Character guide

Sally Nicholas

major

Also known as Sally, Miss Nicholas, Miss Sally Nicholas, Sarah Bernhardt

Sally Nicholas is the warm, impulsive center of her circle, forever taking in strays and poking at other people's problems with a cheerful lack of tact. Her engagement to the proud, unsuccessful playwright Gerald Foster must stay secret, a strain on a woman who hates concealment, while her instinct to mother the hapless Ginger Kemp keeps pulling her toward a friendship she can't quite name. Her readiness to feel everything at full volume is what makes her early misadventures in New York so funny and so precarious.

Ginger Kemp

major

Also known as Kemp, Mr. Kemp, Ginger, Mr. Ginger Kemp

Ginger Kemp is the kind of amiable disaster who wins a fortune at the Roville roulette table and loses it just as casually, a man whose good intentions outrun his judgment. His devotion to Sally is total and unspoken, expressed in awkward visits and a willingness to sit with her through her blackest hours without knowing what to say. His stolid, doglike loyalty is the quiet counterweight to the polished men circling her, and it steadily becomes the story's emotional anchor.

Fillmore Nicholas

supporting

Also known as Fillmore, poor Fillmore, the Fillmore, brother Fillmore

Fillmore Nicholas has been transformed by an inheritance into a self-important figure in evening dress, condescending to the boardinghouse friends who once lent him money. His engagement to the actress Gladys Winch softens him in ways Sally approves of, but his theatrical ambitions and his habit of treating his sister as a subordinate keep him a source of comic friction. His schemes and self-regard give the novel much of its satire of Broadway aspiration.

Gerald Foster

supporting

Also known as Jerry, Gerald, Foster

Gerald Foster is the man Sally has quietly promised to marry, a dynamic-looking young writer whose career hangs on a single production threatened by a flu scare. He insists their engagement stay hidden, a furtiveness Sally excuses as artistic delicacy, and his brooding self-pity when the play is delayed reveals a vanity she dislikes in men. His pride and his precarious prospects make him both a romantic hope and a slow disappointment in the story's middle stretch.

Bruce Carmyle

supporting

Also known as Carmyle, Bruce, III Bruce Carmyle

Bruce Carmyle is the wealthy, correct suitor whose engagement to Sally represents security and social standing rather than warmth. His dignity is perpetually wounded by the raffish company she keeps, and his snorting disgust at the Flower Garden exposes how poorly he fits her life. His presence sharpens Sally's growing realization that marriage to him would mean the end of her easy comradeship with Ginger, making him the quiet obstacle in her emotional reckoning.

Mr. Maxwell Faucitt

supporting

Also known as Mr. Faucitt, old Mr. Faucitt, Max, poor old Mr. Faucitt

Mr. Maxwell Faucitt is the genial old Englishman who presides over the boardinghouse's festive occasions, rising to propose toasts with elaborate, self-amused oratory. He is a confidant and gentle observer, the one who tells Sally about Fillmore's engagement and whose illness keeps her from Gerald at a crucial moment. His kindly presence grounds the story in a stable, affectionate older generation against which the younger characters' romantic follies play out.

Gladys Winch

supporting

Also known as Miss Winch, Gladys, little Gladys, Poor Gladys

Gladys Winch is the actress Fillmore cannot stop raving about after catching her brief turn as a maid in a Broadway tryout, and she is also, to Sally's amused surprise, the woman he has secretly become engaged to. Her influence has visibly punctured Fillmore's pomposity, softening him into someone Sally can actually like. Though she barely appears on the page, her engagement to Fillmore signals the comic thaw running beneath the novel's romantic entanglements.

Elsa Doland

supporting

Also known as Elsa, Doland, the absent Elsa

Elsa Doland is the actress whose admiration for Gerald's work, especially The Primrose Way, once gave Sally hope that his talent would find its proper stage. She is the standard of cleverness against which the eventual leading lady, Mabel Hobson, falls disastrously short. Though absent, her judgment lingers as a quiet rebuke to the compromises Gerald makes in chasing a Broadway production.

Cracknell

supporting

Also known as Mr. Cracknell, Reginald Cracknell, Reggie, lovelorn Reginald

Reginald Cracknell, the Millionaire Kid, is a Harvard acquaintance of Fillmore's whose fortune and romantic entanglements make him a force on Broadway. His devotion to Mabel Hobson leads him to bankroll Gerald's play with her installed in the leading role, a piece of casting Sally finds close to murder. Cracknell's money and his heart pull in the same direction, and both drag the production toward disaster.

Bugs Butler

supporting

Also known as Bugs, this fellow Bugs Butler

Bugs Butler is the prizefighter Ginger has a stake in, training at White Plains for a bout against lightweight champion Lew Lucas. The office-boy's scornful verdict, that Butler has never licked anyone worth naming, frames him as an underdog whose chances look bleak. His fight draws Sally into a world of gymnasiums and gamblers far from her Broadway worries, and his fate becomes tangled with the family's fortunes.

Mabel Hobson

minor

Also known as Miss Hobson, Miss Mabel Hobson

A young woman connected to the theatrical world.

Jules

minor

Also known as the melancholy Jules, the emotional Jules

A waiter or servant, often melancholic or emotional.

Mr. Lester Burrowes

minor

Also known as Mr. Burrowes, the scandalized Mr. Burrowes

A scandalized gentleman, likely a minor comic figure.

Mr. Butler

minor

A character named Butler, possibly related to Bugs Butler.

Scrymgeour

minor

Also known as Mr. Scrymgeour, old Scrymgeour, the unspeakable Scrymgeour

An absent or mysterious character, often referred to negatively.

Lew Lucas

minor

Also known as Mr. Lew Lucas, Mr. Lucas

A character in Sally's social circle.

Mrs. Meecher

minor

Also known as I. Mrs. Meecher

A landlady or housekeeper, likely comic relief.

Mr. Bunbury

minor

Also known as Bunbury

A minor character, possibly a friend or acquaintance.

The Office Boy

minor

Also known as the office - boy

A young office worker, likely a minor comic figure.

Uncle Donald

supporting

Also known as Donald, XV Uncle Donald

Uncle Donald is the formidable head of the family who lectures Bruce Carmyle against marrying an American acquaintance met on a ship, proposing instead a suitable Bassington-Bassington daughter. His outrage at defiance is comic and impotent, and his parting threat to cut his nephew in Piccadilly collapses into a request for the name of a good whisky. He embodies the stuffy English propriety against which the novel's younger generation quietly rebels.

Mr. Isadore Abrahams

supporting

Also known as Mr. Abrahams, Master Abrahams, Isadore Abrahams, Abrahams

Isadore Abrahams runs the Flower Garden, a noisy Broadway dancing-resort where he has done his best to conjure a garden with paper roses, tubs of tulips, and caged birds overhead. He is a man of his word and a minor fixture of Sally's New York life, and it is in his establishment that she sits, exhausted, while Bruce Carmyle presses his suit. The caged bird singing above her becomes the unlikely catalyst for her surrender, making Abrahams's gaudy room the stage for a pivotal choice.

Ike Schumann

minor

Also known as Ike, the great Ike Schumann

A notable figure, possibly in the theatrical world.

Augustus Bartlett

minor

A minor character, possibly a friend or acquaintance.

Mr. Lancelot Kemp

minor

Also known as Lancelot, Mr. Lancelot, Cousin Lancelot

A relative of Ginger, possibly a cousin.

George Washington Williams

minor

Also known as George

A minor character, possibly a servant or acquaintance.

Mr. Nicholas

minor

A member of the Nicholas family, possibly Sally's father.

Toto

minor

A minor character, possibly a child or pet.

Mr. Foster

minor

Also known as this Mr. Foster, poor Ger⁠—poor Mr. Foster

An older Mr. Foster, possibly Gerald's father.

Jakie

minor

Also known as Master Jakie

A young boy, possibly a relative or acquaintance.

Ginger Laurette

minor

Also known as Laurette

A character named Ginger, possibly a different person from Ginger Kemp.

Monk Crofton

minor

Also known as Monk, Crofton

A minor character, possibly a boxer or trainer.

Cyclone Mullins

minor

Also known as Cyclone

A boxer, possibly a rival or friend.

Mrs. Abrahams

minor

Wife of Mr. Abrahams, likely a minor character.

The Doctor

minor

A doctor who appears in the story.

Miss Doland

minor

Another reference to Elsa Doland.

Billy Fothergill

minor

Also known as Billy, William

A minor character, possibly a friend or acquaintance.

Nazimova

minor

A historical actress, possibly mentioned as a reference.

Reddy

minor

A minor character, possibly a nickname.

Mother

minor

A mother figure, possibly Sally's mother.

Popp

minor

A minor character, possibly a nickname.

Goble

minor

A minor character, possibly a servant.

Benny Whistler

minor

Also known as the redoubtable Benny Whistler

A minor character, possibly a boxer.

Teddy

minor

Also known as the erring Teddy

A minor character, possibly a friend or relative.

K-leg Binns

minor

Also known as K - leg, Binns

A minor character, possibly a boxer.

The Marvellous Murphys

minor

Also known as the rebellious Murphys

A group or family act, possibly performers.

Lee Schoenstein

minor

A minor character, possibly a businessman.

Battling Tuke

minor

Also known as Mr. Tuke

A boxer, possibly a minor character.

Ruth

minor

A minor character, possibly a friend or relative.

Mr. Schumann

minor

Another reference to Ike Schumann.

Mr. Schoenstein

minor

Another reference to Lee Schoenstein.