At ten years old, people are generally found more interesting than scenery, and Basil took a great interest in the variety entertainers. They looked so smart and debonair, he thought, in their blue reefers, white duck trousers, and gold-laced yachting caps—though they none of them ever put out to sea. There were five of them altogether, two ladies and three men. Basil did not care so much about the ladies, in spite of the rows of Chinese lanterns that outlined the little stage and shone so pink in the darkness; there seemed no glamor or mystery about them. They were not transcendently beautiful like the gauzy good fairy of pantomime, or the peerless, fearless circus lady in pink and spangles: neither did they possess the mirth-provoking qualities of the dauntless three clad in yatching garb. One always sang sentimentally of “daddies,” or “aunties,” or “chords,” that had somehow gone amissing; and the other—Basil almost disliked that other—sang about things he could in nowise understand, in a hoarse voice, and danced in between the verses, and she didn’t dance at all prettily, for she had thick ankles and high shoulders.
But the three “naval gentlemen,” as Basil respectfully called them, sang funny songs, and acted and knocked each other about in such fashion as caused him almost to roll off his chair in fits of ecstatic mirth. Nearly every fine night after dinner, if nobody wanted him, Harnet, the tall man-servant, would take Basil, and they sat on two chairs in the front row and listened to the entertainment. Sometimes grandfather himself would come, but he generally went to sleep in his chair at home; for when a man goes peel-fishing all day, walking half a dozen miles up the rocky bank of a Devonshire trout stream to his favorite pool, he is disinclined to move again, once he has changed and dined.
The bulk of the audience attending the Alfresco Entertainment sat on the wall separating shore from road, or on the curbstone, but there were always a few chairs placed directly facing the stage, which were charged for at sixpence each. Harnet was far too grand and dignified to sit on either wall or curbstone, and as grandfather always gave Basil a shilling to put in the cardboard plate, Harnet preferred to spend it in this wise.
Now all that company had high-sounding, aristocratic names, except one, who was called, as Basil said, “just simply Mr. Smith.” There was Mr. Montmorency, the manager, whose cheeks were almost as blue as his reefer, and his wife, the lady who danced in the evening, but in the daytime affected flowing tea-gowney garments and large flat hats; there was Mr. Neville Beauchamp, who sang coster songs, to whom the particular accent required for this sort of ditty really seemed no effort, as all his songs were given in similarly pronounced and singular fashion. The lady of the melancholy ballads was called De Vere; she looked thin and young and generally cold, as well she might, for she played everyone’s accompaniments, and never wore a coat, however cold the night. But it was for Mr. Smith that Basil felt most enthusiasm. In the first place, his speaking voice was as the voices of “grandfather’s friends.” In the second, he was, to Basil’s thinking, an admirable actor—changing face and voice, even his very body, to suit the part he happened to be playing; and thirdly, he was funny—funny in a way that Basil understood. Even grandfather laughed at Mr. Smith and applauded him, and when the cardboard plate went round, he sent Basil with the first bit of gold they had had that season.
“Clever chap that,” he said as they strolled homeward under the quiet stars. “Reminds me of someone somehow—looks like a broken-down gentleman; got nice voice, and nice hands—wonder what he’s doing with that lot?”
Basil, however, was quite content to admire Mr. Smith without concerning himself as to his antecedents. He forthwith christened him “the jokey man,” and it rather puzzled him that, except at night, the jokey man was hardly ever with the others, but went wandering about by himself in an aimless and somewhat dismal fashion. Could it be that Mr. Montmorency and Mr. Neville Beauchamp were proud, Basil wondered, because they had such fine names.
Basil’s face was as round as a full moon, and fresh and fair as a monthly rose. Tall and well set up, he was good at games, and keen on every kind of sport. Long days did he spend up the river with his grandfather fishing for trout—he was to have a license for peel next summer, but had to be content with trout during this. He went sea-fishing, too, in charge of a nice fisherman called Oxenham, and caught big pollock outside the bay, and every morning Oxenham rowed Basil and Harnet out from the shore that they might have their morning swim, for the coast is so rocky and dangerous that bathing from the land is no fun at all—though the rocks are very nice to potter about on at low tide, when energetic persons can find prawns in the pools.
One day as Basil was busily engaged in this pursuit, who should come up behind him but the jokey man, looking as melancholy as though there was no sunshine, or blue water, or pleasant pools full of strange sea beasts. Indeed, although he was by profession such an amusing man, he had by no means a cheerful face. Tired lines were written all round his eyes, his shoulders were bent, and his long slim hands hung loose and listless at his sides, yet it was plain that he was by no means old. Moreover, he had changed his smart yachting suit for an old tweed coat and knickerbockers, and a grey billycock dragged over his eyes bereft his appearance of all traces of the jokey man. So that for a minute or two Basil did not know him, even although he sat down on a rock close by and lit his pipe.
Basil was standing bare-legged and knee-deep in water in pursuit of a particularly active and artful shrimp, so that it was only when he at last lifted his head with an emphatic “bother,” that he noticed the stranger; then he beamed, for chance had tossed plump into his lap the opportunity he had long been seeking.
“How do you do?” the little boy inquired politely, taking off his muffin cap with one wet hand while he grasped his net with the other. “I am so pleased to have met you; I’ve wanted to for ever so long.”