“Ahlfred,” as his family persist in calling him, was at home for a few weeks. During the hours of rehearsal, from regarding him as a pleasant, if unexciting, fellow creature, we all came to look upon him as something that could only have been sent to try us.
It was disappointing when Amy read the words of the opening chorus for the first time, that her only comment should be:
“Well, I suppose if we’ve got to make fools of ourselves, it can’t be helped, and once we’re worked up to it, I daresay it won’t be so bad”—but it was positively infuriating when Alfred, in an instructive voice, began to make a number of suggestions all beginning with “Why not.”
“Why not alter this a bit, here, Patch—you see what I mean? You say ‘The Muscovite Maiden comes on from the O. P. side.’ Now, why not have her come on from the other side?”
“Why?”
“Well, wouldn’t it be effective? And why not bring in an allusion to the moon, in that final song? Always a success, the moon, in a show like this. Why not arrange an effect of some sort with a moderator lamp behind the scene? I’ve seen wonders done with a moderator lamp.”
“Fancy, a moderator lamp!” said Mrs. Kendal.
“I think, as it’s supposed to be early morning in the first scene, that perhaps the moon would be out of place,” Nancy Fazackerly suggested apologetically.
And Alfred, with something of his mother’s singular powers of reiteration, said, “Why not make it the evening instead?”
“I think we ought to get on a bit. We’ll take the Muscovite maiden’s song. Sallie!” I called.