Part 63 (2/2)
”I'm afraid--” commenced the elderly gentleman. Our low comedian started back. Other visitors had gathered round.
”Don't tell me anything has happened to her! Not dead? Don't tell me that!”
He seized the bewildered gentleman by the shoulders and presented to him a face distorted by terror.
”I really have not the faintest notion what you are talking about,”
returned the gentleman, who seemed annoyed. ”I don't know you.”
”Not know me? Do you mean to tell me you've forgotten--? Isn't your name Steggles?”
”No, it isn't,” returned the stranger, somewhat shortly.
”My mistake,” replied our low comedian. He tossed off at one gulp what remained of the stranger's Vermouth and walked away rapidly.
The elderly gentleman, not seeing the humour of the joke, one of our party to soothe him explained to him that it was Atherton, _the_ Atherton--Charlie Atherton.
”Oh, is it,” growled the elderly gentleman. ”Then will you tell him from me that when I want his d.a.m.ned tomfoolery I'll come to the theatre and pay for it.”
”What a disagreeable man,” we said, as, following our low comedian, we made our way into the hotel.
During lunch he continued in excellent spirits; kissed the bald back of the waiter's head, pretending to mistake it for a face, called for hot mustard and water, made believe to steal the silver, and when the finger-bowls arrived, took off his coat and requested the ladies to look the other way.
After lunch he became suddenly serious, and slipping his arm through mine, led me by unfrequented paths.
”Now, about this new opera,” he said; ”we don't want any of the old stale business. Give us something new.”
I suggested that to do so might be difficult.
”Not at all,” he answered. ”Now, my idea is this. I am a young fellow, and I'm in love with a girl.”
I promised to make a note of it.
”Her father, apoplectic old idiot--make him comic: 'Damme, sir! By gad!'
all that sort of thing.”
By persuading him that I understood what he meant, I rose in his estimation.
”He won't have anything to say to me--thinks I'm an a.s.s. I'm a simple sort of fellow--on the outside. But I'm not such a fool as I look.”
”You don't think we are getting too much out of the groove?” I enquired.
His opinion was that the more so the better.
”Very well. Then, in the second act I disguise myself. I'll come on as an organ-grinder, sing a song in broken English, then as a policeman, or a young swell about town. Give me plenty of opportunity, that's the great thing--opportunity to be really funny, I mean. We don't want any of the old stale tricks.”
I promised him my support.
”Put a little pathos in it,” he added, ”give me a scene where I can show them I've something else in me besides merely humour. We don't want to make them howl, but just to feel a little. Let's send them out of the theatre saying: 'Well, Charlie's often made me laugh, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I knew he could make me cry before!' See what I mean?”
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