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, brushing 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 shilling.
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?"
"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?"