Part 8 (2/2)

”Where is Africa?” asked Austin, munching a leaf.

”There!” exclaimed Aunt Charlotte. ”That's Austin all over. He'll talk by the hour together about a lot of outlandish nonsense that no sensible person ever heard of, and all the time he doesn't even know where Africa is upon the map. What is to be done with such a boy?”

”Well, I think we'll postpone the question of his teaching in the Sunday-school, at all events,” remarked the vicar, who began to feel rather sorry that he had ever suggested it. ”It's more than probable that his ideas would be over the children's heads, and come into collision with what they heard in church. Well, now I must be going.

You'll think over that little matter we were speaking of?” he said, as he took a neighbourly leave of his paris.h.i.+oner and ally.

”Indeed I will, and I'll write to my bankers to-night,” replied that lady cordially.

Then the vicar ambled across the lawn, and Austin accompanied him, as in duty bound, to the garden gate. Meanwhile, Aunt Charlotte leant comfortably back in her wicker chair, absorbed in pleasant meditation.

The repairs to the roof would, no doubt, run into a little money, but the vicar's tip about this wonderful company for extracting gold from sea-water made up for any anxiety she might otherwise have experienced upon that score. What a kind, good man he was--and _so_ clever in business matters, which, of course, were out of her range altogether.

She took the prospectus out of her pocket, and ran her eyes over it again. Capital, 500,000, in shares of 100 each. Solicitors, Messrs Somebody Something & Co., Fetter Lane, E.C. Bankers, The Sh.o.r.editch & Houndsditch Amalgamated Banking Corporation, St Mary Axe. Acquisition of machinery, so much. Cost of working, so much. Estimated returns--something perfectly enormous. It all looked wonderful, quite wonderful. She again determined to write to her bankers that very evening before dinner.

”You're going to the theatre to-night, aren't you, Austin?” she said, as he returned from seeing Mr Sheepshanks courteously off the premises. ”I want you to post a letter for me on your way. Post it at the Central Office, so as to be sure it catches the night mail. It's a business letter of importance.”

”All right, auntie,” he replied, arranging his trouser so that it should fall gracefully over his wooden leg.

”And I do wish, Austin, that you'd behave rather more like other people when Mr Sheepshanks comes to see us. There really is no necessity for talking to him in the way you do. Of course it was a great compliment, his asking you to take a cla.s.s in the Sunday-school, though I could have told him that he couldn't possibly have made an absurder choice, and you might very well have contented yourself with regretting your utter unfitness for such a post without exposing your ignorance in the way you did. The idea of telling a clergyman, too, that the Book of Genesis was too improper for boys to read, when he had just been recommending it! I thought you'd have had more respect for his position, whatever silly notions you may have yourself.”

”I do respect the vicar; he's quite a nice little thing,” replied Austin, in a conciliatory tone. ”And of course he thinks just what a vicar ought to think, and I suppose what all vicars do think. But as I'm not a vicar myself I don't see that I am bound to think as they do.”

”You a vicar, indeed!” sniffed Aunt Charlotte. ”A remarkable sort of vicar you'd make, and pretty sermons you'd preach if you had the chance. What time does this performance of yours begin to-night?”

”At eight, I believe.”

”Well, then, I'll just go in and tell cook to let us have dinner a quarter of an hour earlier than usual,” said Aunt Charlotte, as she folded up her work. ”The omnibus from the 'Peac.o.c.k' will get you into town in plenty of time, and the walk back afterwards will do you good.”

The town in question was about a couple of miles from the village where Austin lived--a clean, cheerful, prosperous little borough, with plenty of good shops, a commodious theatre, several churches and chapels, and a fine market. Dinner was soon disposed of, and as the omnibus which plied between the two places clattered and rattled along at a good speed--having to meet the seven-fifty down-train at the railway station--he was able to post his aunt's precious letter and slip into his stall in the dress-circle before the curtain rose. The orchestra was rioting through a composition called 'The Clang o' the Wooden Shoon,' as an appropriate introduction to a tragedy the scene of which was laid in Nineveh; the house seemed fairly full, and the air was heavy with that peculiar smell, a sort of doubtfully aromatic stuffiness, which is so grateful to the nostrils of playgoers. Austin gazed around him with keen interest. He had not been inside a theatre for years, and the vivid description that Mr Buskin had given him of the show he was about to witness filled him with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation. To all intents and purposes, the experience that awaited him was something entirely new; how, he wondered, would it fit into his scheme of life? What room would there be, in his idealistic philosophy, for the stage?

Then the music came to an end in a series of defiant bangs, the curtain rolled itself out of sight, and a brilliant spectacle appeared. The only occupant of the scene at first was a gentleman in a thick black beard and fantastic garb who seemed to have acquired the habit of talking very loudly to himself. In this way the audience discovered that the gentleman, who was no less a personage than the Queen's brother, was seriously dissatisfied with his royal brother-in-law, whose habits were of a nature which did not make for the harmony of his domestic circle. Then soft music was heard, and in lounged Sardanapalus himself--a glittering figure in flowing robes of silver and pale blue, garlanded with flowers, and surrounded by a crowd of slaves and women all very elegantly dressed; and it really was quite wonderful to notice how his Majesty lolled and languished about the stage, how beautifully affected all his gestures were, and with what a high-bred supercilious drawl he rolled out his behests that a supper should be served at midnight in the pavilion that commanded a view of the Euphrates. And this magnificent, absurd creature--this mouthing, grimacing, att.i.tudinising popinjay, thought Austin, was no other than Mr Bucephalus Buskin, with whom he had chatted on easy terms in a common field only a few days previously!

The memory of the umbrella, the tight frock-coat, the bald head, the fat, reddish face, and the rather rusty ”chimney-pot” here recurred to him, and he nearly giggled out loud in thinking how irresistibly funny Mr Buskin would look if he were now going through all these fanciful gesticulations in his walking dress. The fact was that the man himself was perfectly unrecognisable, and Austin was mightily impressed by what was really a signal triumph in the art of making up.

The play went on, and Sardanapalus showed no signs of moral improvement. In fact, it soon became evident that his code of ethics was deplorable, and Austin could only console himself with the thought that the real Mr Buskin was, no doubt, a most virtuous and respectable person who never gave Mrs Buskin--if there was one--any grounds for jealousy. Then the first act came to an end, the lights went up, and a subdued buzz of conversation broke out all over the theatre. The second act was even more exciting, as Sardanapalus, having previously confessed himself unable to go on multiplying empires, was forced to interfere in a scuffle between his brother-in-law and Arbaces--who was by way of being a traitor; but the most sensational scene of all was the banquet in act the third, of which so glowing an account had been given to Austin by the great tragedian himself. That, indeed, was something to remember.

”Guests, to my pledge!

Down on your knees, and drink a measure to The safety of the King--the monarch, say I?

The G.o.d Sardanapalus! mightier than His father Baal, the G.o.d Sardanapalus!”

[_Thunder. Confusion._]

Ah, that was thrilling, if you like, in spite of the halting rhythm.

And yet, even at that supreme moment, the vision of the umbrella and the rather shabby hat would crop up again, and Austin didn't quite know whether to let himself be thrilled or to lean back and roar. The conspiracy burst out a few minutes afterwards, and then there ensued a most terrifying and portentous battle, rioters and loyalists furiously attempting to kill each other by the singular expedient of clattering their swords together so as to make as much noise as possible, and then pa.s.sing them under their antagonists' armpits, till the stage was heaped with corpses; and all this b.l.o.o.d.y work entirely irrespective of the valuable gla.s.s and china on the supper-table, and the costly hearthrugs strewn about the floor. Even Sardanapalus, having first looked in the gla.s.s to make sure that his helmet was straight, performed prodigies of valour, and the curtain descended to his insatiable shouting for fresh weapons and a torrent of tumultuous applause from the gallery.

”Now for it!” said Austin to himself, when another act had been got through, in the course of which Sardanapalus had suffered from a distressing nightmare. He took Mr Buskin's card out of his pocket, and, hurrying out as fast as he could manage, stumped his way round to the stage door. Cerberus would fain have stopped him, but Austin flourished his card in pa.s.sing, and enquired of the first civil-looking man he met where the manager was to be found. He was piloted through devious ways and under strange scaffoldings, to the foot of a steep and very dirty flight of steps--luckily there were only seven--at the top of which was dimly visible a door; and at this, having screwed his courage to the sticking-place, he knocked.

”Come in!” cried a voice inside.

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