Lily still had the list; and the money was locked up in one of the dressing-rooms. Then it passed from mouth to mouth, like a watchword: they would give back the collection; but not in the street, not before everybody, for the honor of the profession. Lily, quite excited, entered the passage and there, in the dim light, assisted by two one-legged artistes, who called out the amounts and ticked off the names, she handed back the collection of the previous day. Some received their share with an air of furious determination; others looked shy and blushed; others, again, refused, Lily among them; and it was decided to go to the “Pros’ Corner,” or artistes’ bar, near the stage entrance, to drink up what remained: the ups and downs of life, damn it! Your turn to-day, mine to-morrow; jolly lucky not to break a leg, after all! And their gaiety returned, amid the smoke and the glasses, through a need of reaction; and, after the first drink or two, came jokes, after-dinner stories, impromptus which had traveled ten times round the world and brought tears of laughter to the eyes of the audiences in thousands of music-halls, not to speak of the second-class cabins of every ship of every line and the smoking-carriages of every train, from the G. I. P. R. of Bombay to the S. F. of Buenos Ayres.
| “Owen Moore went West one day, Owing more than he could pay. Owen Moore came back to-day— Owing more!” |
And they joined in the chorus and they sang, “We all came into this world with nothing!” and the one-legged artistes beat time with their crutches, my! the pink Hour and the scarlet Hour, who were there, got a stitch in their sides. Lily, with her head flung back, full-throated, laughed nervously. Besides, as she said, artistes did as they pleased and didn’t care a hang for anybody! All made plans for the morrow, all had been through that sort of thing before and much worse, too: six stories cleared at a bound, to escape from a theater in flames! Falls of seventy feet on one’s head! And wrecks! And waves miles high! Already they began to talk of going away, of traveling; traced the route with their finger on the table: Cape Town, Australia, the States. To listen to them, those everlasting wanderers seemed to have pretty nearly the whole world under their hands. They spoke of taking a rest at their permanent addresses: good old London; good old Manchester; there was nothing like good old England, after all, eh? They’d had enough of the Dago countries!
But enthusiasm broke out when the great news arrived, brought by some one straight from the agencies: Harrasford—“Guess, boys!”—Harrasford had bought the Bijou Theater! It was all signed and sealed. He was carrying out his program: and he wanted to open at once. For three months, it appeared, there had been a silent struggle between him and the unlucky bookmaker, who did not want to sell; and Harrasford had got it almost for nothing; he had practically won it, yesterday, at the races,—with Dare Devil, his wonderful horse. Dare Devil had beaten Cataplasm, his rival’s colt, and the smash had followed at once: the Bijou closed; a forced sale; Harrasford had bagged it; and that was one, with more to come!
The artistes were carried away by this daring stroke! Harrasford, a son of a gun, who could put them all in his pocket! The one-legged artistes fought a mock duel between France and England, the victor to marry Lily: what did they think of that? Hurrah!
“Say, boys, which is the quickest way of dropping money?”
“Fast women!”
It was grand. They drank to everybody’s health. They drank to Harrasford; they drank to the Astrarium! They counted the money on the bar-counter; the amount of the collection had been greatly exceeded and somebody suggested that it was a nice thing, upon my word, yes, a very nice thing, what they were doing: having a good time, while the Bambinis, perhaps, were going to bed without any supper! The whiskies and sodas had warmed their hearts: my turn to-day, yours to-morrow, damn it! It might happen to any of them, to hop the twig and leave Bambinis behind him.
“Lily, the hat!”