CHAPTER XXIII
"All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players."
—As You Like It.
Handy and Smith parted for the night, and then the veteran set to work to concoct one of these very remarkable programmes for which his name had become more or less famous in different parts of the country. It is true he was considerably perplexed over the difficulties that confronted him. Perplexities, difficulties, and Handy were old acquaintances, however. They had met many a time and oft in the past, and he had weathered the storm and as a rule came out a winner. It was hardly possible that his customary good fortune would desert him on this trying occasion. With the sole exception of Smith, he was absolutely unacquainted with the theatric abilities of his company or how far he could rely on them to carry into effect his stage directions. Daisey de Vere, judging from the elaborate characteristic account Smith had given of her, rather appealed to him. He felt satisfied she would fill her place in the bill of the play, come what might. She had to. From the diagnosis furnished by his lieutenant he thought she would pan out all right. He knew he wasn't going to offer an entertainment to a houseful of metropolitan first-nighters, with attendant critics from the newspapers to display their erudition next morning in cold type and hot words. He already considered Daisey as a chip of the old block.
It was well into the night when the indefatigable manager got through with his pen, which at best was a work of labor to him—and hard labor at that. It is only fair to admit that he had meager theatric resources to draw upon and be able in any way to whip it into shape to fit the exigencies of the approaching occasion. He derived considerable comforting consolation from the reflection that Gotown was virgin soil upon which he was called upon to operate theatrically. As the result of pondering with his brain and manipulating with his pen, he succeeded in evolving a draft of a programme as mixed and varied as might be expected from the all-star company gathered together at short notice for a benefit or testimonial for some popular unfortunate player—with several loopholes for such changes, alterations, additions, subtractions, multiplications, and divisions as might suggest themselves or be forced upon him later on. From the coinage of his active brain he succeeded in bringing forth and committing to paper something like the following as his programme for the inauguration and opening night of the Gotown Metropolitan Academy of Music: