CHAPTER I
WHAT DELAYED THE GREAT MAN
William, taking his character as a whole, was not of the artistic genre. He had none of the shrinking sensitiveness and delicate imaginativeness of the true artist. But the fact remains that this summer he was impelled by some inner prompting to write a play.
The idea had been growing in his mind for some time. He had seen plays acted by the village amateur dramatic society which was famous more for a touching reliance on the prompter than for any real histrionic talent.
William had considered them perfect. He had decided, after their last performance, to go on the stage. But none of his friends could inform him of the preliminary steps necessary for getting on the stage. It is true that the man in the boot-shop, whose second cousin was a scene-shifter in a provincial music-hall, had promised to use his influence, but when William was told the next week that the second cousin had been dismissed for appearing in a state of undeniable intoxication and insisting on accompanying the heroine on to the stage, he felt that all hopes from that direction must be abandoned. It was then that he had the brilliant idea. He would write a play himself and act in that.
William had great confidence in his own powers. He had no doubts whatever of his ability to write a play and act in it. If he couldn't go on the stage he'd go on a stage. Surely no one could object to that. All he'd want would be some paper and ink and a few clothes. Surely his family—bent as they always were on clouding his moments of purest happiness—couldn't object to that?
"Jus' ink an' paper an' a few ole clothes," he said wistfully to his mother.
She eyed him with a mistrust that was less the result of a suspicious nature than of eleven years' experience of her younger son.
"Won't pencil do?" she said.
"Pencil!" he said scornfully. "Did—did Shakespeare or—or the man wot wrote 'The Red Gang'—well, did they write in pencil?"