“I was getting very cheap,” he would probably have said, “and needed rest. I could not have got it naturally, being far too busy; so this accident was sent to keep me in bed for a couple of months and pull me clean round.”
But it is hard when the protective stars suffer from trop de zèle.
III.—The Nut
He seemed to be an old habitué of the music-hall, for without a programme he had known all that was coming. And then suddenly he came to his own; for, “Watch this,” he said to those of us who were near him, strangers though we were, as a new number went up; “this is good. I know a chap in this. I’ll tell you when he comes on.” We watched and waited. It was a furious knock-about sketch, the scene of which was a grocer’s shop, staffed by comic grocers. Humorist after humorist came upon the stage, fell over each other, and went through the usual antics; but there was no news of our friend’s friend, nor was the play good.
And then at last a young man representing an aristocratic customer rushed on. “That’s him,” said the man, “that’s old Charley. He’s a nut, I can tell you.” (A nut is what we used to call a “dog,” with a touch more of irresponsibility and high-spirited idiocy.)
“Isn’t he a nut?” he asked us all with a radiant sweeping glance of inquiry. How could we disappoint him? I caught myself nodding in agreement. A nut, surely. “Oh, he’s a boy, I promise you. I’ve had some rare times with old Charley,” his friend went on. “You should see him at Forest Gate on Sundays! I tell you he’s a nut.”
The nut continued to do his best to prove his character. He screwed an eyeglass in his eye, he dashed the girls under the chin, he fell over his walking-stick, he flung his tall hat on the ground. His friend was in ecstasies. “Good old Charley!” he cried again; “isn’t he a nut? By Jingo, but he’s a nut!”
I left him exulting in his intimacy with Charley, while the youths round him glowed in the glory of even the temporary acquaintance of a man who knew intimately a nut on the music-hall stage.
And, after all, that is no small thing.