"What! Billy's Julius Caesar? No, thank you! I've had enough of Bill to last me some time--and that brute Buncle drawing fifteen pounds a week, and bellowing his lungs out to thirty people in the pit! No, no! Is there a good lion-and-camel lot about?"
Mr. Bond shuddered; he was frequently prompted to shudder in his conversation with Mr. Wuff. He was a great believer in the elevating tendencies of the drama; and when he thought of lions and camels on the same boards which he had seen trodden at different times by those great actors and rivals, Grumble and Green, he could not refrain from shuddering. But his business instincts made him turn to a file of the Era on the table, and he said, after consulting it:
"There's Roker's troupe at North Shields."
"How long since they've been in town?"
"Oh, two years; and then they were only at the Wells--you can scarcely call that town; and it didn't interfere a bit with our people, you know."
"Roker's are performing lions, ain't they?"
"Yes; they'll let him do anything to them, when they're in a proper state."
"All right! Write to him about terms at once; and send to Darn and tell him we want a piece to bring out this lot at once. Must be Eastern, because of the camel--long procession, slaves, caskets, and all that kind of thing, and a fight with the lion for Roker. That's all Roker's to do, mind; he can't act a bit."
Mr. Roker was driving such an excellent trade with the pitmen of the North, that he refused to come to London except on terms which Mr. Wuff would not give; and so that enterprising manager was again in a strait. Mr. Trapman had been called into council, had ransacked his books and his brain in search for novelty, but all to no purpose; and things were looking very serious for Mr. Wuff, when one morning Trapman rushed from his office and arrived breathless in the manager's sanctum.
"What is it?" asked Wuff, who was sitting vacantly looking at Bond, poring over files of old paybills.