Part 33 (2/2)

I dashed round to the O.P. corner again. He had just left.

Taking up the trail, I went to his dressing-room once more.

”You're just too late, sir,” said Richard; ”he was here a moment ago.”

I decided to wait.

”I wonder if he'll be back soon.”

”He's probably downstairs. His call is in another two minutes.”

I went downstairs, and waited on the prompt side. Sir Boyle Roche's bird was sedentary compared with this elusive man.

Presently he appeared.

”Hullo, dear old boy,” he said. ”Welcome to Elsmore. Come and see me before you go, will you? I've got an idea for a song.”

”I say,” I said, as he flitted past, ”can I----”

”Tell me later on.”

And he sprang on to the stage.

By the time I had worked my way, at the end of the performance, through the crowd of visitors who were waiting to see him in his dressing-room, I found that he had just three minutes in which to get to the Savoy to keep an urgent appointment. He explained that he was just das.h.i.+ng off.

”I shall be at the theatre all tomorrow morning, though,” he said.

”Come round about twelve, will you?”

There was a rehearsal at half-past eleven next morning. When I got to the theatre I found him on the stage. He was superintending the chorus, talking to one man about a song and to two others about motors, and dictating letters to his secretary. Taking advantage of this spell of comparative idleness, I advanced (l.c.) with the typescript.

”Hullo, old boy,” he said, ”just a minute! Sit down, won't you? Have a cigar.”

I sat down on the Act One sofa, and he resumed his conversations.

”You see, laddie,” he said, ”what you want in a song like this is tune.

It's no good doing stuff that your wife and family and your aunts say is better than Wagner. They don't want that sort of thing here--Dears, we simply can't get on if you won't do what you're told. Begin going off while you're singing the last line of the refrain, not after you've finished. All back. I've told you a hundred times. Do try and get it right--I simply daren't look at a motor bill. These fellers at the garage cram it on--I mean, what can you _do_? You're up against it--Miss Hinckel, I've got seventy-five letters I want you to take down. Ready? 'Mrs. Robert Boodle, Sandringham, Mafeking Road, Balham.

Dear Madam: Mr. Briggs desires me to say that he fears that he has no part to offer to your son. He is glad that he made such a success at his school theatricals.' 'James Winterbotham, Pleasant Cottage, Rhodesia Terrace, Stockwell. Dear Sir: Mr. Briggs desires me to say that he remembers meeting your wife's cousin at the public dinner you mention, but that he fears he has no part at present to offer to your daughter.' 'Arnold H. Bodgett, Wistaria Lodge....'”

My attention wandered.

At the end of a quarter of an hour he was ready for me.

”I wish you'd have a shot at it, old boy,” he said, as he finished sketching out the idea for the lyric, ”and let me have it as soon as you can. I want it to go in at the beginning of the second act. Hullo, what's that you're nursing?”

”It's a play. I was wondering if you would mind glancing at it if you have time?”

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