ELLA REEVE.
One can't be too careful how one boasts, especially if there is the chance of the boast being put quickly to the proof. In fact, it is better perhaps not to boast at all.
I was sitting with a friend and a stranger in a London restaurant, having joined their table for coffee. The stranger, on introduction, turned out to be connected with the stage in some capacity as agent, and among his regular clients were the managers of various big provincial theatres, for whom he provided the leading lights of pantomime, or, as he would call it, panto. Panto was indeed the mainstay of his business; it was even the warp and woof of his life. He lived for panto, he thought panto, and he talked panto. No one, according to him, had a more abysmal knowledge of principal boys with adequate legs, principal (if that is still the word) girls with sufficient voices, contralto fairy queens with abundant bosoms, basso demon kings, Prince Dandinis, Widow Twankays, Ugly Sisters, and all the other personages of this strange grease-paint mythology of ours. Listening to him, I learned—as those who are humble in spirit may learn of all men. I learned, for example, that Ugly Sisters are at Christmas-time always Ugly Sisters, and very often use again the same dialogue, merely transferring themselves from, say, Glasgow to Wigan, or from Bristol to Dublin; and this will be their destiny until they become such very old men that not even the kindly British public will stand it any longer. England, it seems, is full of performers who, touring the halls from March to December, are then claimed for panto as her own, arriving a little before Christmas not less regularly than the turkey; and the aim of all of them is as nearly as possible to do the next Christmas what they did last Christmas.
Not only did my new acquaintance know all these people, their capabilities and the lowest salary that could be offered to them with any chance of acceptance, but he was also, it seemed, beloved by them all. Between agent and client never in the history of the world had such charming relations subsisted as between every pro. on his books and himself.
It was then that Ella Reeve came in.
Accompanied by two expensive-looking men, whose ancestors had beyond any doubt crossed the Red Sea with Moses, this new and glittering star, who had but just "made good," or "got over," or "clicked" (my new acquaintance used all these phrases indiscriminately when referring to his own Herschellian triumphs as a watcher of the skies), walked confidently to a distant table which was being held in reserve for her party, and drew off her gloves with the happy anticipatory assurance of one who is about to lunch a little too well. (All this, I should say, happened before the War. I am reminded of it to-day by the circumstance that I have just heard of the death of the agent whom I then met.)
The impact of the lady on this gentleman was terrific.
"Look, look!" he said. "That's Ella Reeve, one of my discoveries. She was principal boy at Blackpool two years ago. I put her there. She got fifteen pounds a week, and to-day she gets two hundred. I spotted her in a chorus, asked her to call and see me, and this is the result. I made her. There's nothing she wouldn't do for me, she's so grateful. If she knew I was in the room she'd be over here in a jiffy."
Having told us all this, he, being a very normal man, told it again, all the while craning his neck in the hope that his old client (she had now, it seemed, passed out of his hands, having forsaken panto for London and revue) might catch sight of his dear face. But she was far too much occupied either with the lobster on her plate or with the yellow fluid, strange to me, that moved restlessly in a long-stemmed shallow glass at her side.
And then, being, as I say, not in any way an eccentric or exorbitant character, the agent told it us a third time, with a digression here and there as to the deep friendships that members of his profession could form and cement if only they were decent fellows and not mere money-grubbing machines out for nothing but their commission. "That's what the wise man does," he concluded; "he makes real friends with his clients, such as I did with Ella Reeve. The result is we never had any hitches, and there's nothing she wouldn't do for me. She's a darling!"
Getting a little tired of this, but obviously anything but unwilling to shake the new star's slender hand and listen to the vivacious flow of speech from such attractive lips, my friend said at last, "Well, as you and she are such pals, and as she has only to know that you are here to jump over the tables to get to you, why not send your card to her?"
The agent agreed, and we watched the waiter threading his way among the tables towards that one at which the new and grateful star was seated and hand the card to her.
The end of this story is so tragic that I should prefer not to tell it.
Ella Reeve took the card, read it, laid it down, and resumed conversation with her friends. She did not even glance in our direction.
I felt sorry for the agent, whose mortification was very real, though he made a brave effort to carry it off; and now that he is dead I feel sorrier. As for Ella Reeve (which is not really her name, but one which with great ingenuity I devised for her from the French: thus, Elle arrive) I often see her, under her true style, in her triumphs, and I always wonder whether her treatment of the agent, or his assurance of her dependence on his cordiality, represents more nearly the truth. She looks such a good sort. Some day, when the War is over, I must acquire a shiny tall hat and a glossy shirt front and a youthful manner and get someone to introduce me, and then, bit by bit, extract the truth.
Meanwhile the fact remains that it is dangerous to boast.
Tommy (back from Blighty). "YUS, I GRANT YER A BIT O' LEAVE'S ALL RIGHT. BUT IT'S AWFUL DEPRESSIN', TOO, AT HOME—NOTHIN' BUT WAR—WAR! IT GIVES YER THE FAIR 'UMP."
"JAPANESE POLITICS.
PRIME MINISTER'S ATTACK ON THE DIET."—Daily Paper.
We wouldn't be the Food Controller in Japan for anything.
"Wanted situation as Groom Coachman or Coachman General; disengaged early in March; can milk and care motor if required."—Irish Paper.
A modern improvement, we suppose, on "the cow with the iron tail."
"At a special meeting of the Duma held to-day, the Minister for Agriculture, M. Rittich, in reply to an urgent question on the measures for supplying Petrograd, stated the supplies were sufficient for the present. Difficulties in purchase are due to excessive building and storing by individuals in the shape of rusks."—Daily Chronicle.
No authority for this remarkable statement is given, but we suspect the Russky Invalid.
"A trifle of a trinket for his women-folk is the only saving as an insurance for the poor against famine and starvation for a rainless day."—A Native Writer in "The Times of India."
KIPLING was right, East is East and West is West.
"The undersigned has great pleasure in informing all the ladies, gentlemen and the other travellers in the Station that a very nice comfortable motor car can be obtained on hire from him for a walk in or out of the Station for any period of time at very reasonable charges."—Peshawar Daily News.
The petrol shortage evidently extends to India.
"Ireland is accustomed to disappointment; she is accustomed to what she signalises as betrayal, but her spirit remains unbroken, and she goes on her way undaunted to seek, it may be by new methods and a new road, her appointed gaol."—Manchester Guardian.
Irishmen may justifiably resent this cynicism on the part of an old friend.
