Chapter 15

He told himself that he ought to do some work, but the desire to see more of London overcame his good resolution, and so he left the house and set out again for the town. He hoped that he might see Eleanor Moore. If he were to go to the tea-shop at the same hour as she had entered it yesterday, he might contrive to seat himself at her table again, and this time perhaps she would listen to him. When he reached the City, he found that he was too early for the mid-day meal, and so he resolved to go and stand about the entrance to the office where Eleanor Moore was employed. He would see her coming out of it and could follow discreetly after her.... But although he waited for an hour, she did not appear, nor was she to be seen in the tea-shop, when, tired and disappointed, he took his place in it. He dallied over his meal, hoping every moment that she would turn up, but at length he had to go away without seeing her. At teatime, he told himself, he would come again and wait for her. He climbed on to a 'bus and let himself be taken to Charing Cross, where he enquired the way to the National Gallery. He wandered through the rooms until his eyes ached with looking at the pictures and his feet were sore with walking on the polished floors. He felt self-conscious when he looked at the nudes, and he blushed when he found a woman standing by his side as he looked at the portrait of Jean Arnolfini and Jeanne his wife by van Eyck. He turned hotly away, and wondered that there was no blush on the face of the woman. In Ballyards, a man always pretended not to see a woman about to have a child ... unless, of course, he was with other men and the woman could not see him, when he would crack jokes about her condition!... Here, however, people actually exhibited pictures of pregnant women in a public place where all sorts, old and young, male and female, could look at them ... and no one appeared to mind. It might be all right, of course, and after all a woman in that way was natural enough ... but he had been brought up to be ashamed of seeing such things, and he could not very well become easy about them in a moment.... And he became very tired of Holy Families and Crucifixions!...

"I'll walk back to the place," he said to himself as he left the Gallery and crossed Trafalgar Square. He dappled his fingers in the water of one of the fountains, and listened to two little Cocknies wrangling together....

"They've a queer way of talking," he said to himself.

...and then he started off down the Strand towards Fleet Street and the City. Eleanor Moore was not in the tea-shop when he entered it, nor did she come into it while he remained there. He finished his meal and walked in the direction of the Royal Exchange and just as he was running out of the way of a 'bus, he saw her going towards the stairs leading into the Tube.

"There she is," he murmured and hurried after her.

She was at the foot of the stairs when he reached the top of them, and when he had got to the foot of them, she was almost at the entrance to the booking-office of the Tube. He tried to get near her so that he might speak to her, but the press of people going home prevented him from doing so. He saw her go down the steps and take her place in the queue of people purchasing tickets, and he walked across to the bookstall and stood there until she had obtained her ticket. Then as she walked to the lift, he moved towards her. She was examining her change as she walked along, and did not see him until he was close to her. He meant to say, "Oh, Miss Moore, may I speak to you for a moment!" but suddenly he became totally inarticulate, and while he was struggling to say something, she looked up and saw him. She started slightly, then her face became flushed, and she hurried forward and joined the group of wedged people in the lift. He determined to follow her, but while he was resolving to do so, the lift attendant shouted, "Next lift, please!" and pulled the gates together. He watched the light disappear from the little windows at the top of the gates!...

"I've missed her again," he said.

III

He was just in time to swallow a hurried meal and set off to the theatre with the Creams. Mrs. Cream, recovered from the devastating effects of a tragical temperament, was very vivacious as they sat in the brougham; and she rallied him on his authorship. She told him that when he was a celebrated writer, she would be able to say that she had discovered him....

"As a matter of fact, Dolly," said her husband, "it was me that thought of the idea!"

She ignored her husband. She pretended that John would become too proud to know the poor little Creams!...

"I'm not too proud to know anyone," he interrupted.

She burbled at him, and pressed closer to him. "You're quite complimentary," she said.

Cream had given John a note to the manager of the theatre which induced that gentleman to admit him, free of charge, to the stalls. He would travel home by himself, for the Creams had to play at other music-halls, and would not be able to take him back to Brixton in their brougham. "We finish up at Walham Green," said Cream, as John left the carriage.

He waited impatiently for the performance of _The Girl Gets Left_, and he had an extraordinary sense of pleasure when he saw Cream's wistful face peering through a window immediately after the curtain went up. The little man was remarkably funny. His look, his voice, his gestures, all compelled laughter from the audience without the audience understanding quite why it was amused. He had the pathetic appearance that all great comedians have, the look of appeal that one saw in the face of Dan Leno, in the face of James Welch, and it seemed that he might as easily cry as laugh. The words he had to say were poor, vapid things, but when he said them, he put some of his own life into them and gave them a greater value than they deserved. The turn of his head was comic; a queer little helpless movement of his hands was comic; the way in which he seemed to stop short and gulp as if he were bracing himself up was comic; the swift downward and then upward glance of his eyes, followed by an assumption of complete humility and resignation, these were comic. And when he appeared on the stage, the audience, knowing something of his quality, collectively lifted itself into an attitude of attention.

A dismal young woman, singing a dreary lecherous song and showing an immense quantity of frilled underclothing, had occupied five or six minutes in boring the audience before _The Girl Gets Left_ began; and an air of lassitude had enveloped the men who were sitting in relaxed attitudes in the theatre. Their eyes seemed to become dull, and they paid more attention to their pipes and their cigarettes than they paid to the young woman's underclothing.... But when _The Girl Gets Left_ began, and the whimsical face of Cream was seen peering through the window of the scene, the lassitude was lifted and the men's eyes began to brighten again. The first words, the first gesture of comic helplessness, from Cream sent a ripple of laughter round the theatre, and immediately the place was full of that queer, uncontrollable thing, personality.

John laughed heartily at the acting of his new friend, and he decided that he would certainly try to write a play for him. How good Mrs. Cream must be if she were better than her husband, as he so proudly declared she was. It would be a privilege to write a play for people so clever.... Then Mrs. Cream, magnificently dressed, appeared, and as she did so, some of the atmosphere that enveloped the stage and the auditorium and made them one and very intimate, was dispelled. John watched her as she moved about the stage, and wondered why it was that the audience had suddenly become a little fidgetty. His eyes were full of astonishment. He gazed at Mrs. Cream as if he were trying to understand some ineluctable mystery.... He remembered how enthralled he had been by the acting of the girl who had played Juliet. He had been caught up and transported from the theatre to the very streets of Verona. He had felt that he was one of the crowd that followed the Montagues or the Capulets, and had been ready to bite his thumb with the best.... But here was something that left him uneasy and alien. He felt as if he were prying into private affairs, that at any moment someone, a policeman, perhaps, might come along and seize him for trespassing. He did not then know that bad acting always leaves an audience with a sensation of having intruded upon privacies ... that an actor who is incompetent leaves the people who see him acting badly with the feeling that they have vulgarly peeped into his dressing-room and seen him taking off his wig and wiping the paint from his face. Mrs. Cream acted with great vigour; her voice roared over the footlights; and she seemed to hurl herself about the scene as if she were determined either to smash the furniture or to smash herself. She made much noise. Her gestures were lavish. Her dresses were very costly and full of glitter. She worked hard....

"But she can't act," said John to himself, sighing with relief when at last she left the stage to her husband.

The little man's small, fragile voice, with its comic hesitation and its puzzled note, sounded very restful after the torrential noises made by his wife, and in a few moments he had the minds of the audience fused again into one mind and made completely attentive. When the play was ended, there was very hearty applause, but none of it so hearty as the applause from John. The last few moments of the piece had been given to Mr. Cream, and he had left the audience with the pleased impression of himself and forgetful of the jar it had received from his wife....

"That wee man can act all right," said John, clapping his hands until they were sore.

IV

Hinde was waiting for him in the sitting-room when he returned to the lodging-house.

"What did you think of the Creams?" the journalist asked when they had greeted each other and had ended their congratulations on being Ulstermen.

"He's very good," John began....

"And she's rotten?" Hinde interrupted.

"Well!..."

"Oh, my dear fellow, you needn't be afraid of telling me what you think. There's only one person in the world who doesn't realise that Mrs. Cream can't act and never will be able to act ... and that's poor old Cream himself. He's as good a comedian as there is in the world--that little man: the essence of Cockney wit; and he does not know how good he is. He thinks that she is much better than he can ever hope to be, and she thinks so, too; but if it were not for him, MacDermott, she wouldn't get thirty shillings a week in a penny gaff!"

"They've asked me to write a play for them," John said.

"Are you going to do it?"

"I don't know. That play to-night was a very common sort of a piece. It's not the style of play I want to do!..."

"What style of play _do_ you want to do?" Hinde asked.

"Good plays. Plays like Shakespeare wrote."

Hinde looked at him quickly. "Oh, well," he said, "there's no harm in aiming high!"

John told him of the book he had written at Ballyards, and of the story he had sent to _Blackwood's Magazine_.

"I've a great ambition to do big things," he said.

"There's no harm in that either," Hinde replied. "In the meantime, what are you going to do? It'll be a wheen of years yet before you can hope to get anything big done!"

"Oh, I don't know about that," John answered confidently. "The MacDermotts are great people for getting their own way!"

"Mebbe they are ... in Ballyards," Hinde retorted, "but this isn't Ballyards. And you can't spend all your time writing masterpieces. You'll have to do a wee bit of ordinary common work. What about trying to get a job on a paper?"

"I don't mind taking a job if there's one to be got. Only what sort of a job?..."

Hinde teased him. "They'll not let you edit the _Times_ yet awhile," he said.

"I don't want to edit it," John replied.

"Well, that's a lucky thing for the man that's got the job now!"

John felt aggrieved at once. "You're coddin' me," he complained.

"Say that again," Hinde exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Say what again?"

"Say I'm coddin' you. I haven't heard that word for years. Gwon! Say it!"

"You're coddin' me!..."

"Isn't it lovely? Isn't it a grand word, that? Good Ulster talk!..."

The door opened and Lizzie entered the room.

"Mr. 'Inde!..." she said.

"Don't call me 'Inde," he shouted, jumping up from his chair. "What do you think the letter _h_ was put in the alphabet for? For you to leave it out?"

Lizzie smiled amiably at him. "Ow, go on," she said, "you're always 'avin' me on!" She turned to John. "'E's a 'oly terror, 'e is. Talks about me speakin' funny, but wot about 'im? I think Irish is the comicest way of talkin' I ever heard. Wot'll you 'ave for your breakfis, Mr. 'Inde?"

"_H_inde, woman, _H_inde!..."

"Well, wot'll you 'ave for your breakfis?"

"One of these days I'll have you fried and boiled and stewed!..."

Lizzie giggled.

"Ow, you are a funny man, Mr. 'Inde," she said between her titters.

Hinde gaped at her as if he were incapable of expressing himself in adequate language.

"That female," He said turning to John, "always tells me I'm a funny man!..."

"Well, so you are, Mr. 'Inde!" Lizzie interrupted.

"Get out," he roared at her.

Lizzie addressed John. "You'll get used to 'is comic ways when you know 'im as well as I do. Wot'll you 'ave for breakfis?" she continued, speaking again to Hinde.

"Anything," he replied. "Anything on God's earth, so long as you get out!"

"That's all I wanted to know," said Lizzie. "It'll be 'am an' eggs. Goo'-night, Mr. MacDermott!"

"Good-night, Lizzie," John murmured.

"Goo'-night, Mr. 'Inde!"

"Come here!" said Hinde.

She came across the room and stood beside him. He took hold of her chin. "If you hadn't such a rotten accent," he said, "I'd marry you!"

She giggled. "You do myke me laugh, Mr. 'Inde!" she said.

"_H_inde, woman, _H_inde!..."

She moved away from him as if he had uttered some perfectly commonplace remark. "Very well," she said, "it'll be 'am an' eggs for breakfis. I'm glad you chose them, because we ain't got nothink else in the 'ouse. Goo'-night, all!"

She went out of the room, but hardly had she shut the door behind her, when she opened it again.

"'Ere's the Creams 'ome again!" she said. "Goo'-night all!"

V

A few minutes later, Cream tapped on their door and, in response to Hinde's "Come in!" entered. He greeted Hinde lavishly, and then turned to John.

"Well, my boy," he said, "what do you think of her? Great, isn't she? Absolute eye-opener, that's what she is, I knew you'd be struck dumb by her. That's the effect she has on people. Paralyses them. Lays 'em out. By Gum, Mac, that woman's a wonder!..."

"How is she?" John asked.

Cream shook his head. "All in bits, as usual, Mac. I ought not to let her do the work ... it's wearing her out ... but you can't keep a great artist away from the stage. She'd die quicker if she weren't doing her work than she will while she's doing. That's Art, Mac. Extraordinary thing, Art!..."

"Have a drink, Cream," Hinde exclaimed.

"I don't mind if I do, Hinde, old chap. Did you notice how she held the audience, Mac? The minute she stepped on to the stage, she got 'em. Absolute! She played with 'em ... did what she liked with 'em!... I wish I could get hold of 'em like that. By Heaven, Mac, it must be wonderful to have that woman's power to make an audience do just what you want it to do!..."

Hinde handed a glass of whiskey and soda to him. "Thanks, old chap!" he said, taking it from him. He raised the glass. "Well, here's health!" he murmured, swallowing some of the drink. He put the glass down on the table beside him. "When do you think you'll be able to let us have the manuscript of the play, Mac?"

John started. "Well," he began nervously, "well, I haven't thought much about it yet!..."

"Look here," said Cream, "I've been talking to Dolly about the matter, and this is her idea. She wants to play in a piece about a naval lieutenant. See? In a submarine or something. Something with a bit of snap in it. She'd like to be an Irish girl called Kitty in love with the lieutenant. See? Make it so's he can wear his uniform and a cocked hat and a sword. See? The audience likes to see a bit of style. You could put a comic stoker in ... that 'ud do for me, but of course as I told you, you needn't worry much about my part. I'll look after myself. Now, do you think you could do anything with that idea? Dolly's dead set on playing an Irish girl, and of course, you being Irish and all that, you'd know the ropes!"

"I'll think about it," said John.

"Do. That's a good chap. And perhaps you can let me have the manuscript at the end of the week ... in the rough anyhow!"

He finished his whiskey and soda.

"Have another?" Hinde said.

"No, thanks, no. You know. Mac, the stage is a funny place. The average author doesn't realise what a funny place it is. I've met a few authors in my time, high-brow and low-brow and no-brow-at-all, and they're all the same: think they know more about the theatre than the actor does. But they don't. They all want to be littery. And that's no good ... in the music-halls anyhow. If you've got anything to say to a music-hall audience, don't waste time in being littery or anything like that. Bung It At 'Em, Mac!" He pronounced the last injunction with enormous emphasis. "An audience is about the thickest thing on earth. Got no brains to speak of, and doesn't want to have any. Mind you, each person in the audience may be as clever as you like, but as an audience ... see? ... they're simply thick. And if you want 'em to understand anything, you've got to Bung It At 'Em. No use being delicate or pretty or anything like that. That's what authors don't understand. Now, you heard those back-chat-comedians at the Oxford to-night?"

John nodded his head. "They weren't much good," he said.

"Why?" Cream demanded, and then, before John could speak, he went on to give the answer to his question. "Because they don't know how to get their stuff over the footlights. That's why! They had good stuff to work with, but they didn't know what to do with it. _I_ could have told 'em. Do you remember that joke about the dog that swallowed the tape-measure and died?"

"Yes. It sounded rather silly!..."

"And it didn't get a laugh. The silliness of a thing doesn't matter if it makes you laugh. This is how they said it. The tall chap says to the little one, 'How's your dog, Joe?' and the little one answered, 'Oh, he died last week. He swallowed a tape-measure and died by inches!...'"

Hinde laughed. "Do people pay good money to listen to that sort of stuff?"

"You're a journalist," Cream replied, "and you ought to know they pay money to _read_ worse than that!"

"So they do," Hinde admitted.

"When I heard those two duffers ruining that joke," Cream continued, "I felt as if I wanted to run on to the stage and tell 'em how to get it over to the audience. This is how they ought to have done it!"

He stood up and enacted the characters of the two back-chat comedians, and as John watched him and listened to him, he realised what a great actor the little man was.

_"Say, Joe, what're you in mourning for?"

"I'm in mourning for my little dog!"

"Your little dog. Why, your little dog ain't dead, is it?"

"Yes, my little dog's dead!"

"Well, Joe, I'm sorry to hear your little dog's dead. What was the matter with your little dog?"

"My little dog died last week."

"Yes, your little dog died last week?..."

"He swallowed a tape-measure!..."

"Good heavens, your little dog swallowed a tape-measure?"

"Yes, my little dog swallowed a tape measure, and HE DIED BY INCHES!"_

Cream sat down when he had finished giving his performance. "That's how they ought to have done it," he said.

"It makes me angry to see men ruining a good story. You see, Mac, you've got to lead up to things. Everything in this world has to be led up to. You can't rush bald-headed at anything. And you've got to get a climax. These back-chat chaps hadn't got a climax. The joke was over before the audience had time to realise it was a joke. See?"

"I see," said John.

A few minutes later, Cream went downstairs to his own room.

"That little man knows just how to get an effect," said Hinde. "The amazing thing about him is that he doesn't know that he can act and that his wife can't!..."

"Why do you call her his wife?" John replied.

"Out of civility," said Hinde. "I don't see that it matters much whether she is or not!"

"That's what Lizzie says."

"Lizzie is an intelligent woman. I hope you don't think I was rude to Lizzie just now?..."

"Oh, no," John answered insincerely.

"I wouldn't hurt Lizzie's feelings for the world," said Hinde. "I'm going to bed now, but you needn't hurry unless you want to. I'm tired, and I shall have a busy day to-morrow. I'll see if there's any work that would suit you on my paper. You ought to have some sort of a job besides scribbling masterpieces. I suppose you left a girl behind you in Ballyards?"

John's face flushed. "No," he replied.

"That's good," Hinde said. "You'll be able to get on with your work instead of wasting time writing letters to a girl. Good-night!"

"Good-night. Mr. Hinde!" said John, suddenly ceremonious.

"Not so much of the Mister. Call me Hinde. I think I'll follow Cream's example and call you Mac!"

"Very well, Hinde," said John.

"We'll go up to town in the morning together, if you like!"

"I would," said John.

VI

John's dreams that night were queerly complicated. Eleanor Moore flitted through a scene on a submarine in which a dog was dying by inches while a naval lieutenant made passionate love to an Irish girl called Kitty; and while Eleanor passed vaguely from side to side of the submarine, a gigantic piece of red tape came and enveloped her and enveloped John, too, when, unaccountably, he appeared and tried to save her. He felt himself being strangled by red tape, and he knew that Eleanor was being strangled, too. He felt that if only the dog would eat the red tape, both Eleanor and he would be delivered from it, but somehow the Irish girl called Kitty prevented the dog from eating it. And in the dream, he called pitifully to Eleanor, "She won't let us work up to a climax! She's preventing us from working up to a climax!..."

THE THIRD CHAPTER

I

At the end of a month from the day on which he arrived in London, John MacDermott began to consider his position and ended by finding it in a very unsatisfactory state. He had spent much of his time in sight-seeing, and would have spent more of it, had not Hinde informed him that the only way in which to know a city is to live in it, not as a tourist, but as an ordinary citizen. "Change your lodgings every twelve months," he said, "and go and live in a different part of the town every time you change them. Then you'll get to know London. It's no use tearing round the place like an American ... half an hour here and a couple of minutes there, and a Baedeker never out of your hands. Americans think they're getting an impression of a country when they're only getting a sick-headache; and when they go home again, they can never remember whether Mont Blanc was a picture they saw in Paris or a London chop-house where they had old English fare at modern English prices. If you want to _know_ St. Paul's Cathedral, don't go there with a guide-book in your hand. Go as one of the congregation!..."