"Impossible, impossible, impossible," said everybody when the news passed around that Stark's CafÉ was closed and that the house was being demolished.

Stark's CafÉ on Houston Street was a celebrated landmark of New York. It was there that the playwrights, from the most pretentious to the humblest, closed contracts with managers. A special table at the upper end of the place was reserved for this purpose, and when a manager was sitting at that table with a playwright it meant business. "Charlie" the lawyer, would then loom up from somewhere and draw up the "funeral papers." Stark's CafÉ! Why, Jewish actors in Alexandria, Egypt, made appointments with their London acquaintances to "meet at Stark's." It was not necessary to add "in New York."

Stark's was the stage mart of the world. The first tables near the door, just ordinary wooden tables, were apportioned for the ushers, ticket speculators and supers. Next to these tables were a few better ones, marble topped, at which were seated the provincial actors on visit in the metropolis. After those, there were a few which belonged to musicians and the writers of vaudeville jingles. But the round centre tables and those near the windows toward Houston Street were reserved for stars of both sexes, managers and successful playwrights. Stark's head waiter put it very clearly: "These tables are reserved for gentlemen who at least occasionally put on a silk hat."

And now, this place, this rendezvous of the two hemispheres was closed and being torn down.

Old Samuels, one of the oldest Jewish actors, complained bitterly about it.

"You understand," he said, "it's now twenty years that I never missed a day from Stark's. In the morning, after breakfast, I'd shave, dress and go to Stark's. Maybe, who knows! and after lunch I'd return there. To save carfare we moved not far from the place. After supper I was again there, and after the show—maybe—maybe."

Samuels's nickname was "Samuel Maybe," because it's now more than twenty years since he came from London, where he was a success, to play here, and it's still "Maybe." But he has never been faithless to his art. Oh, no! This was chiefly due to the fact that his wife and daughter were excellent dressmakers.

"You see for yourself what a calamity the tearing down of Stark's place is," old Samuels continued, as he wiped a tear from his eye. "All my hopes are blasted. There can be no 'maybe' any longer—I am doomed. What will I do every morning, every afternoon, every evening? Where will they come to look for me when they will need me?"

I must tell here that this conversation took place in a new cafÉ on 10th Street; whereupon some kind-hearted companion suggested to the weather-beaten veteran of the Jewish stage that he should make this place his steady abode. But the old man straightened his bent back, his eyes flashed fire and his thin hands shot out from his white cuffs in a dramatic sweep. "Here, in this place? I, Samuels, the man who created 'Kean' Shylock? No, never! Even if I starve to death. In a place without atmosphere, without traditions—never! never!"

One minute later he looked up at the clock on the wall and began to make hasty excuses: His wife was waiting for him with supper.

Samuels's past contained one of the greatest dramas. It ruined his life. It wiped the floor with him, so to say. Here is what had happened to him twenty-odd years ago:

There were only two Jewish theatres worthy of the name in the whole world. One was in London, and the other on the Bowery, New York—the old Thalia Theatre. The theatre in the Bowery had the greater reputation because of the genius of the lamented playwright, Jacob Gordin, presiding there, and the host of actors he had developed. It was the ambition of every London actor to play in New York. One of Samuels's confreres had already achieved fame on the Bowery when Samuels, who like all actors knew in his heart of hearts that he was better than any other living actor, decided to try his luck over here. In London he was already famous in certain classic rÔles.

Ten days after his decision was taken, he and his grip landed at Stark's CafÉ.

"From London? How is London? What's the new play there?"

Samuels had his best clothes on, and was admitted to the centre tables. It brought him in contact with stars and managers. His confrere, who had preceded him here, sat enviously at one of the minor tables. He only had a small part in a play, for which he received pay in "pasteboards" (tickets), which he himself peddled or sold to the brood of speculators. In those days Jewish actors did not own ten-thousand-dollar automobiles. Samuels's initial success, the ready admittance to the centre tables, made his former friend, Kashin, green with envy.

It so happened that Gordin, the dramatic manager, saw Samuels, liked his face, and engaged him immediately for a new play they were then rehearsing.

That same evening a cable was flashed to London to the actor's wife: "Pack up and come with baby." It brought Esther here two weeks later—just in time for the opening night of the new show.

Samuels's rÔle was the one next to the star. Kashin had but a very minor rÔle—as a body servant to Samuels, who was stalking about in flowing Oriental robes back stage from one end to the other.

Samuels waited in the wings for his cue. He had to come in with majestic steps and utter his decision to leave his faithless spouse to her lover. Oh how he chafed, waiting for his cue! It was to take the house by storm. He was to outshine even the star.

And—the cue was given, Kashin near him—everything in order. But just as he opened the door, Kashin gently but firmly stepped on poor Samuels's corn—on the little toe.

The pain was so terrible that the actor stumbled and limped on the stage with one foot in his hands. Mechanically he said his lines. Instead of using a stentorian voice with face to the gallery, he drawled them out in a plaintive tone, like a whimpering dog, looking at the stage door, with his back to the audience.

It was so funny that the audience roared with laughter and could not be brought to its senses. The heroine cried and pleaded, but it did not help. The gallery continued to laugh. When the curtain went down Kashin had disappeared from the theatre. The actors almost mobbed poor Samuels. The playwright, Gordin, could have killed him. "Even if they should have cut your head off you should still have been acting your rÔle properly," he said. As soon as the poor actor appeared again in the next act, the people shook with laughter. It could not be suppressed.

When the manager came out before the curtain and explained to the people what had happened, it became even worse. It was impossible to go on. It killed the show—a good play which was revived ten years later with great success—and it killed Samuels.

Esther, a practical wife, opened a dressmaking shop. Samuels spent the next year or so explaining what had happened.

The first few weeks after the occurrence Samuels receded from the centre tables at Stark's to the side tables, and actors in good humor coaxed him into telling his story over and over again. It became a tradition to coax Samuels—and Samuels was easily coaxed into telling the story.

But he could get no place on the stage. From a character player he became a character. It became a habit with every manager to promise him a part in the next play. Some pretended it brought good luck to do so. When a play went to smash it was, they said, "Because Samuels did not believe you."

Thus the Jewish stage grew under his eyes with the doors closed to him, because some one had stepped on his corn. He became "Maybe"—"maybe" in the next play.

"Don't refuse Samuels," the manager would whisper to the playwright when the contract was drawn at the big table. "Don't refuse him; it brings bad luck."

Samuels would certainly have his eye on the proceedings, and come up to shake hands and bid good luck.

"And will I have a part?"

"I hope so, Samuels."

"Esther, I have a part in Ash's new play."

Esther had heard that same phrase twenty years thrice a day. Like all actors Samuels had but a poor vocabulary of his own. Relying on other men to supply them the tools of expression, actors are poor word finders.

Then, the night of the first performance, Samuels would warm up near some one, and as the "rÔle" appeared he would sadly say, "My rÔle, look what he is making with my rÔle."

Twenty years of daily hopes and daily disappointments. A whole world grew up before him. He knew nothing of it at all. Stark's CafÉ was New York, America. The whole world was comprised between his home and this place. His hair turned gray, the corners of his mouth drooped, his eyes dimmed, his shoulders stooped. His wife grew old, his daughter bloomed into youth and withered from overwork. There came the Boer War, several earthquakes, the Balkan War, and now this Great War. All this left Samuels cold and indifferent. All those years he was waiting at Stark's CafÉ for an engagement.

"Maybe to-day."

And this haven of hope has disappeared.