CHAPTER XIX
"Experience is a great book, the events of life its chapters."
—Sainte-Beuve.
By eight o'clock the house was well filled. The signboard bearing the legend, "Standing Room Only" was put out in front to catch a few more. It was such an audience as would make any manager's heart rejoice. The curtain rose promptly on the first act. To say the act went off tamely would be simply admitting the truth. Camille was not only uncertain in her lines, but she was suffering from a bad attack of stage fright. Were it not for extraordinary exertions on the part of the principal members of the company—a confidence acquired of long experience—the star of the evening would have twinkled out of existence and "Camille" would have been presented in one act instead of five. The unfortunate "angel" realized for the first time in her life, possibly, that the calling she had selected to adopt was not all her fancy had painted it. The so-called coaching and training she had paid for proved of little or no practical value. She was Camille only in costume—if in that; the Camille of the dressmaker—nothing more. The audience, moreover, were not slow in recognizing this fact also. That day has gone by, apparently, when tyros may sally forth from the city and win country audiences with fine dresses, pretty faces, cheek, and inexperience. The theatre-going public knows the trick. The days of such barn-storming are passing away.
Mr. Fogg, who was the Armand, did not make a profound impression. The part suited him like an ill-fitted garment, and he felt it. The realization of that fact took all the vim out of him. If the real truth was known, he, no doubt, wished himself back in his little second-story back in the big city, gossiping of what he might, but could not, do if he had the chance. Handy was cast for the part of the Count de Varville. He was not great in the character, but he could wrestle with it. Was there a role in the whole range of the English drama he would decline to take a fall out of if circumstances demanded?
"Say, you'll have to throw more ginger into the part, old fellow," said Handy, as the hero of the carmine blouse of benefit memory walked across the stage, looking very disconsolate after the first act. Neither he nor the star received the slightest applause during their scenes.
"Wait until the fourth act, the great act of the piece," replied Fogg, "and I'll fetch 'em. You just watch me."
"All ready for the second act," cried out the call-boy. A few seconds later the curtain went up and the play proceeded. Nothing of particular moment transpired during the act. The audience sat through it as tamely as if listening to a funeral sermon. Camille was painfully tame; Armand as harmless a lover as any respectable parent could desire. The remainder of the cast, influenced, no doubt, by the shortcomings of the principals, became listless and merely walked through their parts as they spoke their lines.
At the close of the act a number of people left the house. They evidently had had enough and did not care for more. The "angel" also had had enough of "Camille," and wished the whole thing was over. Fogg also had had enough of Armand, and mentally avowed that never again would he undertake a stage lover to an "angel" without experience. In passing, it may be added that an experienced "angel" would not accept Fogg for a Claude at any price. Handy had enough of both of them, with something to spare. In desperation he even expressed regret he did not have a hack at Armand himself and infuse some life into it. If he had there would have been fun, for Handy's lovers were fearfully and wonderfully made.