And the weeks dragged by, but no word was received from Messrs. Shingle, Wardluke, Wilfur and Combermare.
He made an effort to find a new syndicate, but oddly enough no one rose to the fly. Then Mornice approached the subject again on different lines.
“It’s all nonsense,” she said. “I’m costing you a fearful lot.” (This was not strictly true, for their weekly bills rarely exceeded two pounds.) “And there’s not the slightest reason why I should. Do let me try and get a teeny part in a film. There are two companies in Manchester, now, and if you give me an introduction I’m sure they’d have me.”
Eliphalet refused, but worried over the matter exceedingly. After all, he had promised to help her, and instead he had done nothing beyond the entertainment of his own society and the provision of a very bread-and-butter existence. He reflected that she must be considering herself worse off now than before they had met, and was probably reproaching the impetuosity that led her to play the part of daughter to an old man. It was not fair she should be pilloried on his account. So he lay awake at night and sought for a solution and when he found a way to make good his promise he set about it with characteristic zeal. From the bottom of a theatrical basket he produced a bundle of old plays—Veterans of the Road, with expired copyrights. These he sorted over, collected half-a-dozen, and dropped them into Mornice’s lap.
“Read them carefully,” he said, “and tell me which one you would like to play the most.”
In great excitement Mornice read them all, and decided on a play of the “Sweet Nancy” order.
“Good! You shall play it.”
The next move was to secure a few bookings from small Number 2 towns. This proved rather difficult, since he offered old material and an unknown cast, but by accepting very low terms the dates were secured. A company was engaged, some stock scenery hired, and three weeks later Miss Mornice June, flushed and triumphant, was starring in the “Smalls,” in a comedy “Presented by Mr. Eliphalet Cardomay.”
Presented was an appropriate word, since the receipts were so infinitesimal that it cost Eliphalet about fifteen pounds a week to keep the tour running.
As he was earning no salary at the time, he moved to a humbler lodging off the Palatine Road, and there continued the silent and unsuccessful freezing out of his syndicate.