“You are a whimsical fellow,” said the stranger, smiling. “Why don’t you write the play yourself?”
“I? An unread, illiterate dotard! Why, I never had so much as a day’s schooling. As a lad I slept with the rats, held horses, swept crossings and lived like a mudlark! Me write a play! I might let fall a 76 suggestion here and there; how to set a flat, or where to drop a fly; to plan an entrance, or to arrange an exit! No, no; let the shoemaker stick to his last! It takes”––with deference––“a scholar to write a drama.”
“Thus you disqualify me,” laughed the other, drawing out a pipe which he filled; and lighted with a coal held in the iron grip of the antique tongs. “If it were only to help plant a battery or stand in a gap!” he said grimly, replacing the tongs against the old brick oven at one side of the grate. “But to beset King Bacchus in three acts! To storm his castle in the first; scale the walls in the second, and blow up all the king’s horses and all the king’s men in the last––that is, indeed, serious warfare!”
“True, it will be a roundabout way to New Orleans,” continued the manager, disregarding his companion’s response, “but there is no better way of seeing the New World––that is, if you do not disdain the company of strolling players. You gain in knowledge what you lose in time. If you are a philosopher, you can study human nature through the buffoon and the mummer. If you are a naturalist, here are grand forests to contemplate. If you are not a recluse, here is free, though humble, comradeship.”
His listener gazed thoughtfully into the fire. Was the prospect of sharing this gipsy-like life attractive to him? An adventurer himself, was he drawn toward these homeless strollers, for whom the illusions of dramatic art shone with enticing luster in the comparative solitude of the circuit on the wilderness?
As he sat before the glow, the light of the burning shagbark, playing elfishly above the dying embers, outlined the stalwart, yet active figure and the impenetrable, musing features. But when, with an upward shower of sparks, the backlog fell asunder and the waning flame cast yet more gloomy shadows behind them, he leaned back in his heavy, hewn chair and again bent an attentive look upon the loquacious speaker.
“Or, if you desire,” resumed the manager after some hesitation, “it might become a business venture as well as a pleasure jaunt. Here is a sinking ship. Will the salvage warrant helping us into port; that is, New Orleans? There hope tells a flattering tale. The company is well equipped; has a varied repertoire, while Constance”––tenderly––“is a host in herself. If you knew her as I do; had watched her art grow”––his voice trembled––“and to think, sometimes I do not know where the next day’s sustenance may come from! That she”––
He broke off abruptly, gazing at his companion half-apologetically. “We players, sir,” he resumed, “present a jovial front, but”––tapping his breast––“few know what is going on here!”
“Therein,” said the younger man, emptying his pipe, “you have stated a universal truth.” He pushed a smoldering log with his foot toward the remnants of the embers. “Suppose I were so minded to venture”––and he mentioned a modest sum––“in this hazard and we patched up the play together?”