Part 34 (1/2)
”Yours?”
”Yes. There's a part in it that would just suit you.”
”What is it? Musical comedy?”
”No. Ordinary comedy.”
”I shouldn't mind putting on a comedy soon. I must have a look at it.
Come and have a bit of lunch.”
One of the firemen came up, carrying a card.
”Hullo, what's this? Oh, confound the feller! He's always coming here.
Look here: tell him that I'm just gone out to lunch, but can see him at three. Come along, old boy.”
He began to read the play over the coffee and cigars.
He read it straight through, as I had done.
”What rot!” he said, as he turned the last page.
”Isn't it!” I exclaimed enthusiastically. ”But won't it go?”
”Go?” he shouted, with such energy that several lunchers spun round in their chairs, and a Rand magnate, who was eating peas at the next table, started and cut his mouth. ”Go? It's the limit! This is just the sort of thing to get right at them. It'll hit them where they live.
What made you think of that drivel at the end of Act Two?”
”Genius, I suppose. What do you think of James as a part for you?”
”Top hole. Good Lord, I haven't congratulated you! Consider it done.”
”Thanks.”
We drained our liqueur gla.s.ses to _The Girl who Waited_ and to ourselves.
Briggs, after a lifetime spent in doing three things at once, is not a man who lets a great deal of gra.s.s grow under his feet. Before I left him that night the ”ideal cast” of the play had been jotted down, and much of the actual cast settled. Rehearsals were in full swing within a week, and the play was produced within ten days of the demise of its predecessor.
Meanwhile, the satisfactory sum which I received in advance of royalties was sufficient to remove any regrets as to the loss of the _Orb_ holiday work. With _The Girl who Waited_ in active rehearsal, ”On Your Way” lost in importance.
CHAPTER 26
MY TRIUMPH _(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_
On the morning of the day for which the production had been fixed, it dawned upon me that I had to meet Mrs. Goodwin and Margaret at Waterloo. All through the busy days of rehearsal, even on those awful days when everything went wrong and actresses, breaking down, sobbed in the wings and refused to be comforted, I had dimly recognised the fact that when I met Margaret I should have to be honest with her. Plans for evasion had been half-matured by my inventive faculties, only to be discarded, unpolished, on account of the insistent claims of the endless rehearsals. To have concocted a story with which to persuade Margaret that I stood to lose money if the play succeeded would have been a clear day's work. And I had no clear days.