“But, Pa, I can’t!” protested Lily, soaked in perspiration.
“But you’ve got to, my little lady!”
They passed from one practice to another, almost without resting. Lily was worn out, Pa seemed indefatigable.
Sometimes, practising was marked by interruptions. Maud’s gouged eye remained the typical accident. Another time, a girl lay fainting for ten minutes after falling on her head; or else the stage was invaded by a ballet. There was no end to it. On this particular day, they had a visit from Harrasford himself, Harrasford the chief and master, who came along with Jimmy; a visit which was the more sensational for being quite rare. Pa, now that he was the owner of a troupe and sure of his position, would not have been sorry to be noticed by Harrasford, just to impress Mr. Fuchs and show him what they thought of Lily in London.
“Do your best, my Lily,” said Pa. “He’s watching us.”
But bill-toppers, New Zealanders though they might be, were nobodies to “him;” Lily—one of a thousand, among all those of both sexes who performed in his theaters. There might have been ten cycling rhinoceroses on the boards; he might have seen Lily swallow her bike, and change into a butterfly: he would have paid no attention. Those were details that concerned the stage-manager. He hurried across the stage to the fly-ladder, made Jimmy explain things, took notes as he went, wanted to see for himself, pointed to the first batten, to the electric switches.
“How much for so many lamps? And that? What does that come to, roughly?”
And he stopped for a second in his course, his ear stretched toward Jimmy to catch his answer flying; then both of them went on again, quickly.
Jimmy was now following Harrasford along the bridges, with the whole stage below him, in the ruddy semi-darkness; at one side, the half-naked bodies fell with a heavy thud after their somersaults; or else it was the sharp sound of a bike skidding; and distant voices rose up to him:
“But, Pa, I can’t!”