It was the first night of
'Overheard.' Florance was playing at the Hudson Theatre, which is
a bit higher up Forty-fourth Street, and _his_ name was in electric
letters too, but further off Broadway than mine. I strolled up, just
out of idle curiosity, and there the old man was standing in the porch
of the theatre, all alone! 'Hullo, Sachs,' he said, 'I'm glad I've
seen you. It's saved me twenty-five cents.' I asked how. He said, 'I
was just going to send you a telegram of congratulations.' He liked
me, old Archibald did. He still does. But I hadn't done with him.
I went to stay with him at his house on Long Island in the spring.
'Excuse me, Mr. Florance,' I says to him. 'How many companies have
you got on the road?' He said, 'Oh! I haven't got many now. Five, I
think.' 'Well,' I says, 'I've got six here in the United States, two
in England, three in Austria, and one in Italy.' He said, 'Have a
cigar, Sachs; you've got the goods on me!' He was living in that
magnificent house all alone, with a whole regiment of servants!"
V
"Well," said Edward Henry, "you're a great man!"
"No, I'm not," said Mr. Seven Sachs. "But my income is four hundred
thousand dollars a year, and rising. I'm out after the stuff, that's
all."
"I say you are a great man!" Edward Henry repeated. Mr. Sachs's
recital had inspired him.
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