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THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET
_and Other Stories_
by P. G. WODEHOUSE
1917
CONTENTS
BILL THE BLOODHOUND
EXTRICATING YOUNG GUSSIE
WILTON'S HOLIDAY
THE MIXER--I
THE MIXER--II
CROWNED HEADS
AT GEISENHEIMER'S
THE MAKING OF MAC'S
ONE TOUCH OF NATURE
BLACK FOR LUCK
THE ROMANCE OF AN UGLY POLICEMAN
A SEA OF TROUBLES
THE MAN WITH TWO LEFT FEET
BILL THE BLOODHOUND
There's a divinity that shapes our ends. Consider the case of HenryPifield Rice, detective.
I must explain Henry early, to avoid disappointment. If I simply saidhe was a detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining thereader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort ofdetective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's InternationalInvestigation Bureau, in the Strand, where he was employed, they didnot require him to solve mysteries which had baffled the police. He hadnever measured a footprint in his life, and what he did not know aboutbloodstains would have filled a library. The sort of job they gaveHenry was to stand outside a restaurant in the rain, and note what timesomeone inside left it. In short, it is not 'Pifield Rice,Investigator. No. 1.--The Adventure of the Maharajah's Ruby' that Isubmit to your notice, but the unsensational doings of a quitecommonplace young man, variously known to his comrades at the Bureau as'Fathead', 'That blighter what's-his-name', and 'Here, you!'
Henry lived in a boarding-house in Guildford Street. One day a new girlcame to the boarding-house, and sat next to Henry at meals. Her namewas Alice Weston. She was small and quiet, and rather pretty. They goton splendidly. Their conversation, at first confined to the weather andthe moving-pictures, rapidly became more intimate. Henry was surprisedto find that she was on the stage, in the chorus. Previous chorus-girlsat the boarding-house had been of a more pronounced type--good girls,but noisy, and apt to wear beauty-spots. Alice Weston was different.
'I'm rehearsing at present,' she said. 'I'm going out on tour nextmonth in "The Girl From Brighton". What do you do, Mr Rice?'
Henry paused for a moment before replying. He knew how sensational hewas going to be.
'I'm a detective.'
Usually, when he told girls his profession, squeaks of amazedadmiration greeted him. Now he was chagrined to perceive in the browneyes that met his distinct disapproval.
'What's the matter?' he said, a little anxiously, for even at thisearly stage in their acquaintance he was conscious of a strong desireto win her approval. 'Don't you like detectives?'
'I don't know. Somehow I shouldn't have thought you were one.'
This restored Henry's equanimity somewhat. Naturally a detective doesnot want to look like a detective and give the whole thing away rightat the start.
'I think--you won't be offended?'
'Go on.'
'I've always looked on it as rather a _sneaky_ job.'
'Sneaky!' moaned Henry.
'Well, creeping about, spying on people.'
Henry was appalled. She had defined his own trade to a nicety. Theremight be detectives whose work was above this reproach, but he was aconfirmed creeper, and he knew it. It wasn't his fault. The boss toldhim to creep, and he crept. If he declined to creep, he would be sacked_instanter_. It was hard, and yet he felt the sting of her words,and in his bosom the first seeds of dissatisfaction with his occupationtook root.
You might have thought that this frankness on the girl's part wouldhave kept Henry from falling in love with her. Certainly the dignifiedthing would have been to change his seat at table, and take his mealsnext to someone who appreciated the romance of detective work a littlemore. But no, he remained where he was, and presently Cupid, who nevershoots with a surer aim than through the steam of boarding-house hash,sniped him where he sat.
He proposed to Alice Weston. She refused him.
'It's not because I'm not fond of you. I think you're the nicest man Iever met.' A good deal of assiduous attention had enabled Henry to winthis place in her affections. He had worked patiently and well beforeactually putting his fortune to the test. 'I'd marry you tomorrow ifthings were different. But I'm on the stage, and I mean to stick there.Most of the girls want to get off it, but not me. And one thing I'llnever do is marry someone who isn't in the profession. My sisterGenevieve did, and look what happened to her. She married a commercialtraveller, and take it from me he travelled. She never saw him for morethan five minutes in the year, except when he was selling gent'shosiery in the same town where she was doing her refined speciality,and then he'd just wave his hand and whiz by, and start travellingagain. My husband has got to be close by, where I can see him. I'msorry, Henry, but I know I'm right.'
It seemed final, but Henry did not wholly despair. He was a resoluteyoung man. You have to be to wait outside restaurants in the rain forany length of time.
He had an inspiration. He sought out a dramatic agent.
'I want to go on the stage, in musical comedy.'
'Let's see you dance.'
'I can't dance.'
'Sing,' said the agent. 'Stop singing,' added the agent, hastily.
'You go away and have a nice cup of hot tea,' said the agent,soothingly, 'and you'll be as right as anything in the morning.'
Henry went away.
A few days later, at the Bureau, his fellow-detective Simmonds hailedhim.
'Here, you! The boss wants you. Buck up!'
Mr Stafford was talking into the telephone. He replaced the receiver asHenry entered.
'Oh, Rice, here's a woman wants her husband shadowed while he's on theroad. He's an actor. I'm sending you. Go to this address, and getphotographs and all particulars. You'll have to catch the eleveno'clock train on Friday.'
'Yes, sir.'
'He's in "The Girl From Brighton" company. They open at Bristol.'
It sometimes seemed to Henry as if Fate did it on purpose. If thecommission had had to do with any other company, it would have beenwell enough, for, professionally speaking, it was the most importantwith which he had ever been entrusted. If he had never met AliceWeston, and heard her views upon detective work, he would have beenpleased and flattered. Things being as they were, it was Henry'sconsidered opinion that Fate had slipped one over on him.
In the first place, what torture to be always near her, unable toreveal himself; to watch her while she disported herself in the companyof other men. He would be disguised, and she would not recognize him;but he would recognize her, and his sufferings would be dreadful.
In the second place, to have to do his creeping about and spyingpractically in her presence--
Still, business was business.
At five minutes to eleven on the morning named he was at the station, afalse beard and spectacles shielding his identity from the public eye.If you had asked him he would have said that he was a Scotch businessman. As a matter of fact, he looked far more like a motor-car comingthrough a haystack.
The platform was crowded. Friends of the company had come to see thecompany off. Henry looked on discreetly from behind a stout porter,whose bulk formed a capital screen. In spite of himself, he wasimpressed. The stage at close quarters always thrilled him. Herecognized celebrities. The fat man in the brown suit was WalterJelliffe, the comedian and star of the company. He stared keenly at himthrough the spectacles. Others of the famous were scattered about. Hesaw Alice. She was talking to a man with a face like a
hatchet, andsmiling, too, as if she enjoyed it. Behind the matted foliage which hehad inflicted on his face, Henry's teeth came together with a snap.
In the weeks that followed, as he dogged 'The Girl From Brighton'company from town to town, it would be difficult to say whether Henrywas happy or unhappy. On the one hand, to realize that Alice was sonear and yet so inaccessible was a constant source of misery; yet, onthe other, he could not but admit that he was having the very dickensof a time, loafing round the country like this.
He was made for this sort of life, he considered. Fate had placed himin a London office, but what he really enjoyed was this unfetteredtravel. Some gipsy strain in him rendered even the obvious discomfortsof theatrical touring agreeable. He liked catching trains; he likedinvading strange hotels; above all, he revelled in the artisticpleasure of watching unsuspecting fellow-men as if they were so manyants.
That was really the best part of the whole thing. It was all very wellfor Alice to talk about creeping and spying, but, if you considered itwithout bias, there was nothing degrading about it at all. It was anart. It took brains and a genius for disguise to make a man asuccessful creeper and spyer. You couldn't simply say to yourself, 'Iwill creep.' If you attempted to do it in your own person, you would bedetected instantly. You had to be an adept at masking your personality.You had to be one man at Bristol and another quite different man atHull--especially if, like Henry, you were of a gregarious disposition,and liked the society of actors.
The stage had always fascinated Henry. To meet even minor members ofthe profession off the boards gave him a thrill. There was a restingjuvenile, of fit-up calibre, at his boarding-house who could always geta shilling out of him simply by talking about how he had jumped in andsaved the show at the hamlets which he had visited in the course of hiswanderings. And on this 'Girl From Brighton' tour he was in constanttouch with men who really amounted to something. Walter Jelliffe hadbeen a celebrity when Henry was going to school; and Sidney Crane, thebaritone, and others of the lengthy cast, were all players not unknownin London. Henry courted them assiduously.
It had not been hard to scrape acquaintance with them. The principalsof the company always put up at the best hotel, and--his expenses beingpaid by his employer--so did Henry. It was the easiest thing possibleto bridge with a well-timed whisky-and-soda the gulf betweennon-acquaintance and warm friendship. Walter Jelliffe, in particular,was peculiarly accessible. Every time Henry accosted him--as adifferent individual, of course--and renewed in a fresh disguise thefriendship which he had enjoyed at the last town, Walter Jelliffe methim more than half-way.
It was in the sixth week of the tour that the comedian, promoting himfrom mere casual acquaintanceship, invited him to come up to his roomand smoke a cigar.
Henry was pleased and flattered. Jelliffe was a personage, alwayssurrounded by admirers, and the compliment was consequently of a highorder.
He lit his cigar. Among his friends at the Green-Room Club it wasunanimously held that Walter Jelliffe's cigars brought him within thescope of the law forbidding the carrying of concealed weapons; butHenry would have smoked the gift of such a man if it had been acabbage-leaf. He puffed away contentedly. He was made up as an oldIndian colonel that week, and he complimented his host on the aromawith a fine old-world courtesy.
Walter Jelliffe seemed gratified.
'Quite comfortable?' he asked.
'Quite, I thank you,' said Henry, fondling his silver moustache.
'That's right. And now tell me, old man, which of us is it you'retrailing?'
Henry nearly swallowed his cigar.
'What do you mean?'
'Oh, come,' protested Jelliffe; 'there's no need to keep it up with me.I know you're a detective. The question is, Who's the man you're after?That's what we've all been wondering all this time.'
All! They had all been wondering! It was worse than Henry could haveimagined. Till now he had pictured his position with regard to 'TheGirl From Brighton' company rather as that of some scientist who,seeing but unseen, keeps a watchful eye on the denizens of a drop ofwater under his microscope. And they had all detected him--every one ofthem.
It was a stunning blow. If there was one thing on which Henry pridedhimself it was the impenetrability of his disguises. He might be slow;he might be on the stupid side; but he could disguise himself. He had avariety of disguises, each designed to befog the public more hopelesslythan the last.
Going down the street, you would meet a typical commercial traveller,dapper and alert. Anon, you encountered a heavily bearded Australian.Later, maybe, it was a courteous old retired colonel who stopped youand inquired the way to Trafalgar Square. Still later, a rather flashyindividual of the sporting type asked you for a match for his cigar.Would you have suspected for one instant that each of these widelydiffering personalities was in reality one man?
Certainly you would.
Henry did not know it, but he had achieved in the eyes of the smallservant who answered the front-door bell at his boarding-house awell-established reputation as a humorist of the more practical kind.It was his habit to try his disguises on her. He would ring the bell,inquire for the landlady, and when Bella had gone, leap up the stairsto his room. Here he would remove the disguise, resume his normalappearance, and come downstairs again, humming a careless air. Bella,meanwhile, in the kitchen, would be confiding to her ally the cook that'Mr Rice had jest come in, lookin' sort o' funny again'.
He sat and gaped at Walter Jelliffe. The comedian regarded himcuriously.
'You look at least a hundred years old,' he said. 'What are you made upas? A piece of Gorgonzola?'
Henry glanced hastily at the mirror. Yes, he did look rather old. Hemust have overdone some of the lines on his forehead. He lookedsomething between a youngish centenarian and a nonagenarian who hadseen a good deal of trouble.
'If you knew how you were demoralizing the company,' Jelliffe went on,'you would drop it. As steady and quiet a lot of boys as ever you mettill you came along. Now they do nothing but bet on what disguiseyou're going to choose for the next town. I don't see why you need tochange so often. You were all right as the Scotchman at Bristol. Wewere all saying how nice you looked. You should have stuck to that. Butwhat do you do at Hull but roll in in a scrubby moustache and a tweedsuit, looking rotten. However, all that is beside the point. It's afree country. If you like to spoil your beauty, I suppose there's nolaw against it. What I want to know is, who's the man? Whose track areyou sniffing on, Bill? You'll pardon my calling you Bill. You're knownas Bill the Bloodhound in the company. Who's the man?'
'Never mind,' said Henry.
He was aware, as he made it, that it was not a very able retort, but hewas feeling too limp for satisfactory repartee. Criticisms in theBureau, dealing with his alleged solidity of skull, he did not resent.He attributed them to man's natural desire to chaff his fellow-man. Butto be unmasked by the general public in this way was another matter. Itstruck at the root of all things.
'But I do mind,' objected Jelliffe. 'It's most important. A lot ofmoney hangs on it. We've got a sweepstake on in the company, the holderof the winning name to take the entire receipts. Come on. Who is he?'
Henry rose and made for the door. His feelings were too deep for words.Even a minor detective has his professional pride; and the knowledgethat his espionage is being made the basis of sweepstakes by his quarrycuts this to the quick.
'Here, don't go! Where are you going?'
'Back to London,' said Henry, bitterly. 'It's a lot of good my stayinghere now, isn't it?'
'I should say it was--to me. Don't be in a hurry. You're thinking that,now we know all about you, your utility as a sleuth has waned to someextent. Is that it?'
'Well?'
'Well, why worry? What does it matter to you? You don't get paid byresults, do you? Your boss said "Trail along." Well, do it, then. Ishould hate to lose you. I don't suppose you know it, but you've beenthe best mascot this tour that I've ever come across. Right from thestart we've been pla
ying to enormous business. I'd rather kill a blackcat than lose you. Drop the disguises, and stay with us. Come behindall you want, and be sociable.'
A detective is only human. The less of a detective, the more human heis. Henry was not much of a detective, and his human traits wereconsequently highly developed. From a boy, he had never been able toresist curiosity. If a crowd collected in the street he always addedhimself to it, and he would have stopped to gape at a window with'Watch this window' written on it, if he had been running for his lifefrom wild bulls. He was, and always had been, intensely desirous ofsome day penetrating behind the scenes of a theatre.
And there was another thing. At last, if he accepted this invitation,he would be able to see and speak to Alice Weston, and interfere withthe manoeuvres of the hatchet-faced man, on whom he had brooded withsuspicion and jealousy since that first morning at the station. To seeAlice! Perhaps, with eloquence, to talk her out of that ridiculousresolve of hers!
'Why, there's something in that,' he said.
'Rather! Well, that's settled. And now, touching that sweep, who_is_ it?'
'I can't tell you that. You see, so far as that goes, I'm just where Iwas before. I can still watch--whoever it is I'm watching.'
'Dash it, so you can. I didn't think of that,' said Jelliffe, whopossessed a sensitive conscience. 'Purely between ourselves, it isn't_me_, is it?'
Henry eyed him inscrutably. He could look inscrutable at times.
'Ah!' he said, and left quickly, with the feeling that, however poorlyhe had shown up during the actual interview, his exit had been good. Hemight have been a failure in the matter of disguise, but nobody couldhave put more quiet sinister-ness into that 'Ah!' It did much to soothehim and ensure a peaceful night's rest.
On the following night, for the first time in his life, Henry foundhimself behind the scenes of a theatre, and instantly began toexperience all the complex emotions which come to the layman in thatsituation. That is to say, he felt like a cat which has strayed into astrange hostile back-yard. He was in a new world, inhabited by weirdcreatures, who flitted about in an eerie semi-darkness, like brightlycoloured animals in a cavern.
'The Girl From Brighton' was one of those exotic productions speciallydesigned for the Tired Business Man. It relied for a large measure ofits success on the size and appearance of its chorus, and on theirconstant change of costume. Henry, as a consequence, was the centre ofa kaleidoscopic whirl of feminine loveliness, dressed to representsuch varying flora and fauna as rabbits, Parisian students, colleens,Dutch peasants, and daffodils. Musical comedy is the Irish stew of thedrama. Anything may be put into it, with the certainty that it willimprove the general effect.
He scanned the throng for a sight of Alice. Often as he had seen thepiece in the course of its six weeks' wandering in the wilderness hehad never succeeded in recognizing her from the front of the house.Quite possibly, he thought, she might be on the stage already, hiddenin a rose-tree or some other shrub, ready at the signal to burst forthupon the audience in short skirts; for in 'The Girl From Brighton'almost anything could turn suddenly into a chorus-girl.
Then he saw her, among the daffodils. She was not a particularlyconvincing daffodil, but she looked good to Henry. With wabbling kneeshe butted his way through the crowd and seized her handenthusiastically.
'Why, Henry! Where did you come from?'
'I _am_ glad to see you!'
'How did you get here?'
'I _am_ glad to see you!'
At this point the stage-manager, bellowing from the prompt-box, urgedHenry to desist. It is one of the mysteries of behind-the-scenesacoustics that a whisper from any minor member of the company can beheard all over the house, while the stage-manager can burst himselfwithout annoying the audience.
Henry, awed by authority, relapsed into silence. From the unseen stagecame the sound of someone singing a song about the moon. June was alsomentioned. He recognized the song as one that had always bored him. Hedisliked the woman who was singing it--a Miss Clarice Weaver, whoplayed the heroine of the piece to Sidney Crane's hero.
In his opinion he was not alone. Miss Weaver was not popular in thecompany. She had secured the role rather as a testimony of personalesteem from the management than because of any innate ability. She sangbadly, acted indifferently, and was uncertain what to do with herhands. All these things might have been forgiven her, but shesupplemented them by the crime known in stage circles as 'throwing herweight about'. That is to say, she was hard to please, and, when notpleased, apt to say so in no uncertain voice. To his personal friendsWalter Jelliffe had frequently confided that, though not a rich man, hewas in the market with a substantial reward for anyone who was manenough to drop a ton of iron on Miss Weaver.
Tonight the song annoyed Henry more than usual, for he knew that verysoon the daffodils were due on the stage to clinch the verisimilitudeof the scene by dancing the tango with the rabbits. He endeavoured tomake the most of the time at his disposal.
'I _am_ glad to see you!' he said.
'Sh-h!' said the stage-manager.
Henry was discouraged. Romeo could not have made love under theseconditions. And then, just when he was pulling himself together tobegin again, she was torn from him by the exigencies of the play.
He wandered moodily off into the dusty semi-darkness. He avoided theprompt-box, whence he could have caught a glimpse of her, being loathto meet the stage-manager just at present.
Walter Jelliffe came up to him, as he sat on a box and brooded on life.
'A little less of the double forte, old man,' he said. 'Miss Weaver hasbeen kicking about the noise on the side. She wanted you thrown out,but I said you were my mascot, and I would die sooner than part withyou. But I should go easy on the chest-notes, I think, all the same.'
Henry nodded moodily. He was depressed. He had the feeling, which comesso easily to the intruder behind the scenes, that nobody loved him.
The piece proceeded. From the front of the house roars of laughterindicated the presence on the stage of Walter Jelliffe, while now andthen a lethargic silence suggested that Miss Clarice Weaver was inaction. From time to time the empty space about him filled with girlsdressed in accordance with the exuberant fancy of the producer of thepiece. When this happened, Henry would leap from his seat and endeavourto locate Alice; but always, just as he thought he had done so, thehidden orchestra would burst into melody and the chorus would be calledto the front.
It was not till late in the second act that he found an opportunity forfurther speech.
The plot of 'The Girl From Brighton' had by then reached a criticalstage. The situation was as follows: The hero, having been disinheritedby his wealthy and titled father for falling in love with the heroine,a poor shop-girl, has disguised himself (by wearing a differentcoloured necktie) and has come in pursuit of her to a well-knownseaside resort, where, having disguised herself by changing her dress,she is serving as a waitress in the Rotunda, on the Esplanade. Thefamily butler, disguised as a Bath-chair man, has followed the hero,and the wealthy and titled father, disguised as an Italianopera-singer, has come to the place for a reason which, thoughextremely sound, for the moment eludes the memory. Anyhow, he is there,and they all meet on the Esplanade. Each recognizes the other, butthinks he himself is unrecognized. _Exeunt_ all, hurriedly,leaving the heroine alone on the stage.
It is a crisis in the heroine's life. She meets it bravely. She sings asong entitled 'My Honolulu Queen', with chorus of Japanese girls andBulgarian officers.
Alice was one of the Japanese girls.
She was standing a little apart from the other Japanese girls. Henrywas on her with a bound. Now was his time. He felt keyed up, full ofpersuasive words. In the interval which had elapsed since their lastconversation yeasty emotions had been playing the dickens with hisself-control. It is practically impossible for a novice, suddenlyintroduced behind the scenes of a musical comedy, not to fall in lovewith somebody; and, if he is already in love, his fervour is increasedto a dangerous poin
t.
Henry felt that it was now or never. He forgot that it was perfectlypossible--indeed, the reasonable course--to wait till the performancewas over, and renew his appeal to Alice to marry him on the way back toher hotel. He had the feeling that he had got just about a quarter of aminute. Quick action! That was Henry's slogan.
He seized her hand.
'Alice!'
'Sh-h!' hissed the stage-manager.
'Listen! I love you. I'm crazy about you. What does it matter whetherI'm on the stage or not? I love you.'
'Stop that row there!'
'Won't you marry me?'
She looked at him. It seemed to him that she hesitated.
'Cut it out!' bellowed the stage-manager, and Henry cut it out.
And at this moment, when his whole fate hung in the balance, there camefrom the stage that devastating high note which is the sign that thesolo is over and that the chorus are now about to mobilize. As if drawnby some magnetic power, she suddenly receded from him, and went on tothe stage.
A man in Henry's position and frame of mind is not responsible for hisactions. He saw nothing but her; he was blind to the fact thatimportant manoeuvres were in progress. All he understood was that shewas going from him, and that he must stop her and get this thingsettled.
He clutched at her. She was out of range, and getting farther awayevery instant.
He sprang forward.
The advice that should be given to every young man starting life is--ifyou happen to be behind the scenes at a theatre, never spring forward.The whole architecture of the place is designed to undo those who sospring. Hours before, the stage-carpenters have laid their traps, andin the semi-darkness you cannot but fall into them.
The trap into which Henry fell was a raised board. It was not a veryhighly-raised board. It was not so deep as a well, nor so wide as achurch-door, but 'twas enough--it served. Stubbing it squarely with histoe, Henry shot forward, all arms and legs.
It is the instinct of Man, in such a situation, to grab at the nearestsupport. Henry grabbed at the Hotel Superba, the pride of theEsplanade. It was a thin wooden edifice, and it supported him forperhaps a tenth of a second. Then he staggered with it into thelimelight, tripped over a Bulgarian officer who was inflating himselffor a deep note, and finally fell in a complicated heap as exactly inthe centre of the stage as if he had been a star of years' standing.
It went well; there was no question of that. Previous audiences hadalways been rather cold towards this particular song, but this one goton its feet and yelled for more. From all over the house came rapturousdemands that Henry should go back and do it again.
But Henry was giving no encores. He rose to his feet, a little stunned,and automatically began to dust his clothes. The orchestra, unnerved bythis unrehearsed infusion of new business, had stopped playing.Bulgarian officers and Japanese girls alike seemed unequal to thesituation. They stood about, waiting for the next thing to break loose.From somewhere far away came faintly the voice of the stage-managerinventing new words, new combinations of words, and new throat noises.
And then Henry, massaging a stricken elbow, was aware of Miss Weaver athis side. Looking up, he caught Miss Weaver's eye.
A familiar stage-direction of melodrama reads, 'Exit cautious throughgap in hedge'. It was Henry's first appearance on any stage, but he didit like a veteran.
'My dear fellow,' said Walter Jelliffe. The hour was midnight, and hewas sitting in Henry's bedroom at the hotel. Leaving the theatre, Henryhad gone to bed almost instinctively. Bed seemed the only haven forhim. 'My dear fellow, don't apologize. You have put me under lastingobligations. In the first place, with your unerring sense of the stage,you saw just the spot where the piece needed livening up, and youlivened it up. That was good; but far better was it that you also sentour Miss Weaver into violent hysterics, from which she emerged to handin her notice. She leaves us tomorrow.'
Henry was appalled at the extent of the disaster for which he wasresponsible.
'What will you do?'
'Do! Why, it's what we have all been praying for--a miracle whichshould eject Miss Weaver. It needed a genius like you to come to bringit off. Sidney Crane's wife can play the part without rehearsal. Sheunderstudied it all last season in London. Crane has just been speakingto her on the phone, and she is catching the night express.'
Henry sat up in bed.
'What!'
'What's the trouble now?'
'Sidney Crane's wife?'
'What about her?'
A bleakness fell upon Henry's soul.
'She was the woman who was employing me. Now I shall be taken off thejob and have to go back to London.'
'You don't mean that it was really Crane's wife?'
Jelliffe was regarding him with a kind of awe.
'Laddie,' he said, in a hushed voice, 'you almost scare me. There seemsto be no limit to your powers as a mascot. You fill the house everynight, you get rid of the Weaver woman, and now you tell me this. Idrew Crane in the sweep, and I would have taken twopence for my chanceof winning it.'
'I shall get a telegram from my boss tomorrow recalling me.'
'Don't go. Stick with me. Join the troupe.'
Henry stared.
'What do you mean? I can't sing or act.'
Jelliffe's voice thrilled with earnestness.
'My boy, I can go down the Strand and pick up a hundred fellows who cansing and act. I don't want them. I turn them away. But a seventh son ofa seventh son like you, a human horseshoe like you, a king of mascotslike you--they don't make them nowadays. They've lost the pattern. Ifyou like to come with me I'll give you a contract for any number ofyears you suggest. I need you in my business.' He rose. 'Think it over,laddie, and let me know tomorrow. Look here upon this picture, and onthat. As a sleuth you are poor. You couldn't detect a bass-drum in atelephone-booth. You have no future. You are merely among thosepresent. But as a mascot--my boy, you're the only thing in sight. Youcan't help succeeding on the stage. You don't have to know how to act.Look at the dozens of good actors who are out of jobs. Why? Unlucky. Noother reason. With your luck and a little experience you'll be a starbefore you know you've begun. Think it over, and let me know in themorning.'
Before Henry's eyes there rose a sudden vision of Alice: Alice nolonger unattainable; Alice walking on his arm down the aisle; Alicemending his socks; Alice with her heavenly hands fingering his salaryenvelope.
'Don't go,' he said. 'Don't go. I'll let you know now.'
* * * * *
The scene is the Strand, hard by Bedford Street; the time, that restfulhour of the afternoon when they of the gnarled faces and the brightclothing gather together in groups to tell each other how good theyare.
Hark! A voice.
'Rather! Courtneidge and the Guv'nor keep on trying to get me, but Iturn them down every time. "No," I said to Malone only yesterday, "notfor me! I'm going with old Wally Jelliffe, the same as usual, and thereisn't the money in the Mint that'll get me away." Malone got all workedup. He--'
It is the voice of Pifield Rice, actor.
The Man with Two Left Feet, and Other Stories Page 1
