which is what Harris really needed to be from the start, since he was prone to blowups with the editors he wrote
for
.
If his life at the papers had been a prolonged shouting match, his life at home had been—Nicos knew all this, too—perpetual silence. Harris would flee the company of his frosty wife, a Quaker schoolteacher, for long, late-night association with his fellow reporters as well as the ad men, who kept the papers alive with their rate cards and column inches. All the oysters and beer he’d shared with them thirty years ago now allowed him to speak Andrew Burn’s language—Oldcastle’s, too.
Harris had switched over to magazines, and editing, around 1907, learning to ride each new publisher’s hobbyhorse. Several years after the switch, at bellicose
Collier’s
, he got his writers to beat the drum for American intervention in the Great War, editing a couple of pieces by TR himself, whose steel trap of a smile sometimes still flashed in his anxiety dreams. A few years later, at
Cosmopolitan
, he’d pretended the war didn’t exist, since Hearst opposed it and felt sure it would end if his outlets ignored it.
Even as an editor, Harris had gotten into more than anyone’s share of battles. His career at
Cosmopolitan
came to an end over an article about some Broadway composer whose name he couldn’t remember today. He’d been sold on the guy by some writer, and so he went into Ray Long asking for plenty of space. “This fella is the next Berlin,”he’d insisted. “He’s not even the next Irving,” replied Long, handing him back the writer’s copy. Loud words and clenched fists followed. Ten minutes later Harris was out on the sidewalk.
He knew then that his only real hope in this business was an editor-in-chief’s job, but at that moment, a half-dozen years ago, every top man had been firmly nailed to his masthead. And so, for a couple of years, already past fifty and finally divorced, Harris trudged through a dank professional wilderness—peddling pseudonymous pieces to old pals; toiling as a freelance adsmith for a half-dozen hatters and cigar-makers; even turning out that lucrative line of “French” postcards from an office down on Pearl Street. Only Fine and Houlihan knew the whole story of this last venture; even Betty still euphemized it as “that time you were between things.” But Harris never disowned the enterprise. He kept two of its most shining pictorial productions—the unclad “Yvette” and the
déshabillée
“Claudine,” actually two Irish sisters from Canarsie—framed on a wall to the left of his desk.
Right now, Nicos, finishing up the back of Harris’s neck, took a fond glance at Yvette and listened for any sign that his customer might be approaching a mood for some two-sided conversation. Since getting off the phone with Betty, Harris had kept unusually silent. In fact, he was dwelling, however inwardly, on the triumphant climax of his personal epic—the advent of Betty and
Bandbox
. He had met the bubbling antithesis of his first wife through an old thespian warhorse whose musical he’d been nice to, ages before, in the pages of the
World
. That 1906 production had also employed a too-short chorine named Betty Divine. Seventeen years later, the ancient actress’s gratitude toward Harris, and her kindness toward Betty, led both of them to this Duse’s dressing room for another opening night. And two weeks after that, Betty, fully briefed on Joe Harris’s career, by Joe Harris himself, brought him to dinner with Hi Oldcastle.
Harris’s sense that he owed Betty his big job and late success had never bothered him until now. It had actually been a part of thepride he took in his smart, doll-like paramour. But he could never quite believe the pride she took in
him
, his first wife having cauterized certain precincts of his ego. He was unable to shake the idea, which had draped him all this past weekend, that if he lost
Bandbox
, he might lose Betty,
for
.
If his life at the papers had been a prolonged shouting match, his life at home had been—Nicos knew all this, too—perpetual silence. Harris would flee the company of his frosty wife, a Quaker schoolteacher, for long, late-night association with his fellow reporters as well as the ad men, who kept the papers alive with their rate cards and column inches. All the oysters and beer he’d shared with them thirty years ago now allowed him to speak Andrew Burn’s language—Oldcastle’s, too.
Harris had switched over to magazines, and editing, around 1907, learning to ride each new publisher’s hobbyhorse. Several years after the switch, at bellicose
Collier’s
, he got his writers to beat the drum for American intervention in the Great War, editing a couple of pieces by TR himself, whose steel trap of a smile sometimes still flashed in his anxiety dreams. A few years later, at
Cosmopolitan
, he’d pretended the war didn’t exist, since Hearst opposed it and felt sure it would end if his outlets ignored it.
Even as an editor, Harris had gotten into more than anyone’s share of battles. His career at
Cosmopolitan
came to an end over an article about some Broadway composer whose name he couldn’t remember today. He’d been sold on the guy by some writer, and so he went into Ray Long asking for plenty of space. “This fella is the next Berlin,”he’d insisted. “He’s not even the next Irving,” replied Long, handing him back the writer’s copy. Loud words and clenched fists followed. Ten minutes later Harris was out on the sidewalk.
He knew then that his only real hope in this business was an editor-in-chief’s job, but at that moment, a half-dozen years ago, every top man had been firmly nailed to his masthead. And so, for a couple of years, already past fifty and finally divorced, Harris trudged through a dank professional wilderness—peddling pseudonymous pieces to old pals; toiling as a freelance adsmith for a half-dozen hatters and cigar-makers; even turning out that lucrative line of “French” postcards from an office down on Pearl Street. Only Fine and Houlihan knew the whole story of this last venture; even Betty still euphemized it as “that time you were between things.” But Harris never disowned the enterprise. He kept two of its most shining pictorial productions—the unclad “Yvette” and the
déshabillée
“Claudine,” actually two Irish sisters from Canarsie—framed on a wall to the left of his desk.
Right now, Nicos, finishing up the back of Harris’s neck, took a fond glance at Yvette and listened for any sign that his customer might be approaching a mood for some two-sided conversation. Since getting off the phone with Betty, Harris had kept unusually silent. In fact, he was dwelling, however inwardly, on the triumphant climax of his personal epic—the advent of Betty and
Bandbox
. He had met the bubbling antithesis of his first wife through an old thespian warhorse whose musical he’d been nice to, ages before, in the pages of the
World
. That 1906 production had also employed a too-short chorine named Betty Divine. Seventeen years later, the ancient actress’s gratitude toward Harris, and her kindness toward Betty, led both of them to this Duse’s dressing room for another opening night. And two weeks after that, Betty, fully briefed on Joe Harris’s career, by Joe Harris himself, brought him to dinner with Hi Oldcastle.
Harris’s sense that he owed Betty his big job and late success had never bothered him until now. It had actually been a part of thepride he took in his smart, doll-like paramour. But he could never quite believe the pride she took in
him
, his first wife having cauterized certain precincts of his ego. He was unable to shake the idea, which had draped him all this past weekend, that if he lost
Bandbox
, he might lose Betty,
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