“I am.”
Freddie cast his eyes above, but held his peace.
“I shall star Mornice in equivalent type to my own.”
“Don’t you,” repeated Manning. “If she’s a wash-out, the come-back will be twice as strong.”
“I take the risk. I am going to produce ‘A Man’s Way’ in the original form, and in every respect to rival a West-End production. I shall have wooden doors, and the scenery will be three-ply instead of canvas.”
“And I suppose you’ll have a West-End cast as well?”
Eliphalet shook his head.
“I had thought of it,” he confessed, “but I cannot go back on the Old Crowd. There will be only one newcomer besides Mornice, and that will be Mr. Ronald Knight. For the rest, the Old Cardomay Company will see Old Cardomay out. As regards booking, I shall accept the best No. 1 towns only, and shall book a three months’ tour; not at the drama houses, but at the principal theatres in every case.”
Freddie Manning tilted his bowler hat to the extreme limit of possible angles.
“Guv’nor,” he said, “God alone remembers how long we’ve been together. I was a super-boy in the crowd when you were playing juveniles; and boy, man and veteran, we’ve fought side by side in nearly every shack with footlights from Land’s End to John o’—what’s-’is-name. You’ve stuck by me fine, and I’ll stick by you to the end and past it. I’ve never openly countered a scheme of yours, though I may have pulled a few strings on the quiet; but this time I do, and as man to man, I put it down that you cut it out—right out. If the advice ain’t wanted, say so and I’ll buckle on to the new job for all I’m worth; but those are my feelings, Guv’nor, and I had to speak ’em.”