Part 63 (1/2)
But the chief piece of the evening is a serious responsibility. A young man may be excused for hesitating. It can make, but also it can mar him.
A comic opera above all other forms of art--if I may be forgiven for using the sacred word in connection with such a subject--demands experience.
I explained my fears. I did not explain that in my desk lay a four-act drama throbbing with humanity, with life, with which it had been my hope--growing each day fainter--to take the theatrical public by storm, to establish myself as a serious playwright.
”It's very simple,” urged Hodgson. ”Provide Atherton plenty of comic business; you ought to be able to do that all right. Give Gleeson something pretty in waltz time, and Duncan a part in which she can change her frock every quarter of an hour or so, and the thing is done.”
”I'll tell you what,” continued Hodgson, ”I'll take the whole crowd down to Richmond on Sunday. We'll have a coach, and leave the theatre at half-past ten. It will be an opportunity for you to study them. You'll be able to have a talk with them and get to know just what they can do.
Atherton has ideas in his head; he'll explain them to you. Then, next week, we'll draw up a contract and set to work.”
It was too good an opportunity to let slip, though I knew that if successful I should find myself pinned down firmer than ever to my role of jester. But it is remunerative, the writing of comic opera.
A small crowd had gathered in the Strand to see us start.
”Nothing wrong, is there?” enquired the leading lady, in a tone of some anxiety, alighting a quarter of an hour late from her cab. ”It isn't a fire, is it?”
”Merely a.s.sembled to see you,” explained Mr. Hodgson, without raising his eyes from his letters.
”Oh, good gracious!” cried the leading lady, ”do let us get away quickly.”
”Box seat, my dear,” returned Mr. Hodgson.
The leading lady, accepting the proffered a.s.sistance of myself and three other gentlemen, mounted the ladder with charming hesitation. Some delay in getting off was caused by our low comedian, who twice, making believe to miss his footing, slid down again into the arms of the stolid door-keeper. The crowd, composed for the most part of small boys approving the endeavour to amuse them, laughed and applauded. Our low comedian thus encouraged, made a third attempt upon his hands and knees, and, gaining the roof, sat down upon the tenor, who smiled somewhat mechanically.
The first dozen or so 'busses we pa.s.sed our low comedian greeted by rising to his feet and bowing profoundly, afterwards falling back upon either the tenor or myself. Except by the tenor and myself his performance appeared to be much appreciated. Charing Cross pa.s.sed, and n.o.body seeming to be interested in our progress, to the relief of the tenor and myself, he settled down.
”People sometimes ask me,” said the low comedian, brus.h.i.+ng the dust off his knees, ”why I do this sort of thing off the stage. It amuses me.”
”I was coming up to London the other day from Birmingham,” he continued.
”At Willesden, when the ticket collector opened the door, I sprang out of the carriage and ran off down the platform. Of course, he ran after me, shouting to all the others to stop me. I dodged them for about a minute. You wouldn't believe the excitement there was. Quite fifty people left their seats to see what it was all about. I explained to them when they caught me that I had been travelling second with a first-cla.s.s ticket, which was the fact. People think I do it to attract attention. I do it for my own pleasure.”
”It must be a troublesome way of amusing oneself,” I suggested.
”Exactly what my wife says,” he replied; ”she can never understand the desire that comes over us all, I suppose, at times, to play the fool. As a rule, when she is with me I don't do it.”
”She's not here today?” I asked, glancing round.
”She suffers so from headaches,” he answered, ”she hardly ever goes anywhere.”
”I'm sorry.” I spoke not out of mere politeness; I really did feel sorry.
During the drive to Richmond this irrepressible desire to amuse himself got the better of him more than once or twice. Through Kensington he attracted a certain amount of attention by balancing the horn upon his nose. At Kew he stopped the coach to request of a young ladies' boarding school change for sixpence. At the foot of Richmond Hill he caused a crowd to a.s.semble while trying to persuade a deaf old gentleman in a Bath-chair to allow his man to race us up the hill for a s.h.i.+lling.
At these antics and such like our party laughed uproariously, with the exception of Hodgson, who had his correspondence to attend to, and an elegant young lady of some social standing who had lately emerged from the Divorce Court with a reputation worth to her in cash a hundred pounds a week.
Arriving at the hotel quarter of an hour or so before lunch time, we strolled into the garden. Our low comedian, observing an elderly gentleman of dignified appearance sipping a gla.s.s of Vermouth at a small table, stood for a moment rooted to the earth with astonishment, then, making a bee-line for the stranger, seized and shook him warmly by the hand. We exchanged admiring glances with one another.
”Charlie is in good form to-day,” we told one another, and followed at his heels.
The elderly gentleman had risen; he looked puzzled. ”And how's Aunt Martha?” asked him our low comedian. ”Dear old Aunt Martha! Well, I am glad! You do look bonny! How is she?”