“If I’d had the gift of the gab,” said the man’s neighbour, “I could have made a fortune.”
Erb stepped out near to the footlights and gave his peroration in an impassioned manner that had the useful note of sincerity. Those in the theatre, who were sympathisers, rose and cheered like a hurricane; the rest, not to be left out of a gratifying show of emotion, joined in, and Spanswick, the hero of the evening, as he rose from his chair to say a few words, might have been a leading politician, a general who had rescued his country from difficulties, or an exceptionally popular member of the Royal Family, instead of a railway carman of third-rate excellence with a notable wife.
Spanswick said this was the proudest moment of his life. Spanswick would never forget that night: useless for anybody to ask him to do so. If people should come to Spanswick and invite him to erase that evening from his recollection, he would answer definitely and decidedly, “Never!” So long as memory lasted and held its sway, so long would he guarantee to keep that evening in mind, and carry remembrance with him. Thus Spanswick, in a generous way that suggested he was doing a noble and spontaneous act, and one for which the audience should be everlastingly grateful. Payne, as Chairman, rose, and ignoring a suggestion from the gallery that he should dance a hornpipe, led the group off, the members looking shyly across at the audience, and the audience howling indignantly at one of the men who replaced his hat before getting off.
“Were you nervous, Erb?” asked Louisa excitedly. “I was. Nearly fainted, didn’t I?”
“Oh, don’t talk,” whispered her lady-companion, enchanted by the commencement of Act Four. “Don’t talk, please, when there’s such beautiful things going on.”
Mr. Railton had nothing to do in the last act, the dramatist having apparently felt that the thin vein of humour which had been struck in the character was by this time exhausted, and Rosalind looked with anxiety at the curtained doorway of the circle, but Mr. Railton did not appear during the last act, and he was not in the vestibule below when the audience poured out into Blackfriars Road. She was very silent on this, and when Erb saw her into a tram she shook hands without a word. Going back to assist Louisa’s young man in the task of escorting the two other ladies, he found himself intercepted by Mr. Lawrence Railton—Railton, in an astrachan bordered coat, and well wrapped around the throat, giving altogether the impression that here was some rare and valuable product of nature that had to be specially protected.
“I want you!” said the young man.
“You’ll have to want,” said Erb brusquely, and going on.
“But it concerns the girl you were speaking of.”
“Where can we go?” asked Erb, stopping.