The manager smoked contemplatively, like a man 53 pushed to the verge of disaster, weighing the slender chances of mending his broken fortunes. But as he pondered his face gradually lightened with a faint glimmer of satisfaction. His mind, seeking for a straw, caught at a possible way out of this labyrinth of difficulties and in a moment he had straightened up, puffing veritable optimistic wreaths. He arose buoyantly; before he reached the inn the crumb of comfort had become a loaf of assurance.
At the tavern the manager immediately sought mine host, stating his desire to give a number of free performances in the dining-room of the hotel. The landlord demurred stoutly; he was an inn-keeper, not the proprietor of a play-house. Were not tavern and theater inseparable, retorted Barnes? The country host had always been a patron of the histrionic art. Beneath his windows the masque and interlude were born. The mystery, harlequinade and divertissement found shelter in a pot-house.
In a word, so indefatigably did he ply arguments, appealing alike to clemency and cupidity––the custom following such a course––that the landlord at length reluctantly consented, and soon after the dining-room was transformed into a temple of art; stinted, it is true, for flats, drops, flies and screens, but at least more tenable than the roofless theaters of other days, when a downpour drenched the players and washed out the public, causing rainy tears to drip from Ophelia’s nose and rivulets of rouge to trickle down my Lady Slipaway’s marble neck and shoulders. In this 54 labor of converting the dining-room into an auditory, they found an attentive observer in the landlord’s daughter who left her pans, plates and platters to watch these preparations with round-eyed admiration. To her that temporary stage was surrounded by glamour and romance; a world remote from cook, scullion and maid of all work, and peopled with well-born dames, courtly ladies and exalted princesses.
Possibly interested in what seemed an incomprehensible venture––for how could the manager’s coffers be replenished by free performances?––Saint-Prosper that afternoon reminded Barnes he had returned from the village without fulfilling his errand.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Barnes, his face wrinkling in perplexity. “What have I been thinking about? I don’t see how I can go now. Hawkes or O’Flariaty can’t be spared, what with lamps to polish and costumes to get in order! Hum!” he mused dubiously.
“If I can be of any use, command me,” said the soldier, unexpectedly.
“You!”––exclaimed the manager. “I could not think––”
“Oh, it’s a notable occupation,” said the other with a satirical smile. “Was it not the bill-posters who caused the downfall of the French dynasty?” he added.
“In that case,” laughed Barnes, with a sigh of relief, “go ahead and spread the inflammable dodgers! Paste them everywhere, except on the tombstones in the graveyard.”