CHAPTER VI
QUICKSANDS OF TRADITION
People who imagine an actor’s life is all honey forget that he has to read plays, and the reading of plays is at once the most onerous and exacting of all tasks.
Not one in a hundred is fit to be read, and scarcely one in a thousand deserves production.
Nearly everyone believes he can write a play, and most of these believers have a shot at it—and good, bad or indifferent, each one of these shots is stuffed into the barrel of a quarto envelope, charged with the address of this or that theatrical manager, and propelled by means of a given number of postage-stamps to its billet upon the managerial desk. Should the desk pertain to one of the more illustrious lights of the stage, the envelope is carried off by some erudite young gentleman, employed for the purpose, who cons the manuscript by the light of midnight oil, and directs its future career forward or backward, as the merit of the work suggests.
In pursuance of this melancholy vocation the optic nerves and digestive organs invariably become impaired. The reader loses interest in life and sense of appreciation. He becomes a confirmed cynic and usually blights his own career by throwing out an obvious winner, and being thrown out himself for so doing.
But those who work upon the Road, who have no swing-door offices in the Haymarket or Shaftesbury Avenue, who travel year in and year out dragging their productions from one town to another, who live in cheap hotels or cheaper lodgings, who have neither house nor home nor any household goods to call their own—naught save a succession of ugly theatrical baskets—for these no such luxury as a reader of plays exists. It is part of the price they must pay for billing their names so wide and large on the provincial hoardings that all odd hours and the pleasant magazine-time of the Sunday train journey should be spent in the consideration of unsought-for dramatic effusions.
No one could compete with Eliphalet Cardomay’s energy in this direction. He had made a strict rule to read two plays on week-days and three on Sundays, and he never departed from it. Yet, despite his diligent inquiry into the realms, or rather, reams, of the unknown, never once, in thirty years of provincial management, did he discover and produce a new play. He just went on doing the old repertory routine of revival and re-revival, and then back again to the beginning. Sometimes he would vary the order by purchasing the touring rights of a successful London melodrama, but these ventures were few and far between. Yet always at the back of his head was the belief that one day he would chance upon and present an entirely original and unexploited work.
It was at a time when he was debating on the advisability of making an offer for the latest Lyceum success that a copy of “A Man’s Way” came to hand.
He started to examine it on a journey between Glasgow and Brighton, and before arriving at his journey’s end he had read it three times, and his stage-manager, Freddie Manning, had read it twice.
“What do you think, Manning?” he queried.
“Not too bad,” replied Manning, who was not given to superlatives.
“A good title, ‘A Man’s Way’—an arresting title.”
“Might be worse.”
“And an ingenious plot.”
“M’m!”
“Something very original about it.”
“Wants a lot of cutting.”
“Oh, yes—too long.”
“Damsite!”
“This Mr. Theodore Leonard—ever heard of him, Manning?”
The stage-manager picked his teeth negatively.
“No, neither have I. A first play, probably. Very fresh and ingenious—modern, too. Yes, yes! The part of the doctor—with a little alteration—I think we could get away with it. H’m! read it again, Manning—read it again.”
The result of Manning’s second excursion through “A Man’s Way” was reassuring. He repeated his former verdict that it “wasn’t too bad.”
That night as he lay in bed Eliphalet Cardomay digested “A Man’s Way” and revolved the possibilities of doing it in his mind. It was so essentially unlike anything he had ever done before that the prospect pleased. The central character of the doctor was his firm, purposeful way—his manner of treating wife and patient with the same unvarying but just dictatorship—it was new, and yet true to life—very human, if only on account of the unemotional quality of the work.
From beginning to end there wasn’t a single set speech—no lofty periods of crescendo to induce those rapturous outbursts of applause by means of which members of provincial audiences seek to convince their immediate neighbours that they are sensible and appreciative to the influences of uplifting thought.
To produce such a work would be a step up. It would present him as an actor in a new light. He would encourage a deeper-thinking public. He would, ipso facto, become a modern. Modern influences were afoot on the stage nowadays, and he, Eliphalet, still floundered in the dead seas of rodomontade. Why should he live in the past, when here was “A Man’s Way” to lead him to the future? Eliphalet sat up in bed and lit the candle. Somewhere in the second act were some lines that struck the key-note of what was and what had been. They arose from where a poor, half-starved penitent came with a piteous tale to tell, and he, the doctor, made answer, “It’ll keep, won’t it? Get some grub and a good sleep. We’ll fix the rest in the morning.”
Eliphalet suddenly remembered a play he had done years and years before, in which a somewhat similar scene occurred, in which he had said, “Not to-night, my brother. Your body needs nourishment, your brain needs rest. Go—take what my poor dwelling has to offer. Eat, sleep, and pray to Him to visit your dreams with peace.”
Probably for the first time in his life it dawned on Eliphalet Cardomay that this kind of talk was bosh—stilted bosh. People didn’t say things like that; wherefore it was sheer dishonesty to proclaim such stuff to an audience.
He would have done with this nonsense—he would rise superior to these absurd stage conventions, and for the future devote himself solely to reproducing the actualities of life and the actualities of speech. And having arrived at this sensational resolve, Eliphalet rose, donned a dressing-gown and seating himself at the little davenport desk by the window, drew pen and paper towards him.
Finally and absolutely he had made up his mind he would “do” “A Man’s Way,” and then and there he wrote to Mr. Theodore Lennard and said that, though his work had made a distinctly favourable impression, he could see no prospects immediate or otherwise of producing the play. Nevertheless it might be to their mutual advantage to meet and discuss the matter.
This done, he paddled across the moonlit street in gown and carpet slippers, and dropped the letter into the pillar-box at the corner, and it was not until he heard it fluttering down against the iron sides of its cage that the first doubt assailed him.
It was a gentle night and warm. Fifty yards away the iron railings of the esplanade traced black lines across the luminous sea.
Eliphalet forgot his unconventional attire, and a few moments later was leaning over the railings, listening to the swish and rustle of the pebbles as the water washed them to and fro.
“The same old sea,” he thought, “just the same as ever—unchangeable—from Christ’s time to mine.” Then aloud, and with startling emphasis, “Get some grub and a good sleep—we can fix the rest in the morning. I don’t know,” said Eliphalet, “really I don’t know. ‘Eat, sleep and pray to Him to visit your dreams with peace.’ ”
Realism and Art—if it were Art.
For thirty years it had passed for Art with him—thirty unchangeable years. Did reality for the stage actually exist, or was it a mere modern fetish? Change—Futurism—Realism! What were they but ugly likenesses of nature—the human frame with all its bones showing?
The moon was a fairy over the sea, and the sea a playground for the moods of light—unchangeable, unreal, as it was in the beginning.
“There is no realism,” mused Eliphalet. “It plays no part in our spiritual lives.”
Then a rubber-soled policeman came down the esplanade, and spoke harsh words regarding folk who walked the night in carpet-slippers and dressing-gowns. He instanced cases where heavy penalties had been awarded for lesser offences, and followed Eliphalet to his lodging with flashing bull’s-eye and threatening mien.
“Yes—yes—yes,” said Eliphalet testily. “Very sorry, and if you are not satisfied, come round and we’ll fix things up in the morning.”
Slightly distressed, he returned to bed. It was surprising he should have used the word “fix.” Curious how one adapts oneself to a change—even of vocabulary. “A Man’s Way” was certainly a fine play—realistic—human!
Mr. Theodore Lennard lived at Worthing and duly received the letter on the following morning. A young man was Mr. Lennard, shy and retiring to a fault but gifted with strong faculties for literary force. He could make his characters express themselves most vigorously—in fact, say things which he himself, under similar stresses of emotion, would never dare to utter. He wrote easily, frankly and honestly, and he loved his characters and envied them their vigour and lovable qualities. It was pitiful to reflect that he, with his knowledge of how a strong man should act, should be as pliable as a reed in the wind.
Beyond question the world should have known the works of Theodore Lennard long before this story was written, and the reason why he was still obscure was because never before had he had the courage to submit any of his writings for approval.
This was his first experiment, and lo, within three days of posting it, came a letter from an established stage personality expressive of admiration.
Mr. Lennard read and re-read Eliphalet Cardomay’s non-committal communication, and his elation knew no bounds. He felt he had been discovered—a stupendous feeling. America must have been conscious of it when Christopher Columbus hove over her horizon.
An hour and a half later, not without misgivings, he presented himself at the stage-door of the Theatre Royal, Brighton. Mr. Cardomay, he was informed, was not within—he was probably lunching at his lodging. A request for the address of the lodging was sternly refused. It is an unwritten law that stage-doors never give addresses, however inconvenient the withholding of them may prove. He would do well, the doorkeeper advised, to call again that evening after the performance.
The prospect of spending several hours on the esplanade somewhat depressed Mr. Lennard, but he was rescued from such an unpleasant necessity by the opportune arrival of Freddie Manning, who thrust a long arm through the little window of the doorkeeper’s box and seized a handful of miscellaneous correspondence.
Realising he was in the presence of a man of importance, Mr. Theodore Lennard coughed discreetly.
“Yes?” said Manning, shuffling the letters from one hand to another.
“I—Good morning—afternoon—my name is—or rather, I was hoping to see Mr. Cardomay.”
“What about?”
Mr. Lennard stuttered, and after a period of incoherence produced Eliphalet’s note and handed it to the stage-manager, who read it through and frowned.
“I see,” he said. “Well, the Guv’nor’s busy at the moment. He’s—er—working on a play we shall probably be producing.” (This was pure fiction, or, as Manning would have said, a business stroke.) “If you come round to 15 St. James’s Place at 4.30, I’ll try to get you a hearing. Morning.” And tilting his hat well over his right eye, Manning hurried off in the direction of his master’s abode. He found Eliphalet at lunch, and started abruptly with:
“What’s this business about Theodore Lennard, Guv’nor? You’re never seriously thinking of doing that play of his—are you?”
Eliphalet consumed a mouthful of Bartlett Pear anointed with Bird’s Custard before replying:
“When I wrote to him last night I firmly intended to do so—but this morning I am a little undecided.”
“The author’s turned up, and he’s coming along here at 4.30.”
“Dear me! Is he indeed?”
“So you’d better prepare a choke-off right away.”
Eliphalet mused.
“Why should I choke him off, Manning? You said yourself it was a good play.”
“I said it wasn’t too bad,” corrected Manning exactly. “Besides, I thought you’d fixed on the Lyceum piece.”
“Which is exactly like every other drama we have ever produced.”
“Well, we’re exactly like all the other characters we’ve ever played. No good changing our play if we can’t change ourselves to match it.”
Eliphalet looked sad.
“But why can’t we change ourselves?”
Freddie Manning quoted briefly the proverb of the leopard and the Ethiopian.
“You’re not very charitable this morning, Manning.”
“This is a business talk.”
“Then if we ourselves are immutable we must change the substance of the play.”
“Or cut it out and do the other.”
“But ‘A Man’s Way’ is so original,” came from Eliphalet, with a plaintive note.
Freddie stuck his hands deep into his pockets.
“Granted,” he began, “but it don’t fit us. It don’t fit us anywhere. Look at the leading part—a smart Harley Street surgeon! Ever seen a Harley Street surgeon, Guv’nor?”
“No, but I could go to Harley Street, and for two guineas——”
“It ’ud cost you more than that before you’d done. Why, Guv’nor, you’d have to turn yourself inside out. You couldn’t wear the clothes—and you couldn’t play the part in the clothes you do wear.”
The old actor’s hand sought his flowing tie with an affectionate touch. “There’s something in what you say, Manning.”
“There’s a lot in it. Bar a parson or a Silver King fixture, you’re not the type for modern parts. Then, again—would you cut your hair short? Not you!”
“No,” said Eliphalet. “Such as I am I have always been. I should certainly decline to transfigure myself.”
“There you are, then! Stick to the old stuff, I say.”
“But I have a yearning for the new.”
Manning shrugged his shoulders.
“You’re the boss,” he said.
“I want to do this play, Manning—very much indeed.” Suddenly he rose dramatically. “Manning!” he exclaimed. “If I am unsuited to the rôle of a Doctor of Medicine, why not alter him to a Doctor of Divinity?”
“Mean changing the whole thing.”
“Well, why not, and what of it?”
“Then how about the ‘Pauline’?” said Manning, opening a fresh field of opposition. “None of our girls ’ud do, and they’re all on long contracts.”
“Miss Morries.”
“Tss! She’s ingénue—Sweet Nancy—sun-bonnet and long strings. She’d never get away with that cold-storage class of goods.”
Eliphalet drew patterns on the table-cloth with a long sensitive forefinger.
“It should not be difficult,” he hazarded, “to alter her part as well.”
“If the author consents?”
“That is a point we can decide at half-past four. Please don’t throw any more cold water on the scheme. I am really anxious to be associated with modern thought, and this forceful young man has shown me the way—‘A Man’s Way.’ ”
At precisely four-twenty-nine the forceful young man in question was ringing the bell of Number 15, St. James’s Place, and as the skeleton clock on the half-landing proclaimed the half-hour he was ushered into Mr. Cardomay’s august presence.
If Eliphalet expected to see in Mr. Lennard a pattern of masculine virility he was grievously mistaken. Nothing could have been more ineffective or retiring than the young man’s demeanour.
So strange is the working of the human mind that this outward display of weakness at once affected Eliphalet’s appreciation of “A Man’s Way.” He felt that it was impossible that originality and power could flow from such a source. Subconsciously he was offended that that high, narrow forehead and the thin, nervous hands before him could have produced in literature such vigorous characteristics.
And while these thoughts were passing through his brain Mr. Theodore Lennard stuttered out his apologies and excuses for intruding.
“Not at all,” said Eliphalet. “I am very pleased to see you. Sit down, and we will have some tea.”
It was not until tea had come and gone that the subject of the play was broached. Freddie Manning was the one to introduce it, and he did so as though it were of secondary interest to a tooth he was picking with the whisker of a recently-devoured prawn.
“To be sure,” echoed Eliphalet. “The play! Well, Mr. Lennard, we have read it and, with certain reservations, we like it.”
“Think it not too bad,” amended Manning, who had broken the prawn’s whisker at a critical point of leverage and was naturally put out about it.
Mr. Lennard smiled from one to the other to show his willingness to accept praise or censure with equal avidity.
“Granted certain minor alterations,” pursued Eliphalet, “we might even be prepared to put the piece into rehearsal.”
“That’s most awfully good of you. Very, very kind indeed,” bleated Mr. Lennard.
“I imagine this is your first play,” and scarcely waiting for the nod of affirmation, Eliphalet went on, “and that being so, you understand the—er—remuneration would not be large—would, in fact, be—er—small.”
“Sort of honorarium,” put in Manning, “You’d get a royalty or a sum down for all rights.”
“Whichever you prefer,” interposed Mr. Lennard hastily, although not half-an-hour earlier he had resolved under no circumstances to sell out his interests in the play.
“It is of course difficult to get a first play produced at all,” said Eliphalet, “and the thirty or forty pounds expended may well prove money thrown away for the manager.”
“I see that—I quite see that.” (He had fixed his lowest price at one hundred down and 20 per cent. royalty, but such is the elasticity of the artistic mind that these barriers were instantly swept away.)
“Right,” said Manning. “Then, taking for granted you carry out the alterations satisfactorily, you are ready to take £30 to cover all claims?”
The talented author hesitated.
“Mr.—er—Cardomay mentioned forty.”
“Figure of speech, that’s all.”
“No, no, Manning, I think we might say forty. The extra ten payable if the play is a success.”
“That’s not business, Guv’nor.”
“But it’s an agreeable suggestion,” said Mr. Lennard, who was poor as well as honest.
“It would be a more agreeable suggestion if you paid back the thirty if the play’s a failure.”
Manning’s arguments were too much to cope with, so the author subsided.
“So far so good,” said Eliphalet, and produced the manuscript of the play. “Now, what I chiefly want you to do in these alterations is to retain the present spirit of the play as exactly as possible. It is admirably suited to the title, and the title pleases me greatly.”
Mr. Lennard looked grateful and asked what was required of him.
“To begin with, the character of the doctor must be changed to that of a clergyman.”
“A clergyman!”
“Precisely. I don’t play doctors, but I can and do play clergymen. After all, in a healer of the body or a healer of the mind there is no great difference.”
“Well,” said Mr. Lennard nervously, “it’s rather—I mean—a tall order. Aren’t some of the lines and—er-situations slightly unsuited to a cleric?”
“Change ’em, then. Make ’em suitable. That’s an author’s job, ain’t it?” demanded Manning.
“But I made a particular study of a Harley Street surgeon in the character of Dr. Wentall—a most careful study, in detail.”
“Well, go round to the Vicarage and make a fresh study there. You’ve got a fortnight.”
“Then, again, the whole scheme of the play would be affected. There would be insuperable difficulties in getting my characters on and off the stage. As patients visiting a doctor their comings and goings are in perfectly natural sequence.”
“You can fix that all right.” Manning dismissed such a trivial objection with a wave of the hand.
“And now,” said Eliphalet pleasantly, “about the part of the wife, Pauline?”
“You wouldn’t alter her? I—I thought she was rather good.”
“Admitted. But as it happens we have a young lady in our present company who, although charming, is scarcely capable of realising your intentions in this part.”
“But wouldn’t it be better to engage someone who was capable?” suggested Lennard.
“That would be rather shirking a responsibility, when it would be easy for you to modify and simplify the emotions she would be asked to portray.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look here, then,” Manning explained. “Cut out all that highly-strung, neurotic bosh and make her a simple, loving creature.”
“That’s it! With a vein of sunshiny humour.” And Eliphalet leant back and smiled.
“But how am I to adjust the quick, ill-considered actions of Pauline, as I’ve conceived her, to the type of character you suggest?”
“That is for you to decide, Mr. Lennard. We are here simply to reproduce your thoughts—not to inspire them. All I ask is that you should retain the present spirit of the play.”
The poor author looked utterly bewildered, but before he had recovered his powers of speech in came Manning with a bombshell.
“And now,” he detonated, “comes the question of Comic Relief.”
“Ah!” said Eliphalet. “I had quite forgotten the Comic Relief.”
Theodore Lennard essayed an epigram.
“I have seldom found it comic,” he said, “and never a relief.”
Both his hearers frowned.
“We must not consider only ourselves in these matters,” said Eliphalet gravely. “A large percentage of the audience rely for their pleasure exclusively upon this branch of the entertainment.”
“But I can’t see how I’m to get it in with the people as I’ve written them, Mr. Cardomay.”
“Then write some more—we have quite a large company.”
“What sort?”
Eliphalet fixed his eyes on the ceiling.
“A good deal of harmless fun,” he said, “can be extracted from highly-characterised domestic servants of opposite sexes. Their mispronunciation of words, their little amours, and perhaps some good-natured horseplay among the chairs and tables.”
“Are you serious, sir?”
“I am seriously suggesting a vein of humour. And now, Mr. Lennard, if you will consider these minor alterations, I trust we shall come to an arrangement satisfactory to you and to myself.”
Mr. Lennard rose and fumbled with his hat.
“I—I’ll do what I can,” he said. Then, with unexpected courage, “But how would it be if you produced the play as it is?”
“Look here, that’s hardly playing the game, o’ man,” said Manning. “You waste an hour of the Guv’nor’s time, and then put up a suggestion like that!”
“Yes—yes—I see. I beg your pardon, Mr. Cardomay. I apologise. Good afternoon, and thank you very, very much.”
After ten days the second version of “A Man’s Way” was delivered, and Eliphalet started to read it in great excitement. When he had finished, he was possessed with the curious conviction that he was mad. Accordingly he sent for Manning, and fluttered round while the stage-manager snorted through the manuscript.
“Well, Manning?”
“It’s all wrong. Parsons don’t act like that.”
Eliphalet nodded. “And they don’t talk like that,” he added.
Manning whisked over some pages. “Look at this bit, Guv’nor. ‘Get some grub and a good sleep.’ ” (Odd he should have chosen that line.) “People wouldn’t stick it.”
“Yes, yes—absurd! He should be soothing—inspired!”
“Then, again, this stage direction: ‘Takes Pauline by the shoulders and pushes her through the French window into the night, saying, “As you can’t be mentally cauterised, you’d better be mentally cooled.” ’ ”
“Shocking!”
“They’d throw things.”
“And, curiously enough, in the first version I thought that scene was good. He has made a mistake in keeping that hard note in the character. Besides, now that the Pauline has been sweetened, there is no longer any occasion for such drastic measures. And the Comic Relief, Manning?”
“Horrible, Guv’nor. Out of place.”
“I felt the same. Send Lennard a wire, Manning.”
“Saying it’s all off?”
“No, no—but I want to talk to him.”
On his way to the Post Office, Manning almost ran into Theodore Lennard, who had followed in the wake of his play. The stage-manager buttonholed him at once.
“You’ve fairly done it,” he opened fire. “Your play’s like a bit of bad joinery where the joints don’t fit, and rattle. It’s a hash, old man, a hash!”
“But what I cannot understand,” Eliphalet was saying five minutes later, “is how you could put such words into the mouth of a clergyman.”
“I didn’t,” came the plaintive reply. “I only left them in.”
“But no cleric would say such things.”
“Think for yourself—would he, o’ man? ‘Mentally cauterised,’ and all that kind of stuff! Bad form!”
“But Mr. Cardomay expressly asked me to keep the spirit of the play.”
“You took me too literally, Mr. Lennard. No self-respecting member of the Church would turn his wife out of doors in the middle of the night. He would wrestle with her mentally. There is a fine chance in that scene for inspired rhetoric. Think! Something that starts gently and gradually, crescendoes as the wealth of this theme reveals itself. Why, it comes to my brain as easily as if the trouble were my own.” He began to pace up and down, saying, “God gave you into my keeping, and I shall not let you go. For the sake of that great love that once was ours—love consecrated by holy matrimony, cemented by the hands of little children—put behind you these dark thoughts, my dear, these sinful, useless hopes. Shun this evil phantom that rises like a—a—something—in our path. Bear your part in the great trust—the trust of a wife and a mother.” He paused dramatically.
“That’s the stuff,” chipped in Freddie Manning. “And the girl finishes up by crying in his arms, and the house shouts itself sick.”
“According to my way of thinking,” hazarded Mr. Lennard politely, “no woman would stop in the room if her husband talked like that.”
“Well, there you are,” said Manning. “That’s a jolly good way of getting her off—much better than pitching her through the window.”
“Let us approach the matter rationally,” suggested Eliphalet, although he was not a little distressed at the reception given to his oratory. “Having gone so far, I am not anxious to relinquish the play. Even if only on account of the title, I confess I am drawn towards it. I suggest, Mr. Lennard, that you leave the manuscript with me to work upon. It would save much fruitless discussion. I should bring to bear a fresh eye, cultivated to observe and remedy the existing faults. What do you say?”
“Just as you please,” said the young man hopelessly. “I don’t suppose I should ever get what you want.”
During the fortnight in which Eliphalet laboured at “A Man’s Way” he had constant resource to manuscripts of old plays in his repertory, most particularly to one called “The Vespers,” in which a clergyman and his wife passed through troubled waters. In this work Right throve persistently, mainly through the good offices of much Homeric matter delivered from the centre of the stage and etherealised by the influences of the Spot Lime or Red Glow from Fire.
Eliphalet was not an author, and he began to work tentatively. But after a while he found that to give any real tone value to the scenes and characters it was necessary to carry out very extensive alterations. It is possible to keep gold-fish in an aviary. In certain elements only a certain class of life can exist. Influences in one breath to say “Chuck it and clear out” in the next. Wherefore, for every line Eliphalet altered there arose an immediate obligation to alter a hundred succeeding lines. And this duty, with the aid of his reference library, i.e., the Repertory Plays, he most conscientiously performed.
But, alas! with the change of text came a fresh trouble. Situations had to be re-constructed to fit the new psychology. Nothing daunted, Eliphalet dipped afresh into his old lore, and emerged with stilted and stereotyped scenes which he faithfully paraphrased and transplanted.
And the finished article bore about as much resemblance to “A Man’s Way” as a cow to a nightingale.
Poor Eliphalet Cardomay! The quicksands of tradition would not let him go.
“Yes,” said Freddie Manning, “it’s more like our usual stuff now.” He took out a cigarette, which he licked thoughtfully before lighting “But I was thinking——”
“What?” said Eliphalet.
“Hasn’t it struck you, Guv’nor, that the title ‘A Man’s Way,’ doesn’t fit any longer?”
Eliphalet looked quite scared.
“But I like the title enormously. It’s so original—er—modern.”
“But it don’t belong, Guv’nor. It gives the wrong idea.”
“Ye-es, I see what you mean. With this more ascetic character, eh?”
“Exactly.” He rubbed his nose productively. “ ‘A Man’s Prayer’ would be better,” he hazarded.
Eliphalet thought it over and shook his head.
“No, it ain’t good. How about ‘The Great Trust?’ ”
“Sounds a shade American, Manning.”
“It does.”
Eliphalet struck the table. “I have it,” he said. “ ‘His Prayer.’ ”
“That’s the note!”
“Then let Lennard know we have decided to call it that. And you might take back some of these to the theatre.” He indicated the pile of plays on his table from which his alterations had been quarried.
Freddie Manning carried off these veterans of the Road, and having nothing better to do for an hour he perused the four acts of “The Vespers” and became pregnant of an idea. He said nothing about it at the theatre that night, but the following morning, when, faithful to his usual routine, he paid his eleven o’clock call on his master, he had every intention of doing so.
In the meanwhile Eliphalet had passed a troubled night. Dispassionately and clear-headedly he had been through “His Prayer” (late “A Man’s Way”) and had given it deep thought.
He had chosen this work because he believed it would lift him from the Old School and place him among the moderns, and lo! it was even as all his other plays. He had been deceived. There was not a spark of originality in it. It was set and stereotyped, lifeless and dull.
“Why, why did I ever believe in the thing?” recurred over and over again in his mind.
So before Manning had a chance to speak a word, he was saying:
“I have made a most grievous error in the matter of ‘A Man’s Way.’ It’s no good, Manning—no good at all, and I cannot conceive how I ever thought it was.”
“We are all liable to mistakes, Guv’nor.”
Eliphalet shook his head. “Perhaps I am getting old,” he said, “and losing my sense of good and ill. Why, even with the alterations I have so laboriously contrived, it does not compare with the poorest play in our repertoire.”
Manning slapped his hat on the table.
“Guv’nor,” he said, “that’s what I’m here to say. It all comes of trying to get off our own railway system. Now what’s wrong with doing ‘The Vespers’ instead?”
“ ’Pon my soul,” said Eliphalet, “I believe it would bear reviving.”
“It would—and not a cent to pay, either.”
Eliphalet leant back and rubbed his fingers together.
“ ‘The Vespers?’ ” he spoke the title lovingly. “Why, Manning, it must be twenty years since I played ‘The Vespers.’ Ah, Manning, they knew how to write—those old ’uns. They had poetry, understanding. This ultra-modern business is all wrong, Manning, all wrong.”
“It’s all wrong for us, Guv’nor.” He did not overstress the “us,” but it had a meaning which Eliphalet was not slow to perceive.
“Let the cobbler stick to his last,” he said.
Manning rose abruptly.
“Well, I’ll send Lennard a letter and return the script.”
“No,” said Eliphalet, “I’ll do that.”
Manning eyed him doubtfully.
“You are under no obligation to pay him anything, Guv’nor.”
“No—no—no. Of course not.”
But nevertheless there was a cheque for forty pounds in the letter he posted. Perhaps subconsciously, he was paying for a lesson and not for a play.
It was the Eliphalet touch. He, too, had had his disappointments, and maybe, this was one of them. No man should raise hopes and dash them to the ground.