"Listen to me. Quick, champagne, somebody!" She snatched a bottle from the beaming Mrs. Perrigord, and alter a moment, brilliant with inspiration, she continued: "We'll save Uncle Jules's bacon yet. To begin with, there isn't a real Frenchman aboard this ship, with the exception of Uncle Jules and Abdul. The audience will be mostly kids, or else people with only a smattering of French, out to see the fighting…"
"What about Perrigord?" inquired Warren.
"I'm not forgetting him, darling. That's where Hank comes in. Hank will be the Emperor Charlemagne and also the crafty Banhambra, Sultan of the Moors… "
"Good for you, old man!" applauded Warren, radiating kindliness and slapping the Emperor Charlemagne on the back.
"… because I've heard his accent, and it's at least good enough to deceive Perrigord. People will think he is Uncle Jules, because we'll stuff him with pillows and disguise him; and when he speaks the prologue it's behind a lighted gauze screen at the back of the stage, and nobody can tell who it is. Yee, this is wonderful, now I think of it! The rest of the time he's out of sight. I have a typewritten copy of his part, and all he has to do is read it… As for working the marionettes, you can master that in ten minutes while Madame Camposozzi is singing and Kyle's reciting and Perrigord is talking. All you need is to be strong in the arms, which is where Curt and the skipper excel, and you can make 'em fight, can't you? Well—"
"Yess, but where do ay come in?" asked Valvick. "Ay dunno no French except one or two words. Ay can juggle plates, dough," he suggested hopefully, "and play de piano…"
"You can play the piano? Then," declared Peggy excitedly, "we're absolutely all right. Because, you see, the only other speaking parts are very small — the Knight Roland, the Knight Oliver, and Bishop Turpin. Those parts will be taken by Curt. I'll prompt him roughly, just a few words; but it won't matter what he says, because the skipper will be playing the piano, loud and hard, with appropriate music…."
Morgan roared. He couldn't help it. The strengthening sizzle of champagne cried, "Whee!" along his windpipe; weariness dropped from him. He looked round at the radiant Mrs. Perrigord, who was now seated on the stomach of the prostrate Uncle Jules and looking coyly at him. Again plans began to twist and shift in his brain.
'Right you are!" said he, slapping his hands together. "By Gad! we'll go down in a burst of glory if we do nothing else! It's mad, it's risking a thunderbolt from above, but we'll do it. Up and at 'em! Come on, Skipper; into those uniforms we go — there's no time to be lost… "
There was not. From above began to sound now a measured and steady clapping; a deeper buzz and hum which rattled the lights of the dressing-table. Stopping only to execute a brief gleeful round-the-mulberry-bush with Warren, Peggy rushed to set out the cosmetics.