"
"My boy," said Goldstein, "take the part if you can get it. Miss
Carrington won't listen to any of my suggestions. She has turned down
half a dozen of the best imitators of the rural dub in the city. She
declares she won't set a foot on the stage unless 'Haytosser' is the
best that can be raked up. She was raised in a village, you know, and
when a Broadway orchid sticks a straw in his hair and tries to call
himself a clover blossom she's on, all right. I asked her, in a
sarcastic vein, if she thought Denman Thompson would make any kind
of a show in the part. 'Oh, no,' says she. 'I don't want him or John
Drew or Jim Corbett or any of these swell actors that don't know a
turnip from a turnstile. I want the real article.' So, my boy, if
you want to play 'Sol Haytosser' you will have to convince Miss
Carrington. Luck be with you."
Highsmith took the train the next day for Cranberry Corners. He
remained in that forsaken and inanimate village three days. He found
the Boggs family and corkscrewed their history unto the third and
fourth generation. He amassed the facts and the local color of
Cranberry Corners. The village had not grown as rapidly as had Miss
Carrington. The actor estimated that it had suffered as few actual
changes since the departure of its solitary follower of Thespis as
had a stage upon which "four years is supposed to have elapsed." He
absorbed Cranberry Corners and returned to the city of chameleon
changes.
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