The claque was there as
it had originated in the Stone Age and was afterward adapted by the
French. Every Micky and Maggie who sat upon Creary's amateur bench, wise
beyond their talents, knew that their success or doom lay already meted
out to them by that crowded, whistling, roaring mass of Romans in the
three galleries. They knew that the winning or the losing of the game
for each one lay in the strength of the "gang" aloft that could turn the
applause to its favorite. On a Broadway first night a wooer of fame may
win it from the ticket buyers over the heads of the cognoscenti. But not
so at Creary's. The amateur's fate is arithmetical. The number of his
supporting admirers present at his try-out decides it in advance. But
how these outlying Friday nights put to a certain shame the Mondays,
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and matinees of the Broadway
stage you should know . . .
[Here the manuscript ends.]
[Illustration: A page from "The Plunkville Patriot"]
ARISTOCRACY VERSUS HASH
[From _The Rolling Stone_.
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