Mr. Manning, the stage-manager, automatically became “Freddie,” not to be confounded with Fred, which, as everyone knows, was reserved for Fred Terry.
“Freddie” was the subject of much conversation, indeed about forty per cent, of the entire output either started with “Freddie is a brick, you know,” or “Freddie is a perfect beast.”
Another twenty per cent, was given over to the doings of the call-boy, “that little devil, Sydney,” and the remaining to reminiscences of past successes, or such remarks as:
“I feel a perfect rag to-day.”
“Have you seen the show at So-and-so?”
“My dear, he was perfectly awful!”
“There was nothing but paper in the house.”
“But I always do love Marian; she makes me cry, of course.”
“She’s such a dear off the stage.” And so forth and so on.
Harmless stuff for the most part—not, as a rule, scandalous—always and without exception vapid and silly.