The days following Clarence’s visit to the offices of the Encore were marked by a growing feeling of unrest, alike among invaded and invaders. The first novelty and excitement of the foreign occupation of the country was beginning to wear off, and in its place the sturdy independence so typical of the British character was reasserting itself. Deep down in his heart the genuine Englishman has a rugged distaste for seeing his country invaded by a foreign army. People were asking themselves by what right these aliens had overrun British soil. An ever-growing feeling of annoyance had begun to lay hold of the nation.
It is probable that the departure of Sir Harry Lauder first brought home to England what this invasion might mean. The great comedian, in his manifesto in the Times, had not minced his words. Plainly and crisply he had stated that he was leaving the country because the music-hall stage was given over to alien gowks. He was sorry for England. He liked England. But now, all he could say was, “God bless you.” England shuddered, remembering that last time he had said, “God bless you till I come back.”
Ominous mutterings began to make themselves heard.
Other causes contributed to swell the discontent. A regiment of Russians, out route-marching, had walked across the bowling-screen at Kennington Oval during the Surrey v. Lancashire match, causing Hayward to be bowled for a duck’s-egg. A band of German sappers had dug a trench right across the turf at Queen’s Club.
The mutterings increased.
Nor were the invaders satisfied and happy. The late English summer had set in with all its usual severity, and the Cossacks, reared in the kindlier climate of Siberia, were feeling it terribly. Colds were the rule rather than the exception in the Russian lines. The coughing of the Germans at Tottenham could be heard in Oxford Street.
The attitude of the British public, too, was getting on their nerves. They had been prepared for fierce resistance. They had pictured the invasion as a series of brisk battles—painful perhaps, but exciting. They had anticipated that when they had conquered the country they might meet with the Glare of Hatred as they patrolled the streets. The Supercilious Stare unnerved them. There is nothing so terrible to the highly-strung foreigner as the cold, contemptuous, patronising gaze of the Englishman. It gave the invaders a perpetual feeling of doing the wrong thing. They felt like men who had been found travelling in a first-class carriage with a third-class ticket. They became conscious of the size of their hands and feet. As they marched through the Metropolis they felt their ears growing hot and red. Beneath the chilly stare of the populace they experienced all the sensations of a man who has come to a strange dinner-party in a tweed suit when everybody else has dressed. They felt warm and prickly.
It was dull for them, too. London is never at its best in early September, even for the habitue. There was nothing to do. Most of the theatres were shut. The streets were damp and dirty. It was all very well for the generals, appearing every night in the glare and glitter of the footlights; but for the rank and file the occupation of London spelt pure boredom.
London was, in fact, a human powder-magazine. And it was Clarence Chugwater who with a firm hand applied the match that was to set it in a blaze.
Chapter 6
THE BOMB-SHELL
Clarence had called at the offices of the Encore on a Friday. The paper’s publishing day is Thursday. The Encore is the Times of the music-hall world. It casts its curses here, bestows its benedictions (sparely) there. The Encore criticising the latest action of the Variety Artists’ Federation is the nearest modern approach to Jove hurling the thunderbolt. Its motto is, “Cry havoc, and let loose the performing dogs of war.”
It so happened that on the Thursday following his momentous visit to Wellington Street, there was need of someone on the staff of Clarence’s evening paper to go and obtain an interview from the Russian general. Mr. Hubert Wales had just published a novel so fruity in theme and treatment that it had been publicly denounced from the pulpit by no less a person than 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. A morning paper had started the question, “Should there be a Censor of Fiction?” and, in accordance with custom, editors were collecting the views of celebrities, preferably of those whose opinion on the subject was absolutely valueless.
All the other reporters being away on their duties, the editor was at a loss.
“Isn’t there anybody else?” he demanded.
The chief sub-editor pondered.
“There is young blooming Chugwater,” he said.
(It was thus that England’s deliverer was habitually spoken of in the office.)
“Then send him,” said the editor.
Grand Duke Vodkakoff’s turn at the Magnum Palace of Varieties started every evening at ten sharp. He topped the bill. Clarence, having been detained by a review of the Scouts, did not reach the hall till five minutes to the hour. He got to the dressing-room as the general was going on to the stage.
The Grand Duke dressed in the large room with the other male turns. There were no private dressing-rooms at the Magnum. Clarence sat down on a basket-trunk belonging to the Premier Troupe of Bounding Zouaves of the Desert, and waited. The four athletic young gentlemen who composed the troupe were dressing after their turn. They took no notice of Clarence.
Presently one Zouave spoke.
“Bit off to-night, Bill. Cold house.”
“Not ‘arf,” replied his colleague. “Gave me the shivers.”
“Wonder how his nibs’ll go.”
Evidently he referred to the Grand Duke.
“Oh, ‘e’s all right. They eat his sort of swank. Seems to me the profession’s going to the dogs, what with these bloomin’ amytoors an’ all. Got the ‘airbrush, ‘Arry?”
Harry, a tall, silent Zouave, handed over the hairbrush.
Bill continued.
“I’d like to see him go on of a Monday night at the old Mogul. They’d soon show him. It gives me the fair ‘ump, it does, these toffs coming in and taking the bread out of our mouths. Why can’t he give us chaps a chance? Fair makes me rasp, him and his bloomin’ eight hundred and seventy-five o’ goblins a week.”
“Not so much of your eight hundred and seventy-five, young feller me lad,” said the Zouave who had spoken first. “Ain’t you seen the rag this week?”
“Naow. What’s in it? How does our advert, look?”
“Ow, that’s all right, never mind that. You look at ‘What the Encore Would Like to Know.’ That’s what’ll touch his nibs up.”
He produced a copy of the paper from the pocket of his great-coat which hung from the door, and passed it to his bounding brother.
“Read it out, old sort,” he said.
The other took it to the light and began to read slowly and cautiously, as one who is no expert at the art.
“‘What the Encore would like to know:—Whether Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig didn’t go particularly big at the Lobelia last week? And Whether his success hasn’t compelled Agent Quhayne to purchase a larger-sized hat? And Whether it isn’t a fact that, though they are press-agented at the same figure, Prince Otto is getting fifty a week more than Grand Duke Vodkakoff? And If it is not so, why a little bird has assured us that the Prince is being paid five hundred a week and the Grand Duke only four hundred and fifty? And, In any case, whether the Prince isn’t worth fifty a week more than his Russian friend?’ Lumme!”
An awed silence fell upon the group. To Clarence, who had dictated the matter (though the style was the editor’s), the paragraph did not come as a surprise. His only feeling was one of relief that the editor had served up his material so well. He felt that he had been justified in leaving the more delicate literary work to that master-hand.