Sans-Cravate; or, The Messengers; Little Streams

by Paul de Kock

"With pleasure; will you have some grog, or beer?"

"Thanks; if it's all the same to you, I prefer a beefsteak."

"Waiter, a beefsteak for monsieur."

"With an endless supply of potatoes."

The beefsteak was brought; Dodichet consumed it, together with two loaves of bread and three carafes of water; it was evident that the poor fellow needed recruiting. His two old friends respected his appetite, and asked no questions until he had finished.

"Messieurs," said Dodichet, "having been disinherited by my aunt, and that old fool of a Seringat having fallen into the water while running away from one of his friends who sang a song to him based on his conjugal misadventure, I had no choice but to decide upon some definite course of action. I told you a year ago that the stage was my vocation. I still think so; but I must confess that I was not wildly applauded as a tenor—I smoked a little too much on the day of my début; to cut it short, I was not fortunate at Quimper-Corentin. On my return to Paris, the dramatic agent, to whom I made known my desire to play Frédérick Lemaître's parts, told me to go at once to Carpentras, where the leading man had burst a blood vessel while chasing someone who owed him three francs fifty. So I went to Carpentras; I introduced myself to the manager with that self-assurance to which I am subject. He welcomed me joyfully, and said to me: 'We want to give an extra performance to-morrow, for the benefit of wet-nurses with no children to nurse; I mean to give Trente Ans, ou la Vie d'un Joueur, and, to end the show, I have a young man from Pithiviers, who's as good at hair-raising leaps as Léotard. Can you play Frédérick's part in Trente Ans?'—'I'll play it for you right away, if you want,' said I, with a laugh. 'Don't be alarmed; I have it at my finger tips.'—That wasn't quite true; but, as I had seen the play very often, I thought to myself: 'I know the entrances and exits; that's the main thing; when the lines escape me, I'll try pantomime, or else I'll think up something that will suit the situation.'—The manager was overjoyed; he announced his extra performance, as well as my début, and that of a second Léotard. The critical moment arrived; the theatre was full, and the receipts fabulously large for that place. They began Trente Ans, and I didn't know a single line of the rôle of Georges.—Well! I played it like an angel! The townspeople, as they didn't know the play, had no suspicion that I was substituting my own words for the author's; my fellow actors opened their eyes; but when they got confused, I pushed them so hard that they had to speak. In a word, the play came to an end amid tremendous applause; I was recalled, and acclaimed to the skies. The manager embraced me and told me that I was engaged. At that moment, a letter was handed him; it was from his acrobat, who told him that his father had summoned him to Pithiviers to help prepare an unusually large order of pies, and that he was going at once. My manager was in despair. He had promised a performance on the trapèze, and the audience expected it; if he failed to give it, they would have the right to demand their money back, and he wouldn't have given it back for anything under heaven. Seeing the manager's embarrassment, I asked him to show me what the acrobat was supposed to do. He was to run at full speed, jump through a hoop covered with paper, and come out on the other side high enough in the air to seize a rope which hung down a little beyond the hoop. 'Is that all?' I asked, with a scornful laugh; 'why, that's a mere pons asinorum! I do much more than that when I toy with gymnastics. Be calm; give me the tights, and I'll show you some jumping that will be quite equal to that of your Pithiviers tumbler!'—The manager leaped on my neck, informed me that he doubled my salary,—which did not compromise him much, as he had not as yet offered me anything,—then went and told the orchestra to play the Tartar March while I was dressing; after that, he would have an announcement to make to the audience. He went to the front of the stage, bowed, and announced that his acrobat had accidentally sprained a ligament, and that the artist who had just played the part of Georges would take his place. Everybody praised me to the skies. 'What a man!' they said; 'he takes Frédérick's rôles and Léotard's at the same time!'—Meanwhile, I was doing my utmost to get into the acrobat's flesh-colored tights. I had great difficulty, for they were terribly scant for my rotund form; however, I got into them at last. The three blows were struck; the orchestra played the triumphal march from La Muette for me; I appeared, and was greeted with uproarious applause. To show my elasticity, I executed three handsprings before the audience; at the third, I tore my tights horribly, and showed them something besides my elasticity. However, that did not deter me; and the audience, thinking that I had another costume under my tights, and that I was making a lightning change in full view, applauded all the louder. That encouraged me, excited me! I ran onto the springboard, and jumped through the paper hoop; but, meaning to seize the rope as I came down, I jumped too high, and seized nothing but one of the wings, which came tumbling to the stage with me, and the fall dislocated my knee; that put an end to the performance.

"I must do the manager justice; I had hurt myself in order to oblige him, and he had my injury attended to; the surgeon went about it so skilfully that I shall limp all my life. Thus the theatrical career was closed to me, for you can't play Buridan or Kean with a limp. By way of compensation, the manager offered me the post of prompter. I accepted. 'Prompting isn't acting,' I thought. 'But as I can't act any more, I may as well prompt! it's a theatrical post; and although the audience doesn't see you, still you're a useful member of the cast, for you sometimes play all the parts.'—So I became prompter to the troupe; I was not discontented, for, after my accident, they gave a performance for my benefit, which was quite a success. I had passed more than a month in that position, when—I may as well confess it—my fatal passion for practical jokes attacked me with more violence than ever. We had a young fellow for the lovers' parts, who claimed that he had never made a mistake in his lines. One evening, when I was in rather a merry mood, our lover was on the stage with a princess with whom the plot required him to run away; and when she said to him, weeping bitterly: 'What are you going to do with me?' he looked at me and motioned to me to help him; so I whispered: 'Oh! how you tire me!'—and the poor devil made that reply to the princess. You can imagine the effect that produced; the audience laughed and yelled, and shouted encore! and the actress who took the princess's part boxed her lover's ears, with a: 'Let that teach you not to say such things to me on the stage.'

"The jeune premier succeeded, not without difficulty, in justifying himself; it was discovered that I was the only culprit, and the result was my dismissal. I returned to Paris, where I am reduced to the necessity of prompting in what used to be the suburbs.—That's my story, and this is what I have come to!"

"Pardieu! my poor Dodichet," said Dubotté, "it would seem as if this ought to have cured you, at last, of your mania for practical jokes."

"What would you have, noble Phœbus? that seems to have been my real vocation. But here comes our fourth man. Bless my soul! he must have arrived; for he has a most radiant expression, and there's a great change in his dress as well as in his face."