‘What have you made to-night?’ Christopher asked. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said a second later; ‘that is no business of mine, of course.’
‘About seven or eight shillings,’ said the other, disregarding the withdrawal of the question. ‘And I won’t ask you,’ he went on, ‘what brings a man who writes like you living near the clouds in a street like this?’
‘Are you an Englishman?’ asked Christopher.
‘No,’ said the other. ‘No fiddler ever was. I beg your pardon. I oughtn’t to have said that, even though I think it. No. I am a Bohemian, blood and bones, but I came to England when I was eight years old, and I have lived in London ever since.’
They went on talking together, and laid the foundations of a friendship which afterwards built itself up steadily. In two months’ time Carl Rubach was restored to his old place at the Garrick, and poor Christopher was beginning to find out in real earnest what it was to be hungry. He was too proud to ask anybody for a loan, and Rubach was the only man he really knew. ‘When things are at their worst,’ says the cynical bard, ‘they sometimes mend.’ Things suddenly mended for Christopher. The Bohemian turned up one afternoon with an Englishman in his train, a handsome young fellow of perhaps five-and-twenty, with a light curling beard and a blonde moustache.
‘Allow me to introduce to you Mr. John Holt,’ said the Bohemian. ‘This, Mr. Holt, is Mr. Christopher Stretton, a musician of great genius. This—Stretton—is Mr. John Holt, a dramatist of great power. Gentlemen, know each other. Mr. Holt writes charming songs. Mr. Stretton writes beautiful music.’
He flourished with mock gravity as he said these things, turning first to one and then to the other. Mr. John Holt’s eyes were keen and observant; and one swift glance took in the knowledge of the composer’s hungry pallor, his threadbare dress, the bare and poverty-stricken aspect of the room.
‘I have two songs for a new play of mine,’ he said; ‘I want them set to music.’
Christopher’s hand, thinner and more transparent than a healthy man’s hand should be, reached out for the offered manuscript.
‘When do you think you can let me have the music?’ asked the dramatist.