“That’ll be one in the eye,” said the Zouave Harry. “‘Ere, I’ll stick it up opposite of him when he comes back to dress. Got a pin and a pencil, some of you?”
He marked the quarter column heavily, and pinned it up beside the looking-glass. Then he turned to his companions.
“‘Ow about not waiting, chaps?” he suggested. “I shouldn’t ‘arf wonder, from the look of him, if he wasn’t the ‘aughty kind of a feller who’d cleave you to the bazooka for tuppence with his bloomin’ falchion. I’m goin’ to ‘urry through with my dressing and wait till tomorrow night to see how he looks. No risks for Willie!”
The suggestion seemed thoughtful and good. The Bounding Zouaves, with one accord, bounded into their clothes and disappeared through the door just as a long-drawn chord from the invisible orchestra announced the conclusion of the Grand Duke’s turn.
General Vodkakoff strutted into the room, listening complacently to the applause which was still going on. He had gone well. He felt pleased with himself.
It was not for a moment that he noticed Clarence.
“Ah,” he said, “the interviewer, eh? You wish to—”
Clarence began to explain his mission. While he was doing so the Grand Duke strolled to the basin and began to remove his make-up. He favoured, when on the stage, a touch of the Raven Gipsy No. 3 grease-paint. It added a picturesque swarthiness to his appearance, and made him look more like what he felt to be the popular ideal of a Russian general.
The looking-glass hung just over the basin.
Clarence, watching him in the glass, saw him start as he read the first paragraph. A dark flush, almost rivalling the Raven Gipsy No. 3, spread over his face. He trembled with rage.
“Who put that paper there?” he roared, turning.
“With reference, then, to Mr. Hubert Wales’s novel,” said Clarence.
The Grand Duke cursed Mr. Hubert Wales, his novel, and Clarence in one sentence.
“You may possibly,” continued Clarence, sticking to his point like a good interviewer, “have read the trenchant, but some say justifiable remarks of the Rev. Canon Edgar Sheppard, D.D., Sub-Dean of His Majesty’s Chapels Royal, Deputy Clerk of the Closet, and Sub-Almoner to the King.”
The Grand Duke swiftly added that eminent cleric to the list.
“Did you put that paper on this looking-glass?” he shouted.
“I did not put that paper on that looking-glass,” replied Clarence precisely.
“Ah,” said the Grand Duke, “if you had, I’d have come and wrung your neck like a chicken, and scattered you to the four corners of this dressing-room.”
“I’m glad I didn’t,” said Clarence.
“Have you read this paper on the looking-glass?”
“I have not read that paper on the looking-glass,” replied Clarence, whose chief fault as a conversationalist was that he was perhaps a shade too Ollendorfian. “But I know its contents.”
“It’s a lie!” roared the Grand Duke. “An infamous lie! I’ve a good mind to have him up for libel. I know very well he got them to put those paragraphs in, if he didn’t write them himself.”
“Professional jealousy,” said Clarence, with a sigh, “is a very sad thing.”
“I’ll professional jealousy him!”
“I hear,” said Clarence casually, “that he has been going very well at the Lobelia. A friend of mine who was there last night told me he took eleven calls.”
For a moment the Russian General’s face swelled apoplectically. Then he recovered himself with a tremendous effort.
“Wait!” he said, with awful calm. “Wait till tomorrow night! I’ll show him! Went very well, did he? Ha! Took eleven calls, did he? Oh, ha, ha! And he’ll take them tomorrow night, too! Only”—and here his voice took on a note of fiendish purpose so terrible that, hardened scout as he was, Clarence felt his flesh creep—”only this time they’ll be catcalls!”
And, with a shout of almost maniac laughter, the jealous artiste flung himself into a chair, and began to pull off his boots.
Clarence silently withdrew. The hour was very near.
Chapter 7
THE BIRD
The Grand Duke Vodkakoff was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. He was no lobster, no flat-fish. He did it now—swift, secret, deadly—a typical Muscovite. By midnight his staff had their orders.
Those orders were for the stalls at the Lobelia.
Price of entrance to the gallery and pit was served out at daybreak to the Eighth and Fifteenth Cossacks of the Don, those fierce, semi-civilised fighting-machines who know no fear.
Grand Duke Vodkakoff’s preparations were ready.
Few more fortunate events have occurred in the history of English literature than the quite accidental visit of Mr. Bart Kennedy to the Lobelia on that historic night. He happened to turn in there casually after dinner, and was thus enabled to see the whole thing from start to finish. At a quarter to eleven a wild-eyed man charged in at the main entrance of Carmelite House, and, too impatient to use the lift, dashed up the stairs, shouting for pens, ink and paper.
Next morning the Daily Mail was one riot of headlines. The whole of page five was given up to the topic. The headlines were not elusive. They flung the facts at the reader:—
SCENE AT THE LOBELIA PRINCE OTTO OF SAXE-PFENNIG GIVEN THE BIRD BY RUSSIAN SOLDIERS WHAT WILL BE THE OUTCOME?
There were about seventeen more, and then came Mr. Bart Kennedy’s special report.
He wrote as follows:—
“A night to remember. A marvellous night. A night such as few will see again. A night of fear and wonder. The night of September the eleventh. Last night.
“Nine-thirty. I had dined. I had eaten my dinner. My dinner! So inextricably are the prose and romance of life blended. My dinner! I had eaten my dinner on this night. This wonderful night. This night of September the eleventh. Last night!
“I had dined at the club. A chop. A boiled potato. Mushrooms on toast. A touch of Stilton. Half-a-bottle of Beaune. I lay back in my chair. I debated within myself. A Hall? A theatre? A book in the library? That night, the night of September the eleventh, I as near as a toucher spent in the library of my club with a book. That night! The night of September the eleventh. Last night!
“Fate took me to the Lobelia. Fate! We are its toys. Its footballs. We are the footballs of Fate. Fate might have sent me to the Gaiety. Fate took me to the Lobelia. This Fate which rules us.
“I sent in my card to the manager. He let me through. Ever courteous. He let me through on my face. This manager. This genial and courteous manager.
“I was in the Lobelia. A dead-head. I was in the Lobelia as a dead-head!”
Here, in the original draft of the article, there are reflections, at some length, on the interior decorations of the Hall, and an excursus on music-hall performances in general. It is not till he comes to examine the audience that Mr. Kennedy returns to the main issue.
“And what manner of audience was it that had gathered together to view the entertainment provided by the genial and courteous manager of the Lobelia? The audience. Beyond whom there is no appeal. The Caesars of the music-hall. The audience.”
At this point the author has a few extremely interesting and thoughtful remarks on the subject of audiences. These may be omitted. “In the stalls I noted a solid body of Russian officers. These soldiers from the Steppes. These bearded men. These Russians. They sat silent and watchful. They applauded little. The programme left them cold. The Trick Cyclist. The Dashing Soubrette and Idol of Belgravia. The Argumentative College Chums. The Swell Comedian. The Man with the Performing Canaries. None of these could rouse them. They were waiting. Waiting. Waiting tensely. Every muscle taut. Husbanding their strength. Waiting. For what?