There is nothing like irritability for getting the worst out of a company—not so much because they resent it as because it makes them nervy and distracts their thoughts.
On the day he had his hair cut he felt that his strength had departed indeed.
He had arranged that there would be dress-rehearsals for a week, that the company might become accustomed to their clothes. The first of these depressed him as nothing had ever done before. The women’s gowns had cost nearly two hundred and fifty pounds, and, beautiful as they were, they looked woefully out of place on the backs of the Old Cardomay Company. Mellish, who had done his best to achieve the outward appearance of a man-about-town, cut a pathetic figure, despite the variety of his checks. He gave the effect of being arrayed in his Sunday suit, and wore a buttonhole of daffodils in the second act. Eliphalet was conscious of something amiss with most of them, but could not lay his finger on the point of offence. On the whole, the extravagances of wardrobe seemed to cause their wearers added uneasiness, and a more ungainly performance he had never beheld.
“What do you think, Manning?” he asked, tentatively, when the curtain fell on the last act.
“Fine,” was the stony rejoinder.
“That’s a lie,” said Eliphalet very softly.
“You’re right, Guv’nor; it is.”
“And the truth?”
“They’re all adrift—’cept you. They’ll drown you between ’em.”
Eliphalet seized him savagely by the arm, and cried: