be in dollars and cents.
I mean I am just the reverse because I always seem to know those things by instinct. Well one night Dorothy and the character actress of the company were packing up to go to Sacramento when Dorothy happened to run across the letter from Charlie Breen. So she showed it to the character actress. Well it seems that this character actress had met a wealthy lumber magnet once in the
heyday of her youth. So she knew what a check was and she explained it to Dorothy and advised her to go to New York and do everything the gentleman said. And she helped Dorothy to get ready with the aid of a home dressmaker who went out by the day at Sacramento.
But when it came time to leave for New York Dorothy decided that after all Mr. Morgan had really done the best of his ability to improve her art. So she bought him a gold headed cane because Dorothy is the kind of a girl that makes gentleman presents. But I really try not to blame her because I have a very broad mind and I always use
psychology. So I understand that there are some people in the world who cannot help it if their instincts are unnatural. But I almost have to shudder when I think of poor Dorothy starting out all alone for a large size city full of cuter girls than she was, with less than $1,000 in her pocket
and practically the wrong ideas about everything. End of chapter 7
