Ha! ha! That was not bad.
Why, it was Jones’s piece, and Atlantic Jones, in great letters, was to appear in his great character of Jack Brine, the Bo’s’en of the Bay of Biscay.
Of course we went. We were there for that matter a good hour before there was any absolute necessity, and stood waiting at the doors. There weren’t many other people waiting there, by the way. There was one small boy, if I remember right. Not another soul; and at first we weren’t quite sure we had not mistaken the night. However, that was not so. The doors did open a few minutes late, and then we made a rush in all at once, paying a shilling and sixpence each all round for seats in the dress circle.
After we’d been there some little time, and the small boy had been the same time in the last seat in the pit, from which he stared up at us with his eyes and mouth wide open, we caught sight of some one peeping in a frightened kind of way round the curtain. It was Jones, and we all gave him a cheer to encourage him, and let him know we had rallied round.
He didn’t seem encouraged, but ran away again; and the money-taker, having plenty of spare time on his hands, as it seemed, came and told us to keep steady if we wanted to stop where we were.
My mates were, some of them, inclined to run rusty at the advice, for we’d done no more than make things look a bit cheerful under rather depressing circumstances, only we would not have a row with him, for Jones’s sake. After a while, one or two more people dropped in, up and down, and we were, maybe, thirty in all, when the curtain went up at last, and business began in earnest.
I’ve spent a good many roughish nights, and suffered a tidy lot in ’em, but I wouldn’t engage under a trifle for another such night as that was. I pitied poor Jones from the bottom of my heart.
You see, he was a well-meaning kind of fellow, but there wasn’t a great deal of him, and he hadn’t all the voice he might have had: and when he sang out as loud as he could, but rather squeaky, “Avast there, you land-lubbers, or I’ll let daylight into you!” someone said, “Don’t hurt ’em, sir; they mightn’t like it!”
About the end of the second act he began to show signs of being dead beat, and I sent him round a pot of stout to help him on, for I regularly felt for him. We applauded all we could, too. The pit ceiling was a sufferer that night, so I don’t deceive you; but it was no good. No one else applauded a bit. Some of them hissed. Indeed, if it had not been for my mates being my mates, and sticking to me and Jones, as in duty bound, I believe they’d have hissed, too. As it was, when the act-drop fell, and we all went out for a liquor, they weren’t over-anxious to come back again, only they did, of course.
The last act was very cruel. I think the stout had got into Jones’s head, and into his legs, too; for he was all over the stage, and, we fancied, half his time, didn’t know what he was up to. Then came the great situation, where he was to board the pirate schooner single-handed, and rescue his lady-love—and, in the name of everything that is awfully dreadful, what do you think happened to Jones then?