“And ’ow are you going to make ’im do that?” inquired Mr. Tridge, with every faith in his old shipmate’s commercial omnipotence.
“Ah, I ain’t thought quite so far as that yet,” confessed Mr. Dobb. “All I’ve fixed in my mind is that ’e’s going to give me thirty-five quid for that shandyleary. It’s old Joe Bindley, that retired builder chap, what’s the noo proprietor, you know. ’E bought up the theayter cheap, as a speckylation, and ’e reckons to make a big success out of it. You ought to ’ear ’im talk about what ’e’s going to do at ’is theayter! Anyone might think that the next war was going to be perdooced there as a front piece to the big play of the evening.”
“I see ’e’s starting with a month’s hengagement, straight off, of the world-famous hactress, Miss Margureety Delafayne,” observed Mr. Tridge, studying a printed announcement on his wall. “’Oo’s she, anyway? It’s the first time I’ve ’eard of ’er.”
“Ah, she’s one of the good-old-might-’ave-been-p’r’apsers,” Mr. Dobb somewhat ungallantly informed him. “Not that she ain’t still a fine figure of a woman, far as golden ’air and a sealskin coat and light blue satin goes. But hact? Oh, dear me, no! It’s more like a fit of the dismals that hacting. Bindley reckons she’s going to get all the neighbourhood into the reg’lar ’abit of coming to ’is theayter. She’s more likely to cure ’em of the ’abit, to my way of thinking.”
“You’ve seen ’er, then?”
“I paid to see ’er hact once, at Yarmouth. I’ve always reckoned I’ve been three pints out from that day to this. Well, I’m off now to fix up with old Sam Clark.”
“Meet you outside the show at seven-thirty,” said Mr. Tridge. “Mind you ain’t late.”
“I never am late,” replied Mr. Dobb simply, “when there’s something for nothing.”
Thus it was ordained, and thus it came about that a few hours later, four contiguous seats at the Shorehaven Theatre were occupied by that old-established fellowship of graduates from the baneful academy of the “Jane Gladys.” From the time of their processional entry to the rising of the curtain on the play, each of the quartet expressed his individuality in his customary manner.
Mr. Horace Dobb, reflecting very patently the prosperity of the little shop he had married, leaned back in his seat with an air of bored patronage and made great play with a ring which, when happily it caught the light at a certain elusive angle, gleamed quite visibly. Mr. Joseph Tridge, wearing something new and very arrestive in the way of check suitings, could not but be correspondingly sportive and genial in the truculent, domineering manner. Mr. Peter Lock, trim and brisk and debonair as ever, maintained a joyous flow of scandal about such of the attendance present as had their secret histories discussed in the billiard-room of the “Royal William.” And the plump and venerable Mr. Samuel Clark, his rubicund face aglow with happiness in the reunion, beamed impartially on all around him, and with a conspicuous, festooning forefinger, beat time to the orchestra’s overture.