A corpulent gentleman with the wine-ruddy face and expansive clothes and manners of a London theatrical producer, as indeed he was, approached the two friends as they stood surveying the scene. "Would you two gentlemen care to make up a table at bridge?" he asked.
Bridge was John's favorite diversion. He played a careful, serious-minded game for pleasure rather than for profit. He looked suggestively at Rodrigo, who shrugged affirmatively. The Italian would have been happier at baccarat or some other continental game which moved more quickly than bridge. But he was willing to please, and it occurred to him that his funds would not permit his participation in baccarat as played in this smoking-room, for a few moments' observation had shown him that the stakes were very high.
The red-faced Englishman guided them over to a table near the stairway. A gaunt, pale, long-haired man was already seated there, surrounded by three tipped-up chairs. He was idly shuffling the cards and dropped them to rise as his companion reappeared. The introductions revealed that the stout Englishman was Gilbert Christy, producer of the Christy Revues, which Rodrigo was familiar with as elaborate girl-and-music shows relying upon well-drilled choruses and trick stage effects rather than cleverness for their success. The lean Englishman was Clive Derrick, leading man in Christy's current show. The Christy Revue was transporting itself overseas, after a brief and rather unremunerative engagement at Rome and Naples, to try its luck on Broadway.
"André Chariot has been filling his pockets in America," boomed Christy, whose voice was as loud as his vest. "Why not I?"
Rodrigo agreed that the chances were excellent, being too polite to explain that Charlot's divertissements were clever, while Christy was about to offer America something which Ziegfeld and other native New York producers were already doing better than anybody else in the world.
Bridge at a shilling a point with the two theatrical men did not prove exciting. The close air in the room and the dullness of the game elicited yawns from Rodrigo after a while. He envied John his ability to enjoy close concentration upon the cards, and apparently not to notice the fact that his opponents were boastful bores, as well as bad bridge players. Due to John's good work, he and Rodrigo were soon so far ahead in the scoring that the eagerness of their partners, who were bad losers and had already begun to quarrel with each other, to find an excuse to abandon the play became pointed. The excuse finally arrived in the form of a dark, pop-eyed little Englishman, who twittered up to Christy like a hesitant robin and said in a low voice, "I'll have to ask your help, Mr. Christy. Binner's bags are missing, and she is raising the devil."
Christy turned upon him wrathfully. "Go find them then. What kind of a company manager are you anyway?"
"I've looked high and low, sir, and they're not to be found. She's storming about her cabin, threatening to return on the next boat, run amuck among the company's baggage in the hold, and all that. She's in a fearful rage."
"Let her rage. God, I've had nothing but trouble with that woman ever since we left London. I might better have left her in the chorus."
"I wish you'd come, sir," the company manager urged timidly. "The other passengers are complaining."