Tennyson.
If yer plase, yer honour, Mr. Geraghty is below, and would like to see yer honour if its convaniant,” said little Nora Doolan, thrusting her untidy head into the cheerless back room in Paradise Street.
Ralph, who was pacing to and from learning a part in a Shakesperian play which he was little likely to act as yet, glanced round with brightening face.
“What? Dear old Geraghty!” he exclaimed. “I’m glad he has looked me up. Show him upstairs Nora, for I should like to have a talk with him.”
The old man-servant responded with alacrity to the warm welcome he received.
“It’s delighted I am to see you again, Mr. Ralph,” he exclaimed, looking him over with an air of satisfaction as though he had some share in his well-being. “And it’s in good health that you are looking, sir, and no mistake.”
“Nothing like hard work, Geraghty, for keeping a man well,” said Ralph. “And I hope I’m settled now for some time to come. You can tell Miss Evereld that I’m at the very theatre we so often used to go to, and that I have the pleasure of seeing Washington act every night.”
“I’m glad to hear it, sir,” said Geraghty. “We all knew long ago, sir, that you’d make a first-class actor; it took but a little small bit of discrimination to see that much.”
Ralph laughed. “Well, Geraghty, you mustn’t run away with the notion that I’m a star, for, as a matter of fact, I am nothing but a super at a pound a week. But it’s better to begin at the beginning in a good theatre than to be cock-of-the-walk in a fifth-rate one.”
“To be sure, sir, it’s just what I was saying but now to my sister about placing her eldest girl. ‘Never mind how little she earns the first year or two,’ said I, ‘but for heaven’s sake place her in a gentleman’s family, and don’t let her demean herself by takin’ service with them that hasn’t an ounce of breeding to bless themselves with. Let her be kitchen or scullery-maid or what you will, but have her with gentry.’”