Chapter 6

_He took them from Castlemaine's hand to throw to you._

The greenroom seemed like some old forest rent by a storm. Its furniture, which was none too regular at best, either in carving or arrangement, had the irregularity which comes only with a tempest, human or divine. The table, it is true, still stood on its four oaken legs; but even it was well awry. The chairs were scattered here and there, some resting upon their backs. To add to all this, oranges in confusion were strewn broadcast upon the floor.

A storm in fact had visited the greenroom. The storm was Nell.

In the midst of the confusion, a jolly old face peeped cautiously in at the door which led to the street. At the sound of Manager Hart's thunderous tones coming from the stage, however, it as promptly disappeared, only to return when the apparent danger ceased. It was a rare old figure and a rare old dress and a rare old man. Yet, not an old man either. His face was red; for he was a tavern spirit, well known and well beloved,--a lover of good ale! Across his back hung a fiddle which too had the appearance of being the worse for wear, if fiddles can ever be said to be the worse for wear.

The intruder took off his dilapidated hat, hugged his fiddle closely under his arm and looked about the room, more cautiously than respectfully.

"Oons, here is a scattering of props; a warfare of the orange-wenches!" he exclaimed. "A wise head comes into battle after the last shot is fired."

He proceeded forthwith to fill his pockets, of which there seemed to be an abundance of infinite depth, with oranges. This done, he calmly made a hole in the next orange which came to his hand and began to suck it loudly and persistently, boy-fashion, meanwhile smacking his lips. His face was one wreath of unctuous smiles. "There is but one way to eat an orange," he chuckled; "that's through a hole."

At this moment, Hart's voice was heard again upon the stage, and the new-comer to the greenroom liked to have dropped his orange. "Odsbud, that's one of Master Hart's love-tones," he thought. "I must see Nell before he sees me, or it will be farewell Strings." He hastened to Nell's tiring-room and rapped lightly on the door. "Mistress Nell! Mistress Nell!" he called.

The door opened, but it was not Nell. Her maid pointed toward the stage. Strings--for Strings was his name, or at least none knew him by a better--accordingly hobbled across the room--for the wars too had left their mark on him--and peeped off in the direction indicated.

"Gad," he exclaimed, gleefully clapping his hands, "there she goes on the stage as a Moorish princess."

There was a storm of applause without.

"Bravo, Nelly, bravo!" he continued. "She's caught the lads in the pit. They worship Nell out there." The old fellow straightened up as if he felt a personal pride in the audience for evincing such good taste.

"Oons! Jack Hart struts about like a young game-cock at his first fight," he observed. He broke into an infectious laugh, which would have been a fine basso for Nell's laugh.

From the manager, his eye turned toward the place which he himself had once occupied among the musicians. He began to dance up and down with both feet, his knees well bent, boy-fashion, and to clap his hands wildly. "Look ye, little Tompkins got my old place with the fiddle. Whack, de-doodle-de-do! Whack, de-doodle, de-doodle-de-do!" he cried, giving grotesque imitations to his own great glee of his successor as leader of the orchestra.

Then, shaking his head, confident of his own superiority with the bow, he turned back into the greenroom and, with his mouth half full of orange, uttered the droll dictum: "It will take more than catgut and horse-hair to make you a fiddler, Tommy, my boy."

Thus Strings stood blandly sucking his orange with personal satisfaction in the centre of the room, when Dick entered from the stage. The call-boy paused as if he could not believe his eyes. He looked and looked again.

"Heigh-ho!" he exclaimed at last, and then rushed across the room to greet the old fiddler. "Why, Strings, I thought we would never see you again; how fares it with you?"

Strings placed the orange which he had been eating and which he knew full well was none of his own well behind him; and, assuming an unconcerned and serious air, he replied: "Odd! A little the worse for wear, Dickey, me and the old fiddle, but still smiling with the world." There was a bit of a twinkle in his eye as he spoke.

Dick, ever mindful of the welfare and appearance of the theatre, unhooked from the wall a huge shield, which mayhap had served some favourite knight of yore, and, using it as a tray, proceeded to gather the scattered fruit.

"Have an orange?" he inquired of Strings, who still stood in a reflective mood in the centre of the room, as he rested in his labours by him.

"How; do they belong to you?" demanded Strings.

"Oh, no," admitted Dick, "but--"

The fiddler instantly assumed an air of injured innocence.

"How dare you," he cried, "offer me what don't belong to you?" He turned upon the boy almost ferociously at the bare thought. "Honesty is the best policy," he continued, seriously. "I have tried both, lad"; and, in his eagerness to impress upon the boy the seriousness of taking that which does not belong to you, he gestured inadvertently with the hand which till now had held the stolen orange well behind him.