"You"ll have to give in," he said, "or else go and make a speech to the audience, the burden of which will be that they can have their money back by applying at the box-office. These Joans of Arc have got you by the short hairs!"
"I won"t give in!"
"Then give out!" said Wally. "Or pay out, if you prefer it. Trot along and tell the audience that the four dollars fifty in the house will be refunded."
Mr Goble gnawed his cigar.
"I"ve been in the show business fifteen years ..."
"I know. And this sort of thing has never happened to you before. One gets new experiences."
Mr Goble c.o.c.ked his cigar at a fierce angle, and glared at Wally.
Something told him that Wally"s sympathies were not wholly with him.
"They can"t do this sort of thing to me," he growled.
"Well, they are doing it to someone, aren"t they," said Wally, "and, if it"s not you, who is it?"
"I"ve a d.a.m.ned good mind to fire them all!"
"A corking idea! I can"t see a single thing wrong with it except that it would hang up the production for another five weeks and lose you your bookings and cost you a week"s rent of this theatre for nothing and mean having all the dresses made over and lead to all your princ.i.p.als going off and getting other jobs. These trifling things apart, we may call the suggestion a bright one."
"You talk too d.a.m.n much!" said Mr Goble, eyeing him with distaste.
"Well, go on, _you_ say something. Something sensible."
"It is a very serious situation ..." began the stage director.
"Oh, shut up!" said Mr Goble.
The stage director subsided into his collar.
"I cannot play the overture again," protested Mr Saltzburg. "I cannot!"
At this point Mr Miller appeared. He was glad to see Mr Goble. He had been looking for him, for he had news to impart.
"The girls," said Mr Miller, "have struck! They won"t go on!"
Mr Goble, with the despairing gesture of one who realizes the impotence of words, dashed off for his favorite walk up stage. Wally took out his watch.
"Six seconds and a bit," he said approvingly, as the manager returned. "A very good performance. I should like to time you over the course in running-kit."
The interval for reflection, brief as it had been, had apparently enabled Mr Goble to come to a decision.
"Go," he said to the stage director, "and tell "em that fool of a D"Arcy girl can play. We"ve got to get that curtain up."
"Yes, Mr Goble."
The stage director galloped off.
"Get back to your place," said the manager to Mr Saltzburg, "and play the overture again."
"Again!"
"Perhaps they didn"t hear it the first two times," said Wally.
Mr Goble watched Mr Saltzburg out of sight. Then he turned to Wally.
"That d.a.m.ned Mariner girl was at the bottom of this! She started the whole thing! She told me so. Well, I"ll settle _her!_ She goes tomorrow!"
"Wait a minute," said Wally. "Wait one minute! Bright as it is, that idea is _out!_"
"What the devil has it got to do with you?"
"Only this, that, if you fire Miss Mariner, I take that neat script which I"ve prepared and I tear it into a thousand fragments. Or nine hundred. Anyway, I tear it. Miss Mariner opens in New York, or I pack up my work and leave."
Mr Goble"s green eyes glowed.
"Oh, you"re stuck on her, are you?" he sneered. "I see!"
"Listen, dear heart," said Wally, gripping the manager"s arm, "I can see that you are on the verge of introducing personalities into this very pleasant little chat. Resist the impulse! Why not let your spine stay where it is instead of having it kicked up through your hat?
Keep to the main issue. Does Miss Mariner open in New York or does she lot?"
There was a tense silence. Mr Goble permitted himself a swift review of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally, beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence restrained him. He wanted Wally"s work. He needed Wally in his business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal feelings.
"All right!" he growled reluctantly.
"That"s a promise," said Wally. "I"ll see that you keep it." He looked over his shoulder. The stage was filled with gayly-colored dresses. The mutineers had returned to duty. "Well, I"ll be getting along. I"m rather sorry we agreed to keep clear of personalities, because I should have liked to say that, if ever they have a skunk-show at Madison Square Garden, you ought to enter--and win the blue ribbon. Still, of course, under our agreement my lips are sealed, and I can"t even hint at it. Good-bye. See you later, I suppose?"
Mr Goble, giving a creditable imitation of a living statue, was plucked from his thoughts by a hand upon his arm. It was Mr Miller, whose unfortunate ailment had prevented him from keeping abreast of the conversation.
"What did he say?" enquired Mr Miller, interested. "I didn"t hear what he said!"
Mr Goble made no effort to inform him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1.
Otis Pilkington had left Atlantic City two hours after the conference which had followed the dress rehearsal, firmly resolved never to go near "The Rose of America" again. He had been wounded in his finest feelings. There had been a moment, when Mr Goble had given him the choice between having the piece rewritten and cancelling the production altogether, when he had inclined to the heroic course. But for one thing, Mr Pilkington would have defied the manager, refused to allow his script to be touched, and removed the play from his hands. That one thing was the fact that, up to the day of the dress rehearsal, the expenses of the production had amounted to the appalling sum of thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents, all of which had to come out of Mr Pilkington"s pocket. The figures, presented to him in a neatly typewritten column stretching over two long sheets of paper, had stunned him. He had had no notion that musical plays cost so much.
The costumes alone had come to ten thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents, and somehow that odd fifty cents annoyed Otis Pilkington as much as anything on the list. A dark suspicion that Mr Goble, who had seen to all the executive end of the business, had a secret arrangement with the costumer whereby he received a private rebate, deepened his gloom. Why, for ten thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents you could dress the whole female population of New York State and have a bit left over for Connecticut. So thought Mr Pilkington, as he read the bad news in the train. He only ceased to brood upon the high cost of costuming when in the next line but one there smote his eye an item of four hundred and ninety-eight dollars for "Clothing." Clothing!
Weren"t costumes clothing? Why should he have to pay twice over for the same thing? Mr Pilkington was just raging over this, when something lower down in the column caught his eye. It was the words:--
Clothing ... 187.45
At this Otis Pilkington uttered a stifled cry, so sharp and so anguished that an old lady in the next seat, who was drinking a gla.s.s of milk, dropped it and had to refund the railway company thirty-five cents for breakages. For the remainder of the journey she sat with one eye warily on Mr Pilkington, waiting for his next move.