"You asked me to call on you," said Eustace.
"Did I, did I?" He passed his hand across his brow with a noble
gesture. "I am so busy, I forget. Ah, now I remember. I saw you play
Othello last night. You are the man I want. I am producing 'Oom
Baas,' the great South African drama, next April at my theatre.
Perhaps you know?"
"I have read about it in the papers," said Eustace. In all the papers (he might have added) every day, for the last six months.
"Good. Then you may have heard that one of the scenes is an ostrich farm. I want you to play 'Tommy.'"
"One of the ostriches?" asked Eustace.
"I do not offer the part of an ostrich to a man who has played Othello. Tommy is the Kaffir boy who looks after the farm. It is a black part, like your present one, but not so long. In London you cannot expect to take the leading parts just yet."
"This is very kind of you," cried Eustace gratefully. "I have always longed to get to London. And to start in your theatre!—it's a wonderful chance."
"Good," said Mr Levinski. "Then that's settled." He waved Eustace away and took up the Directory again with a business-like air.
And so Eustace Merrowby came to London. It is a great thing for a young actor to come to London. As Mr Levinski had warned him, his new part was not so big as that of Othello; he had to say "Hofo tsetse!"—which was alleged to be Kaffir for "Down, sir!"—to the big ostrich. But to be at the St George's Theatre at all was an honour which most men would envy him, and his association with a real ostrich was bound to bring him before the public in the pages of the illustrated papers.
Eustace, curiously enough, was not very nervous on the first night. He was fairly certain that he was word-perfect; and if only the ostrich didn't kick him in the back of the neck—as it had tried to once at rehearsal—the evening seemed likely to be a triumph for him. And so it was with a feeling of pleasurable anticipation that, on the morning after, he gathered the papers round him at breakfast, and prepared to read what the critics had to say.