The Merry Marauders

by Arthur J. Rees

  Then the applause came—a veritable tornado. In response to it the curtain went up again and revealed——

  The dead child sitting upright on his death-bed with his mouth applied to a bottle of whiskey.

  It was Mr. Morrissey, with a semi-drunken professional instinct to save a bad situation, who precipitated the disastrous climax. Almost before the stupefied audience could take in the incongruous spectacle, Mr. Morrissey realised that some one had given a ‘raise curtain’ signal at the wrong moment, and in an endeavour to ‘gag’ over the ghastly mistake he sprang in front of his resurrected daughter and exclaimed, in stentorian tones that were punctuated by hiccups:

  “Wife! wife! Look, and thank heaven! Our little one is recovering and TAKING HER MEDICINE QUITE NATURALLY!”

  Then he added to the wing, in a hissing ‘aside’ that was heard almost as distinctly:

  “The curtain, you——fool. Quick, QUICK!”

  And the curtain fell again slowly—oh, so slowly—amid the loud coarse laughter of the row of fat men, and the indignant exodus of the members of the Wanaunga No-License Association.

  We didn’t play the last act of Ten Nights in a Bar Room, What was the use when there was no audience left to play it to? Besides—it grieves me to say it—I doubt whether some of the members of our company would have been in a fit state to appear. Mr. Morrissey certainly wasn’t. When I got behind he had Mr. Abel Baggpott at the rear of the stage, and, with the assistance of that scoundrel Carrer, was endeavouring to force the President of the Young Water-Wagonites Bond to drink some whiskey from the bottle. Even in this trying position Abel preserved his solemn immovable mask, but terror gleamed from his little eyes. Before I had time to rescue him, his father, who must have followed me behind, dashed to his aid.

  Then Mr. Adam Baggpott turned to me. It was a painful interview. The contretemps admitted of no compromise. I saw that at once.

  Next day the Merry Marauders were on the road again.

  Yours, pessimistically,

  VAL.

  XIII

  ROTORUA,

  NORTH ISLAND, N.Z.

  12th April, 1913.

  MY DEAR DICK:

  Once more the Merry Marauders find themselves at Rotorua, which, at the present moment, is in the throes of one of its periodic thermal outbreaks, consequent upon the eruption of one of the many volcanoes in the district. Although this alarming manifestation of primeval nature (as the local newspaper terms it) has caused most of the visitors and globe-trotters to flee in terror back to Auckland, the place—to me, at all events—seems quiet and peaceful and restful after that last night in Wanaunga.

  The landlord of the hotel, where we had previously stayed on our way through to the East Coast, gladly offered us his best suite of rooms at a reduced rate, for, as he gloomily said, it didn’t look as though the earthquake was going to put any money into his pocket—quite the contrary.

  “The whole blessed crowd of excursionists staying here took fright and did a ‘get’ back to town yesterday when they heard that an English tourist had gone up in the Weimero Geyser with one of the Maori guides,” he grumbled. “But what else do you expect when they poked their noses right into the thing, although they had been warned that it might go off at any moment. And go off it did at that particular instant, like a million bottles of soda-water. They went up in ‘the pop,’ and haven’t come down—at least, as far as I am aware, but I haven’t seen the evening paper yet.”

  I was sorry for the landlord’s plight, but sorrier still for our own, for we had been buoyed up with the hope of playing a short successful season at Rotorua. However, it was no use regretting the inevitable, so I withdrew to the comfortable room the hotel-keeper had provided for my accomodation, in as cheerful a frame of mind as my philosophy could summon for the occasion. There I settled down to a perusal of that classic work, the Government Guide Book of New Zealand, by the light of the distant volcano. I had just reached a brave passage wherein the writer asserted that ‘no one who spends a week in this place (Rotorua) of soft and soothing hot baths, charming land and water-scapes, and boiling fountains, but resolves at first opportunity to return to it again for an easy and lazy holiday, and was ruefully reflecting how truly the last few words applied to the Merry Marauders, when the door opened, and Barney and Mr. Baker appeared.

  They had come, they said, to discuss the future prospects of the Merry Marauders. What did I propose to do?

  So utterly disgusted was I with the events that had led up to the Wanaunga catastrophe, and the futility of all our efforts to scramble up the slippery path that led to level prosperity, that I expressed myself in favour of expending our small capital in railway fares to take the company back to Auckland, where they might follow their several inclinations. Mr. Carrer I had summarily dismissed at Wanaunga, and left to find his way back to civilization as best he could—or settle in Wanaunga.

  Barney and Mr. Baker were plainly disconcerted by my anger. They earnestly endeavoured to dissuade me from my intention of disbanding such a clever company as the Merry Marauders. Their idea was to husband the small capital we had so painstakingly accumulated by playing the whole of the way back to Auckland, and from there to embark on an extended tour of the Auckland Province, extending right up to the North Cape. Barney, ever fruitful of expedients, thought we should take advantage of the present upheaval of thermal activity to play Macbeth in a tent pitched over one of the principal geysers, so as to have a natural setting for the witches’ cauldron scene. He was of opinion that all the people left in Rotorua would flock to see such a weird attraction.

  I considered that the scared remnant of sightseers would be more likely to keep as far from the geysers as possible while the present volcanic outbreak continued. Nor was I in favour of the suggested tour to the North of Auckland. I was fully aware that the Merry Marauders were in many respects an exceedingly meritorious company, but, through artistic exuberance of temperament, or managerial incapacity, or unpropitious fate—probably a little of each—their luck was not good and their chances of ultimate success small.

  Mr. Baker rallied me on my pessimism, which he attributed to the thermal activity unfavourably affecting my liver—a very common complaint, he said, till one became acclimatised to the Rotorua atmosphere. With the invincible optimism that characterises this remarkable man, he gradually won me round to a better way of thinking (as he called it), and I began to take a more cheerful view of our situation. I even promised to entertain the North of Auckland proposal favourably, though against the promptings of my better judgment, which whispered that the Merry Marauders had been altogether too sinisterly unlucky to undertake more extended ramblings without some significant token of concession from Fate. I also found it very hard to forgive Mr. Morrissey for his share in the Wanaunga disaster. I pointed out that his ridiculous remark about the ‘medicine’ had exaggerated, and intensified, and drawn particular attention to a dreadful blunder that might otherwise have been partly glossed over, if not entirely extenuated.

  “Therein I entirely disagree with you,” replied Mr. Baker, in an oracular tone. “Morrissey acted like a true artist in trying to save a bad situation. You must remember that an unsophisticated set of water-drinking noodles would by no means place the same interpretation on ‘taking her medicine’ that a city audience, accustomed to use the expression as a slang equivalent to drinking beer, would. No; the play was irretrievably damned when Carrer was discovered drinking whiskey out of a bottle, and Morrissey, in endeavouring to save such a hopelessly bad situation, merely obeyed the automatic instinct that rises in the breast of every actor worth his salt, in similar circumstances. Unfortunately, there are some stage situations so hopeless that not even the readiest-witted actor can save them.”

  “By Jove, there are!” remarked Barney. “I remember playing East Lynne once with a local amateur in the cast. He had to twirl his stick and remark in a debonair tone to Miss Corney: ‘Well, ta-ta, Miss Corney; be sure when you get home to look und
er the bed and see if there’s a man there.’ Instead of that the fool, suffering from stage fright, blurted out: ‘Ta-ta, Miss Corney; be sure when you get home to look under the man and see if there’s a bed there.’ Now, who could have saved that situation?”

  “Nobody,” assented Mr. Baker. “You have aptly illustrated the very point I wished to illustrate.”

  “Oh, I could provide you with a whole portfolio of pictures in that line,” returned Barney. “A couple of years ago I was visiting a place called Waipu on the East Coast—a place remarkable for Scotchmen, for the amount of whiskey consumed in a town supposed to be prohibition settlement, and for a harbour bar so shallow that visiting steamers have to be dragged across the mouth of the river with ropes.”

  “You needn’t tell me anything about Waipu,” interrupted Mr. Baker. “The last time I was in the place I had to clean my teeth with whiskey, because the Caledonian Club had commandeered the only jug of water in the whole place to keep the Scotch thistles blooming till the next ‘Nicht wi’ Burns’ happened along. Still, I will say this for the Scotch inhabitants—they never seem to miss the water. The whole town was thriving marvellously in spite of a prolonged water famine.”

  “Then you will readily understand, knowing the place, why we staged a play called The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond up there. The success of this play, which was written for me by a stranded Irishman in Auckland, who ran aground in that charming city through expending all his funds in a vain attempt to establish a Wolf Tone Club in the Orange suburb of Ponsonby, depended entirely on an interpolated female character, called Jean McNab, who was advertised as a top-biller to sing the dear old Scotch songs—‘Loch Lomond,’ ‘Annie Laurie,’ ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ and all the rest of the stuff that makes a Scotchman feel sentimental after two or three whiskies. We had Jack Hibbard, the male soprano, doing the part of the Scotch girl, and he quite won the hearts of those hardy Scots of Waipu the first night with his girlish face well powdered, a golden wig, and a dainty evening gown. They blew him kisses again and again, and called him a braw Scotch lassie. But the next night Jack went on dressed in a hurry, and although he had hastily turned down his soft shirt to allow for his decolleté evening dress, he had forgotten all about his suspenders, and when he went on with the braces showing on his bare shoulders I thought there would have been a riot. I had to refund admission money to 313 Scots.”

  “That’s the reverse side of the medal,” commented Mr. Baker. “On the other side is the noble way in which many bad situations have been pulled together by the very dramatic instinct to which our friend Valentine objects. I recall a very fine instance of this. We were playing The Lancashire Lass, and the comedian, who enacted ‘A Party by the Name of Johnson,’ went out at the end of the third act with a friend—and forgot to come back. Consequently, at the thrilling moment when the villain, about to attack the hero, falls to Johnson’s fire—there was no report. Quick as a flash, our villain sized up the situation. Turning his back on the audience he loudly ejaculated ‘Bang!’ and fell a prostrate victim to the timely intervention of his own fire. The grand climax of the play, you will recollect, then occurs, by Johnson appearing on the scene in reply to the hero’s query as to who fired the shot, and bringing down the curtain by remarking, ‘A Party by the Name of Johnson.’ Of course, in Johnson’s absence such a climax was impossible, but our hero was just as resourceful of expedient as the now dead villain. ‘Who fired that providential shot?’ he exclaimed, following the book lines so far. There was, of course, no reply from the absent Johnson. ‘It’s a party by the name of Johnson,’ he went on, shading his eyes with his hand as he looked towards the stage horizon; ‘I see him running down the street now.’ Thus was an extremely awkward situation saved by the ready wit that Valentine would eliminate from our profession!”

  It was beginning to dawn on me that I might have done Mr Morrissey a great injustice, so, in order to make complete amends, I expressed my willingness to overlook his action in trying to force a bottle of whiskey down Mr. Abel Baggpott’s throat, provided he, on his part, expressed contrition for his ungentlemanly behaviour.

  “Now, that’s handsome and manly of you,” replied Mr. Baker, not without emotion; “and here’s my hand—Dan Baker’s honest hand. Morrissey shall apologise to you for his ungentlemanly conduct if you wish it, but in my opinion he should have hit that scoundrel Baggpott on the head with the bottle instead of pressing it to his serpent’s lips! Do you know that young Baggpott attempted to kiss Miss Bendalind in the wings under cover of the darkness?”

  I was surprised to learn that the solemn young president of the Young Water-Wagonites had shown so much enterprise, and I asked Mr. Baker whether he had seen him in the act.

  “No,” replied Mr. Baker. “Miss Bendalind told me herself. She came to me in a very agitated state immediately afterwards, and put herself under my protection—you know she looks upon me as a father. She placed an embargo of secrecy on my lips till we were well away from Wanaunga, for she thought murder would be done if it came to Mr. Morrissey’s ears. Those two cherish a hopeless passion for one another.”

  “Why don’t they get married, then, instead of suffering the pangs of unrequited affection, and what is worse, calling upon other people to sympathise with them?” I said testily, for I was sick of a story that I had heard several times before.

  Mr. Baker looked at me reproachfully. “It would never do for those two strong, self-willed souls to marry,” he said. “The clash of temperaments would be too terrific. Besides, there’s a wife in the way. Morrissey has a wife.”

  “I never knew that,” I remarked with surprise.

  “No. It’s a sad story, better forgotten. Morrissey has lived it down, but the lady still exists—in a Sydney suburb. She was a widow when Irving wedded her—a widow without a soul. She kept a shop, and tried to drag Morrissey down to her level. Wanted him to go round in the cart for orders! Never refer to the subject in Morrissey’s presence. The wound still festers.”

  I said I wouldn’t, and then, to turn the subject from Mr. Morrissey’s affairs of the heart, which didn’t interest me, I suggested we should go into the itinerary of the North of Auckland tour, to see how far it was feasible with our limited capital.

  “No,” returned Mr. Baker, in a very loud voice; “we will not go into that to-night, nor yet to-morrow night. I wanted to see you look at things in a proper and hopeful light before telling you the good news that the luck of the Merry Marauders has definitely and decidedly turned. When I got here to-day there was a registered letter awaiting my arrival. That letter was from a good old friend Charlie Goverson, telling me that his luck had turned at last, and that he had been appointed managing director of the new theatrical syndicate which next week opens new theatres in Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, and Wellington, with a very liberal allowance for expenses in order to cut out the existing Australian syndicate. And Charlie, in the goodness of his heart, has sent me a £50 note in payment of a small loan I made him, many, many years ago, with liberal interest added, God bless him! He has further offered me the billet of advance man if I will return to Auckland at once. Now, the Merry Marauders are going to have a much needed holiday as my guests here for a couple of days, and then the balance of the money goes into the common stock to help us on our North of Auckland tour.”

  Mr. Baker produced a crumpled envelope from his pocket, and extracted therefrom a money-order form for £50. “There’s the money,” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Now, perhaps, you will admit that the luck of the Merry Marauders has changed at last!”

  Barney whistled his amazement, but I was too much touched by Mr. Baker’s unselfish conduct to have room for any other feeling at first. “My dear, good friend,” I said at length; “it’s awfully good of you to offer such a things but—but—”

  “But what?”

  “Hadn’t you better accept your friend’s offer and—and keep your money for your personal needs? Believe me, I do not want to hurt your feelings after your
great kindness, but—”

  “Oh, you be damned,” retorted Mr. Baker hurriedly. “I know what you’re going to say, but listen to me first. In the first place, the Merry Marauders are a commonwealth company, each sharing and sharing alike, and I’ve always played the game with my brother professionals. Secondly, if I did keep the money, I’d only spend it or lend it, for I never could hold money. Thirdly, I don’t want Goverson’s billet as advance agent, because why? I’ve been forty years on the roads, and now I’m getting old I don’t want to change from a company I like, and a manager I’ve learnt to look upon as a friend, and whom we all thoroughly trust. You’re a young man, Valentine, and you don’t know much about this game yet, though you’re learning every day. But you’re as honest as the sun and as straight as a die, and it’s in you, when you thoroughly know the business, to make a first-class manager for us all—the way you have brought us through the unluckiest tour I’ve ever experienced has proved that. I’m sure there’s been many a time when we’d have chucked our bundles if we hadn’t had you at the head of affairs. We’ve also got a good company—make no mistake about that—who only want a chance to do themselves justice. No, I’m going to have my own way in this, and sail under your flag and the flag of the Merry Marauders till the end of the chapter.”

  “May it never be furled!” put in Barney, solemnly.

  What could I say, but thank him—not for the nice things he had said about me (which I nevertheless appreciated though I knew I didn’t deserve them), but for his manliness and goodness of heart which I had not hitherto rated at their proper worth, or, in fact, discerned clearly—and agree. Then we three shook hands warmly, and separated till the morning, feeling better. That night I dreamed a great future for the Merry Marauders.