“Do you? And what qualifications have you?”
“I’m a cook.”
“That, my good woman, will hardly help you on the stage.”
“And I’ve been to the the-a-ters with my young man—I’m keeping company with ’im ye know, and——”
“Well, well.”
“And ’e and I thinks you ain’t got the right tone of hactress for them parts. Now I’m a real cook I am, and I don’t wear them immoral ’igh ’eels, and tiny waists, I dresses respectable I do, and I’d just give the right style to the piece. My pal—she’s a parlourmaid she is—could do duchesses and them like—she’s the air she ’as—but I ain’t ambitious, I’d just like to be what I am, and show people ’ow a real cook should be played—Lor’ bless ye, sir, I don’t cook in diamond rings.”
That manager did not engage the lady; but he learnt a lesson in realism which resulted in Miss FitzClair being asked to dispense with her rings on the stage that night.
With a parting nod the “lady” said as she left the door:
“Your young man don’t make love proper neither, you should just see ’ow ’Arry makes love you should, he’d make you all sit up, I know, he does it that beautiful he do—your man’s a arf-’arted bloke ’e is, seems afraid of the gal, perhaps it’s ’er ’igh ’eels and diamonds ’e’s afraid of, eh?”
The lady took herself off.