Still holding the putty-like Signor by the forearm, he delicately abstracted from his clasp the huge knife, and, folding it up gravely, handed it back to him; then deliberately he turned his back on the Signor and pushed his way through the delightedly horror-stricken emotionalists who had gathered at the fray, and strolled over to where Signorina Caravaggio had stood an interested and mirth-shaken observer.
“You mustn’t think all Italians are like that, Biff,” she said, her first impulse, as always, to see justice done; “but singers are a different breed. I don’t think he’s bluffing, altogether. If he got a real good chance some place in the dark, and was sure that he wouldn’t be caught, he might use a stiletto on you.”
“If he ever does I’ll slap his forehead,” said Biff. “But say, he uses that cleaver again in the show?”
The Signorina Nora shrugged her shoulders.
“He’s supposed to stab me with it in this next act.”
“He is!” exclaimed Biff. “Well, just so he don’t make any mistake I’m going over and paste him one.”
It was not necessary, for Signor Ricardo, after studying the matter over and seeing no other way out of it, proceeded to have a fit. No one, not even the illustrious Signor, could tell just how much of that fit was deliberate and artificial, and just how much was due to an overwrought sensitive organization, but certain it was that the Signor Ricardo was quite unable to go on with the performance, and Monsieur Noire himself, as agitated as a moment before the great Ricardo had been, frantically rushed up to Biff and grabbed him roughly by the shoulders.
“Too long,” shrieked he, “we have let you be annoying the artists, by reason of the Caravaggio. But now you shall do the skidooing.”
With a laugh Biff looked back over his shoulder at the Caravaggio, and permitted Monsieur Noire to eject him bodily from the stage door upon the alley.
The next morning, owing to the prompt action and foresightedness of Spratt, all the papers contained the very pretty story that the great Ricardo had succumbed to his own intensity of emotions after the third act of Carmen, and had been unable to go on, giving way to the scarcely less great Signor Dulceo. That same morning Bobby was confronted by the first of a long series of similar dilemmas. The Signorina Caravaggio must leave the company or Signor Ricardo would do so. No stage was big enough to hold the two; moreover, Ricardo meant to have the heart’s blood of Signor Biffo de Bates-s-s-s!