She went valiantly round to the front entrance, and climbed the steps. The crowd was just coming. There was James’s face peeping inside the little ticket-window.
“One!” he said officially, pushing out the ticket. And then he recognized her. “Oh,” he said, “You’re not going to pay.”
“Yes I am,” she said, and she left her fourpence, and James’s coppery, grimy fingers scooped it in, as the youth behind Miss Pinnegar shoved her forward.
“Arf way down, fourpenny,” said the man at the door, poking her in the direction of Mr. May, who wanted to put her in the red velvet. But she marched down one of the pews, and took her seat.
The place was crowded with a whooping, whistling, excited audience. The curtain was down. James had let it out to his fellow tradesmen, and it represented a patchwork of local adverts. There was a fat porker and a fat pork-pie, and the pig was saying: “You all know where to find me. Inside the crust at Frank Churchill’s, Knarborough Road, Woodhouse.” Round about the name of W. H. Johnson floated a bowler hat, a collar-and-necktie, a pair of braces and an umbrella. And so on and so on. It all made you feel very homely. But Miss Pinnegar was sadly hot and squeezed in her pew.
Time came, and the colliers began to drum their feet. It was exactly the excited, crowded audience Mr. May wanted. He darted out to drive James round in front of the curtain. But James, fascinated by raking in the money so fast, could not be shifted from the pay-box, and the two men nearly had a fight. At last Mr. May was seen shooing James, like a scuffled chicken, down the side gangway and on to the stage.
James before the illuminated curtain of local adverts, bowing and beginning and not making a single word audible! The crowd quieted itself, the eloquence flowed on. The crowd was sick of James, and began to shuffle. “Come down, come down!” hissed Mr. May frantically from in front. But James did not move. He would flow on all night. Mr. May waved excitedly at Alvina, who sat obscurely at the piano, and darted on to the stage. He raised his voice and drowned James. James ceased to wave his penny-blackened hands, Alvina struck up “Welcome All” as loudly and emphatically as she could.
And all the time Miss Pinnegar sat like a sphinx—like a sphinx. What she thought she did not know herself. But stolidly she stared at James, and anxiously she glanced sideways at the pounding Alvina. She knew Alvina had to pound until she received the cue that Mr. May was fitted in his pug-dog “Costoom.”
A twitch of the curtain. Alvina wound up her final flourish, the curtain rose, and:
“Well really!” said Miss Pinnegar, out loud.