It was Kemmel who again brought it home to him.
"I'm keeping the orchestra for you to run over the Guv'nor's songs again with them," he said. "You sing them good enough, but the leader says you crowd the overture, and sometimes get ahead of him."
There are no people in the world so unmurmuring as actors; they will rehearse till their voices crack and their legs drop off, and all this, too often, under volleys of insults and reproaches. Adair had played two performances that day, and was worn out and hungry; yet it never occurred to him to make any objection to such an unexpected order. The poor, weary orchestra was there, as hungry and worn out as he, but as willing as every one connected with the stage seems always to be; they scraped and tootled and drummed and bassooned for two mortal hours, from a quarter past eleven till after one A.M., while Adair sang Irish melodies to the darkened house. O'Dowd himself, in a stage-box, was the solitary though far from silent spectator. Cigar in mouth, profane, morose and savagely critical, he bellowed furiously from his dark crimson cave.
"No, no, no, no! Hell's bells, do that again! At the second verse there now! For God's sake, Mr. Glauber, emphasize the key-note, boom it out on that first cornet so he can't miss it, and lam it in again on the minor. The minor! The minor, damn it! And, oh Lord, Adair, call that a brogue? Hell's bells, it's because you're in such a hurry--Glauber will wait for you--damn it, give it again, let it stick to your teeth--like this: 'Of owl the ma-a-a-a-ids of swate Kilda-a-a-a-rrr--'"
Adair had an unusually tuneful voice, and the middle register of his rather high baritone was full of warmth and charm. These catchy melodies appealed to him, and the sentiment was of a downright, popular kind. One rollicked the humor and quavered the pathos, and either put in brogue or didn't as one remembered or forgot it. As a matter of fact--except for the brogue--he did the songs more justice than the great O'Dowd himself, and sang them more sweetly and appealingly. He had no conception of it that night, however, as he was hectored and bullied without cessation until his eyes smarted, and his bewildered head was whirling. He had a whipped feeling as he went off, and a corroding sense of defeat and failure. It was idiotic to expect him to sing, and now that he had been tested and found wanting he hoped the silly goats would leave him alone.
He turned as he was putting on his overcoat in the wings, and saw that one of the silly goats had followed him. It was Mr. Kemmel, more bleared and bleak than ever, and evidently with something disagreeable to say.
"Oh, Adair," he exclaimed in a low voice, "hold on a minute, I want to talk to you. I've called a full rehearsal for to-morrow at nine o'clock, orchestra and all--for you'll have to go on in the Guv'nor's place to-morrow night!"
"I go on?--I?" Adair was thunderstruck. "What do you mean, Kemmel?"
"Just that."
"But he's as well as I am."