A Damsel in Distress

"I don't understand. What have your family got to do with it?"

"They'd worry the life out of me. I wish you could meet my sister

Caroline! That's what they've got to do with it. Girls in my

daughter's unfortunate position have got to marry position or

money."

"Well, I don't know about position, but when it comes to

money--why, George is the fellow that made the dollar-bill famous.

He and Rockefeller have got all there is, except the little bit

they have let Andy Carnegie have for car-fare."

"What do you mean? He told me he worked for a living." Billie was

becoming herself again. Embarrassment had fled.

"If you call it work. He's a composer."

"I know. Writes tunes and things."

Billie regarded him compassionately.

"And I suppose, living out in the woods the way that you do that

you haven't a notion that they pay him for it."

"Pay him? Yes, but how much? Composers were not rich men in my day."

"I wish you wouldn't talk of 'your day' as if you telling the boys

down at the corner store about the good times they all had before

the Flood. You're one of the Younger Set and don't let me have to

tell you again. Say, listen! You know that show you saw last night.

The one where I was supported by a few underlings. Well, George

wrote the music for that."

"I know. He told me so."

"Well, did he tell you that he draws three per cent of the gross

receipts? You saw the house we had last night. It was a fair

average house. We are playing to over fourteen thousand dollars a

week. George's little bit of that is--I can't do it in my head, but

it's a round four hundred dollars. That's eighty pounds of your

money. And did he tell you that this same show ran over a year in

New York to big business all the time, and that there are three

companies on the road now? And did he mention that this is the

ninth show he's done, and that seven of the others were just as big

hits as this one? And did he remark in passing that he gets

royalties on every copy of his music that's sold, and that at least

ten of his things have sold over half a million? No, he didn't,

because he isn't the sort of fellow who stands around blowing about

his income. But you know it now."

"Why, he's a rich man!"

"I don't know what you call rich, but, keeping on the safe side, I

should say that George pulls down in a good year, during the

season--around five thousand dollars a week."