In half an hour, he had visited everything: the roof, the flies, the cellar, the auditorium, the front entrance. Workmen were hurrying everywhere. Harrasford encouraged them with a slap on the shoulder:
“Dépêchez! Faites vite!”
They were working at everything at once, from the new installation of electric light and the steam-heating apparatus, in the basement, to the emergency exits and the main lobby. Upholsterers were taking measurements in the front boxes. The sound of the hammer rang out from top to bottom, amid a cloud of dust; men climbed the scaffoldings, hoisted up things; and the sight of all this activity gave the impression of a plan thought out in advance, executed with great certainty, but incomprehensible to any one not in the secret. There could be no doubt but that the spectacle which was being prepared would be of a sensational character: even the back-wall of the stage, which was empty at that moment, had been altered. By clearing away a few dressing-rooms, they had raised the floor and ceiling of the huge property-entrance. It had been closed up at the back and fitted with a sliding door in front.
“The bird’s cage,” said Jimmy, with a smile.
“And how does he get out?” asked Harrasford.
“Windlasses here ... a rope up above ... hooks,” said Jimmy.
“Finished next week, everything’s ready, the trials have been made. It will only need a little practice, here, on the spot, calculating the effort, getting used to the distance.”
“House packed for six months!” said the manager. “Here’s a cigar to your success, Jimmy! Come and let’s have a drink at the bar; we’ll settle the program over there.”
A moment later, the two entered the bar where, a fortnight earlier, Lily had handed round the hat a second time for old Martello and his Bambinis and where the artistes, who had already dispersed toward the four corners of Europe, had raised their glasses to the success of the Astrarium. And there, in the little back room, which was deserted by the artistes, now that the theater was closed, but which would soon again be the intersecting point of so many vagabond existences ... where the nigger cake-walker from Chicago would play poker with the equilibrist from Japan ... where the profs and the bosses would exchange complaints about the strictness of the regulations concerning the work of apprentices ... where little girls, worth their weight in gold, would come, coyly, encompassed by Pas and Mas, but with glances askance at flight; in that corner where funny men would swallow mixed drinks and talk through their noses; there, under the frames containing row upon row of signed photographs of artistes: human pyramids, girls in a knot, foaming muslins, Apollos and Venuses all muscles; there, in Pros’ Corner, Harrasford, the man for whom all those people toiled and moiled, head down or feet in the air, the man from whom one thousand persons drew salaries night after night, Harrasford lit his cigar and sat down at a table with Jimmy, over a