“I will!” he cried. “I will!”
“Good,” said his lordship, with satisfaction. “That’s a bargain. Coming downstairs, Pitt, old man? We shall be wanted on the stage in about half a minute.”
“As an antidote to stage-fright,” said Jimmy, as they went along the corridor, “little discussions of that kind may be highly recommended. I shouldn’t mind betting that you feel fit for anything.”
“I feel like a two-year-old,” assented his lordship enthusiastically. “I’ve forgotten all my part, but I don’t care. I’ll just go on and talk to them.”
“That,” said Jimmy, “is the right spirit. Charteris will get heart disease, but it’s the right spirit. A little more of that sort of thing and amateur theatricals would be worth listening to. Step lively, Roscius; the stage waits.”
★ 28 ★
Spennie’s Hour of Clear Vision
Mr. McEachern sat in the billiard-room smoking. He was alone. From where he sat he could hear distant strains of music. The more rigorous portion of the evening’s entertainment, the theatricals, was over, and the nobility and gentry, having done their duty by sitting through the performance, were now enjoying themselves in the ballroom. Everybody was happy. The play had been quite as successful as the usual amateur performance. The prompter had made himself a great favourite from the start, his series of duets with Spennie having been especially admired, and Jimmy, as became an old professional, had played his part with great finish and certainty of touch, though, like the bloodhounds in the performance of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” on tour, he had had poor support. But the audience bore no malice.
No collection of individuals is less vindictive than an audience at amateur theatricals. It was all over now. Charteris had literally gibbered in the presence of eye-witnesses at one point in the second act, when Spennie, by giving a wrong cue, had jerked the play abruptly into Act III (where his colleagues, dimly suspecting something wrong, but not knowing what, had kept it for some two minutes, to the mystification of the audience); but now even he had begun to forget. As he two-stepped down the room the lines of agony on his face were softened. He even smiled.
As for Spennie, the brilliance of his happy grin dazzled all beholders.
He was still wearing it when he invaded the solitude of Mr. McEachern. In every dance, however greatly he may be enjoying it, there comes a time when a man needs a meditative cigarette apart from the throng. It came to Spennie after the seventh item on the programme. The billiard room struck him as admirably suitable in every way. It was not likely to be used as a sitting out place, and it was near enough to the ballroom to enable him to hear when the music of item No. 9 should begin.