‘My poy,’ said Darco, ‘I am primming with iteas. I am itching all ofer with iteas, as if I were living in a bag of vleas. I am Cheorge Dargo. Ven you find Cheorge Dargo without iteas you may co to the nearest ghemist ant ask for poison. Take your ben ant sit down, ant I will show you if I haf iteas or no.’
CHAPTER XVII
The work thus abruptly begun lasted for weeks, and Darco’s enthusiasm drove Paul before it as if it had been a hurricane. Pauer lounged for a day or two, and then betook his golden visage and saffron eyes to London, leaving the pair to their labours. Paul and Darco worked on an average twelve hours a day, and it happened occasionally that a group of terrified commis voyageurs would assemble in the passage outside the study anticipating murder, whilst Darco, in Alsatian English, declaimed the passion of his heroine. There were deep wells of laughter here and there in the course of that dramatic pilgrimage.
‘Now, vat I want,’ said Darco, ‘is just this: It is Binda’s endrance. She is a leedle vat you would call distraught, not mat, but ankrished. She is very pretty, she is very bale. She stands at the door, and Raoul does not see her. She is there for vive zeconds to a tick, not more, not less—vive zeconds; write it down. Enter Binda, pause, unobserved, vive zeconds. Have you got it down? She is priddy, she is bale, a leedle touch of colour under the eyes; she is tressed in vite, some filmy kind of stuff, with a plue bow at the throat and a bit of scarlet ribbon, or red flower, or zomethings, in her hair. And zo she stands at the door and she looks at Raoul, and he toes not know she is there, ant vor just those vive zeconds there is no music, not a note, and then—— Look here, I am Cheorge Dargo; I can write a blay, and stage a blay, and baint the zeenery for a blay, and I can gompose the music for a blay, and I can berform on every damned inztrument in the orghestra. And this is vod Binda does: Bale and bretty, do you zee? at the door for vive zilent zeconds, and then with all her zoul one great appeal, she crosses to Raoul at his desk petween zecond and third O.P., ant she coes like this.’
The fat, brief-statured man waddled in his enthusiasm from Binda’s imaginary entering-place towards Paul with an allure of comedy-pathos so piercing in its effect that the amanuensis cast both hands in the air with a shriek of helpless mirth, and, losing his balance, wallowed on the floor amidst untidy heaps of books, newspapers, and manuscript.
‘Vod is the madder?’ Darco cried, rushing towards Paul, and leaning over him with instant solicitude.
Darco’s collaborateur was smitten with a sudden shame and repentance.
‘A kind of spasm,’ he said breathlessly—‘a pain just here.’
Darco helped him to his feet.