Now for my message.
[Goes out.]
ACT V
Scene: The stage of the Grosvenor Theatre. The curtain is down. Scene-shifters struggle with wrecked scenery, and Property-men carry out broken furniture. On the left, his head supported by Europa Troop, St. James's lies unconscious: two Doctors attend him. Sir Tristram, whose clothes are torn and whose face is bruised and bloody, is talking with Mark Belfry on the right. The Orchestra is playing fortissimo. Above the music an occasional whistle or cry is heard as the last of the audience leave the theatre. When the music ceases Warwick Groom enters on the left, and waits his opportunity unseen by the others.
Belfry. [Writing with a fountain-pen in a cheque-book.]
By judgment, instinct, sense and common-sense
Deserted! Stagger me, Tristram! What, what? Why,
There's reams of print on crowd-psychology,
If quarter a century of the footlights left you
Ignorant of the hickory-hearted truth
That God's the popular voice, the public mind!
[Offers Sir Tristram a cheque.]
You deal?
Sir T. [Taking the cheque.] On terms. What play must I produce?
Belfry. No terms. [Takes out his pocket-book and writes in it.]
I buy the theatre. Take Europa
To Monte Carlo, or live a decent life
At home here on the balance: it reaches that.
I want the Grosvenor.
Sir T. Do you mean—retire?
Belfry. You hit the white. The man that staged a play
To make the Lord sit up in a theatre
Is—fundamentally disqualified.
The man that stands Mark Belfry's impudence
Will take Mark Belfry's money: it never fails.
[Tears from his pocket-book the page on which he has been writing and
offers it to Sir Tristram.]
Your signature?
Sir T. [Declines the proffered document and tears up the cheque.]
No; not for twice the sum.
But treble it, and the Grosvenor Theatre's yours.
Belfry. I want the Grosvenor.
[He writes another cheque and another receipt. Sir Tristram takes the
one, endorses it, and signs the other.]
So? You don't inquire?