Little Miss Broadway

Betsy Brown:
[singing] Don't wear a long face, it's never in style! Be optimistic and smile!

Miss Hutchins:
I'm sorry to say - or perhaps I shouldn't say sorry - but we won't have the pleasure of hearing Betsy sing for us again. Mr. Shea was a dear friend of her parents and he and his daughter have come to take her to live with them in New York. I'm sure she has our warmest wishes for happiness in her new home.

Barbara Shea:
Now don't you stay up listening to that music. You just shut your eyes and go right to sleep.

Betsy Brown:
I'll shut my eyes, but it'll probably come in through my ears.

Barbara Shea:
[on the telephone] This is Mr. Shea's daughter. My father isn't home right n - Well, I'm awfully sorry the boys are rehearsing, but I'll be glad to...

Sarah Wendling:
[on the telephone] I'm tired of warning you people. I won't have my nights disturbed by a lot of noisy riffraff. I won't put up with it any longer!

Barbara Shea:
I'm sorry, Miss Wendling, I'll go right up and...

Sarah Wendling:
[hangs up] .

Betsy Brown:
What's wrong?

Barbara Shea:
She called us a lot of riffraff.

Betsy Brown:
Who?

Barbara Shea:
Our landlady.

Betsy Brown:
I didn't know we had one.

Barbara Shea:
Well, if you ever see a pumpkin in one of the windows next door and it isn't Halloween, that's our landlady.

Betsy Brown:
If you're looking for Miss Wendling, she isn't home. I'm waiting for her too, on important business.

Roger Wendling:
Maybe if it's very important, I might put in a good word for you.

Betsy Brown:
Oh! do you know Miss Wendling?

Roger Wendling:
Oh, yes, very well. You see, she's my aunt.

Betsy Brown:
She is? Well, say! Would you give her this [handing him a child's piggy bank] and tell her it's on account of the rent for the hotel?

Roger Wendling:
The hotel? What hotel?

Betsy Brown:
Next door.

Roger Wendling:
Whom shall I say this is from?

Betsy Brown:
From Betsy. No, from Pop, Mr. Shea.

Betsy Brown:
I used to be an orphan before Pop adopted me.

Roger Wendling:
That is a coincidence, you know, I used to be an orphan myself!

Betsy Brown:
It's too bad we weren't orphans at the same time. We could've had lots of fun together!

Roger Wendling:
This young lady wants to give you money to pay the rent on the hotel.

Sarah Wendling:
Nonsense! So you've gone in for social service, have you?

Roger Wendling:
Not exactly, Aunt Sarah, I just met an acquaintance.

Betsy Brown:
There's almost five dollars in here, and I'm sure Pop will have the rest for you very soon.

Willoughby Wendling:
Bless my soul!

Sarah Wendling:
Keep your soul out of this. You will please get rid of this child.

Roger Wendling:
But Aunt Sarah...

Sarah Wendling:
If those people next door think they can play on my sympathy like this, they are greatly mistaken. I'll have my rent, all of it, or out they go.

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
Well, Mr. Wendling, I can't possibly raise the money in five days.

Roger Wendling:
Well, Mr. Shea, I was going to make a suggestion before your daughter so graciously knighted me. I was going to suggest that perhaps I could lend you the twenty-five hundred. Why not?

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
You'd lend...? Thanks a million!

Betsy Brown:
Thanks TWO million- one for me!

Barbara Shea:
I'm sorry, but we can't accept your generous offer.

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
Why not, Barbara?

Barbara Shea:
Because I don't know how we'd be able to pay it back, and we're not going to be at the mercy of some spiteful old moneybag who calls us a lot of riffraff!

Betsy Brown:
Barbara is awful smart. She reads great big books when she's not helping Pop run the hotel.

Roger Wendling:
She does?

Betsy Brown:
Yes, she told me she's studying how not to be an actress.

Roger Wendling:
I see. Well, does she have any boyfriends?

Betsy Brown:
Oh, yes, lots of them. There's Ole, the Martins, Jimmy and his Jazz Bandits...

Roger Wendling:
No, I mean someone who takes her out to dinner. A sweetheart?

Betsy Brown:
Oh, no. I guess she's just an old maid, like I was before you came along.

Jimmy Clayton:
Eight bucks from the Tri-State Field and five from the Downs. Now how much we short?

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
About twenty-one hundred.

Jimmy Clayton:
National debt! I thought I was bringing home the bacon.

Flossie:
And you laid an egg!

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
Thanks just the same. You're a great guy, Jimmy.

Flossie:
That goes for me too, bubble-brain.

Jimmy Clayton:
Is that straight from the balcony, Juliet? Must be my streamline personality. Guess I ain't as bad as I look, eh?

Flossie:
You couldn't be!

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
That does it! From now on whenever you talk to me, you can start the conversation with goodbye!

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
I hope this check don't bounce.

Roger Wendling:
I don't think it will.

Jimmy Clayton:
Pop, here's twenty-five bucks more!

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
It's all right, Jimmy, I got it! I got the twenty-one hundred!

Jimmy Clayton:
What? Just when we made the supreme sacrifice! Look!

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
What happened?

Jimmy Clayton:
We done a striptease in a pawn shop!

Sarah Wendling:
Young lady, I've come here to tell you to let this nephew of mine alone. You let him pay your rent for you, didn't you?

Roger Wendling:
Aunt Sarah!

Barbara Shea:
I don't have to listen to this!

Roger Wendling:
Aunt Sarah, that was uncalled for, unkind, and untrue!

Betsy Brown:
Uncle Roger didn't give us any money! We got it from - from someone else.

Sarah Wendling:
So it's Uncle Roger now, is it? Is Miss Shea your mother?

Betsy Brown:
Practically.

Roger Wendling:
Betsy is Mr. Shea's adopted child.

Sarah Wendling:
Adopted, eh? So they brought her into this wholesome atmosphere, nice place for a child. Why, she's using her as a decoy, and you don't you have the sense to realize it!

Jimmy Clayton:
What is it, Pop?

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
It's for Betsy. Perhaps you could come back tomorrow morning?

Detective:
Sorry, old man, I don't like this any more than you do, but I got to take her back tonight.

Jimmy Clayton:
But you can't take Betsy back to the orphan asylum! Know why? 'Cause Betsy ain't here! She's down south in dear old Dixie.

Flossie:
Sure, visiting with my folks.

Jimmy Clayton:
Oh, I wish I was in Dixie! Away, away!

Detective:
Hey, are you crazy?

Jimmy Clayton:
Yeah! Uh, no! You see, we don't want to lose Betsy. That's why I lied to you. She's up in her room.

George Brasno:
You stay away from my wife, or I'll knock you down to my size!

Jimmy Clayton:
You call this hospitality? I'll take it up with Emily Post!

Sarah Wendling:
Officer, there's the child you're after.

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
You let her alone!

Detective:
Now, just a minute...

Betsy Brown:
Don't you hurt Pop! Don't you dare hurt Pop!

Detective:
We're not hurting anyone, little girl. There's no need to get excited, but we've got orders to pick her up.

Betsy Brown:
No, no! I want to stay with Pop!

Detective:
Well, I don't blame you, but you come along with us, and your pop will straighten things out later.

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
I'm afraid you'll have to go with them, Betsy.

Betsy Brown:
But I don't want to go back to the orphanage! I want to stay with you!

William J. 'Pop' Shea:
Now, don't you cry. Soon I'll come see you, and I'll get you out again.

Sarah Wendling:
Young lady, give your father a message from me that he's being disposessed.

Barbara Shea:
Oh, you can't!

Sarah Wendling:
I'm tearing the hotel down.

Barbara Shea:
But he paid his rent!

Sarah Wendling:
He's violated his lease by having all sorts of animals on the premises. He'll save himself a lot of trouble by getting right out.

Roger Wendling:
I'll have something to say about this.

Sarah Wendling:
I'm afraid you will not, as our attorney will inform you. Furthermore, Roger, if you continue your association with this woman...

Roger Wendling:
Continue it? I was just trying to get her to make it permanent!

Roger Wendling:
It's my property and my money just as much as it is hers, and trustee or no trustee, she's got to give it to me.

Willoughby Wendling:
Did you ask her?

Roger Wendling:
I asked her for the hotel and fifteen hundred dollars, just enough to rent a theater and back a show to give those poor devils a chance to earn a living for themselves.

Perry:
Mr. Wendling, isn't it true that you intend to use this money to put on a Broadway show?

Roger Wendling:
A small portion of it, yes.

Perry:
And you intend to put this show on with actors living at the Hotel Variety?

Roger Wendling:
That's right.

Perry:
Isn't it probable that this Broadway venture of yours may turn out to be a failure? Or in the Broadway vernacular, a flop?

Jimmy Clayton:
What? With me and the band? I object!

Judge:
Young lady, do you realize that you're guilty of contempt of court?

Betsy Brown:
I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Judge, but it just made me mad to hear Miss Wendling say those things about my friends. They're not true. They're wonderful actors, just wonderful!

Judge:
This young lady doesn't seem to agree with you, Miss Wendling.

Betsy Brown:
That's because she never saw them act, did you, Miss Wendling? And if you saw them act, Mr. Judge, if you saw Jimmy and his Jazz Bandits and everyone, you'd think they were wonderful, too!

Perry:
Your honor, if it pleases the court...

Judge:
Just a minute. I believe this court could be saved a lot of time and argument by following the splendid suggestion that has just been made. It seems the immediate issue in this case is whether the plaintiff's wish to invest his money in a theatrical production is a sound one. I want to see the show right here in this courtroom tomorrow!