The Little Warrior Part 39

"... 'Even if you are my sister's husband,' I said to him. Oh, I suppose I got a temper. It takes a lot to arouse it, y'know, but I c'n get pretty mad ..."

"... You don't know the half of it, dearie, you don't know the half of it! A one-piece bathing suit! Well, you could call it that, but the cop on the beach said it was more like a baby's sock. And when ..."

"... So I said 'Listen, Izzy, that'll be about all from you! My father was a gentleman, though I don't suppose you know what that means, and I'm not accustomed ...'"

"Hey!"

A voice from the neighborhood of the door had cut into the babble like a knife into b.u.t.ter; a rough, rasping voice, loud and compelling, which caused the conversation of the members of the ensemble to cease on the instant. Only Mr Saltzburg, now in a perfect frenzy of musicianly fervor, continued to a.s.sault the decrepit piano, unwitting of an unsympathetic addition to his audience.

"What I play you now is the laughing trio from my second act. It is a building number. It is sung by tenor, princ.i.p.al comedian, and soubrette. On the second refrain four girls will come out and two boys. The girls will dance with the two men, the boys with the soubrette. So! On the encore, four more girls and two more boys.

Third encore, solo-dance for specialty dancer, all on stage beating time by clapping their hands. On repeat, all sing refrain once more, and off-encore, the three princ.i.p.als and specialty dancer dance the dance with entire chorus. It is a great building number, you understand. It is enough to make the success of any musical play, but can I get a hearing? No! If I ask managers to listen to my music, they are busy! If I beg them to give me a libretto to set, they laugh--ha! ha!" Mr Saltzburg gave a spirited and lifelike representation of a manager laughing ha-ha when begged to disgorge a libretto. "Now I play it once more!"

"Like h.e.l.l you do!" said the voice. "Say, what is this, anyway? A concert?"

Mr Saltzburg swung round on the music-stool, a startled and apprehensive man, and nearly fell off it. The divine afflatus left him like air oozing from a punctured toy-balloon, and, like such a balloon, he seemed to grow suddenly limp and flat. He stared with fallen jaw at the new arrival.

Two men had entered the room. One was the long Mr Pilkington. The other, who looked shorter and stouter than he really was beside his giraffe-like companion, was a thickset, fleshy man in the early thirties with a blond, clean-shaven, double-chinned face. He had smooth yellow hair, an unwholesome complexion, and light green eyes, set close together. From the edge of the semi-circle about the piano, he glared menacingly over the heads of the chorus at the unfortunate Mr Saltzburg,

"Why aren't these girls working?"

Mr Saltzburg, who had risen nervously from his stool, backed away apprehensively from his gaze, and, stumbling over the stool, sat down abruptly on the piano, producing a curious noise like Futurist music.

"I--We--Why, Mr Goble ..."

Mr Goble turned his green gaze on the concert audience, and spread discomfort as if it were something liquid which he was spraying through a hose. The girls who were nearest looked down flutteringly at their shoes: those further away concealed themselves behind their neighbors. Even the d.u.c.h.ess, who prided herself on being the possessor of a stare of unrivalled haughtiness, before which the fresh quailed and those who made breaks subsided in confusion, was unable to meet his eyes: and the willowy friend of Izzy, for all her victories over that monarch of the hat-checks, bowed before it like a slim tree before a blizzard.

Only Jill returned the manager's gaze. She was seated on the outer rim of the semi-circle, and she stared frankly at Mr Goble. She had never seen anything like him before, and he fascinated her. This behavior on her part singled her out from the throng, and Mr Goble concentrated his attention on her.

For some seconds he stood looking at her; then, raising a stubby finger, he let his eye travel over the company, and seemed to be engrossed in some sort of mathematical calculation.

"Thirteen," he said at length. "I make it thirteen." He rounded on Mr Pilkington. "I told you we were going to have a chorus of twelve."

Mr Pilkington blushed and stumbled over his feet.

"Ah, yes ... yes," he murmured vaguely. "Yes!"

"Well, there are thirteen here. Count 'em for yourself." He whipped round on Jill. "What's _your_ name? Who engaged you?"

A croaking sound from the neighborhood of the ceiling indicated the clearing of Mr Pilkington's throat.

"I--er--_I_ engaged Miss Mariner, Mr Goble."

"Oh, _you_ engaged her?"

He stared again at Jill. The inspection was long and lingering, and affected Jill with a sense of being inadequately clothed. She returned the gaze as defiantly as she could, but her heart was beating fast. She had never yet beer frightened of any man, but there was something reptilian about this fat, yellow-haired individual which disquieted her; much as c.o.c.kroaches had done in her childhood.

A momentary thought flashed through her mind that it would be horrible to be touched by him. He looked soft and glutinous.

"All right," said Mr Goble at last, after what seemed to Jill many minutes. He nodded to Mr Saltzburg. "Get on with it! And try working a little this time! I don't hire you to give musical entertainments."

"Yes, Mr Goble, yes. I mean no, Mr Goble!"

"You can have the Gotham stage this afternoon," said Mr Goble. "Call the rehearsal for two sharp."

Outside the door, he turned to Mr Pilkington.

"That was a fool trick of yours, hiring that girl. Thirteen! I'd as soon walk under a ladder on a Friday as open in New York with a chorus of thirteen. Well, it don't matter. We can fire one of 'em after we've opened on the road." He mused for a moment. "Darned pretty girl, that!" he went on meditatively. "Where did you get her?"

"She--ah--came into the office, when you were out. She struck me as being essentially the type we required for our ensemble, so I--er--engaged her. She--" Mr Pilkington gulped. "She is a charming, refined girl!"

"She's darned pretty," admitted Mr Goble, and went on his way wrapped in thought, Mr Pilkington following timorously. It was episodes like the one that had just concluded which made Otis Pilkington wish that he possessed a little more a.s.sertion. He regretted wistfully that he was not one of those men who can put their hat on the side of their heads and shoot out their chins and say to the world "Well, what about it!" He was bearing the financial burden of this production. If it should be a failure, his would be the loss. Yet somehow this coa.r.s.e, rough person in front of him never seemed to allow him a word in the executive policy of the piece. He treated him as a child. He domineered and he shouted, and behaved as if he were in sole command.

Mr Pilkington sighed. He rather wished he had never gone into this undertaking.

Inside the room, Mr Saltzburg wiped his forehead, spectacles, and his hands. He had the aspect of one wakes from a dreadful dream.

"Childrun!" he whispered brokenly. "Childrun! If yoll please, once more. Act One, Opening Chorus. Come! La-la-la!"

"La-la-la!" chanted the subdued members of the ensemble.

2.

By the time the two halves of the company, ensemble and princ.i.p.als, melted into one complete whole, the novelty of her new surroundings had worn off, and Jill was feeling that there had never been a time when she had not been one of a theatrical troupe, rehearsing. The pleasant social gatherings round Mr Saltzburg's piano gave way after a few days to something far less agreeable and infinitely more strenuous, the breaking-in of the dances under the supervision of the famous Johnson Miller. Johnson Miller was a little man with snow-white hair and the india-rubber physique of a juvenile acrobat.

n.o.body knew actually how old he was, but he certainly looked much too advanced in years to be capable of the feats of endurance which he performed daily. He had the untiring enthusiasm of a fox-terrier, and had bullied and scolded more companies along the rocky road that leads to success than any half-dozen dance-directors in the country, in spite of his handicap in being almost completely deaf. He had an almost miraculous gift of picking up the melodies for which it was his business to design dances, without apparently hearing them. He seemed to absorb them through the pores. He had a blunt and arbitrary manner, and invariably spoke his mind frankly and honestly--a habit which made him strangely popular in a profession where the language of equivoque is cultivated almost as sedulously as in the circles of international diplomacy. What Johnson Miller said to your face was official, not subject to revision as soon as your back was turned: and people appreciated this.

Izzy's willowy friend summed him up one evening when the ladies of the ensemble were changing their practise-clothes after a particularly strenuous rehearsal, defending him against the Southern girl, who complained that he made her tired.

"You bet he makes you tired," she said. "So he does me. I'm losing my girlish curves, and I'm so stiff I can't lace my shoes. But he knows his business and he's on the level, which is more than you can say of most of these guys in the show business."

"That's right," agreed the Southern girl's blonde friend. "He does know his business. He's put over any amount of shows which would have flopped like dogs without him to stage the numbers."

The d.u.c.h.ess yawned. Rehearsing always bored her, and she had not been greatly impressed by what she had seen of "The Rose of America."

"One will be greatly surprised if he can make a success of _this_ show! I confess I find it perfectly ridiculous."

"Ithn't it the limit, honetht!" said the cherub, arranging her golden hair at the mirror. "It maketh me thick! Why on earth is Ike putting it on?"

The girl who knew everything--there is always one in every company--hastened to explain.

"I heard all about that. Ike hasn't any of his own money in the thing. He's getting twenty-five per cent of the show for running it.

The angel is the long fellow you see jumping around. Pilkington his name is."

"Well, it'll need to be Rockefeller later on," said the blonde.

"Oh, they'll get thomebody down to fixth it after we've out on the road a couple of days," said the cherub, optimistically. "They alwayth do. I've seen worse shows than this turned into hits. All it wants ith a new book and lyrics and a different thcore."

"And a new set of princ.i.p.als," said the red-headed Babe. "Did you ever see such a bunch?"

The d.u.c.h.ess, with another tired sigh, arched her well-shaped eyebrows and studied the effect in the mirror.