“Well, it’s to that chance I spoke of,” he said, confidentially. “Look here—I’ve an engagement for a tour down to the Midland counties. The pay isn’t very wonderful, to start with; but I’m to have more if we do good business, you know; and I’ve stipulated that we do a nautical drama, and I play Jack Brine—that’s the sailor hero, you know—myself.”
“What makes you want to play a sailor? I suppose you’ve done it before, and made a hit?”
“Well—no; I can’t say I’ve ever tried it. But nautical pieces used to be a tremendous go once, and are so still down in some parts of the country, and—There! I’ve got it in me, I’m certain—I feel it here!”
And he tapped the breast of a dilapidated sham sealskin waistcoat as he spoke, and knit his brows with determination.
“But you haven’t told me yet how I can be of service to you,” said I.
“Well,” he said, “look here! This is one of the acts of the piece I’m going to do. I’ve done it myself—faked it up, you know, pulling in the best bits from one or two others; but that’s nothing—and it’ll go immense! It’s cram-full of business, and the situations are tremendous!”
“It ought to go, if that’s the case.”
“It’s a certainty, dear boy! It can’t help it! But there’s just one thing about it, do you know, that makes me uncomfortable, and that’s where you can help me.”
“And that is—”
“You see, I’m not a nautical man myself. It was very odd of you to take me for one right off! Of course, I can put it on pretty well when I like; but if you want the real honest truth, I never even saw the sea in all my life—never been nearer to it than Rosherville; and as I don’t happen to be personally acquainted with any nautical men, the fact is I’m not quite certain there is not a screw loose up and down in the words. Of course I’m all right in the shiver my timbers and douse my pig-tails parts; but it’s when you get reefing your jib-boom and hugging the shore with your lee-scupper that you don’t feel altogether as if you’d got your sea-legs on. Look here, I’d like to go through the thing with you quietly, and you can tell me where it isn’t quite right.”