"As a matter of fact, Dolly," said her husband, "it was me that thought of the idea!"

She ignored her husband. She pretended that John would become too proud to know the poor little Creams!...

"I'm not too proud to know anyone," he interrupted.

She burbled at him, and pressed closer to him. "You're quite complimentary," she said.

Cream had given John a note to the manager of the theatre which induced that gentleman to admit him, free of charge, to the stalls. He would travel home by himself, for the Creams had to play at other music-halls, and would not be able to take him back to Brixton in their brougham.

"We finish up at Walham Green," said Cream, as John left the carriage.

He waited impatiently for the performance of _The Girl Gets Left_, and he had an extraordinary sense of pleasure when he saw Cream's wistful face peering through a window immediately after the curtain went up. The little man was remarkably funny. His look, his voice, his gestures, all compelled laughter from the audience without the audience understanding quite why it was amused. He had the pathetic appearance that all great comedians have, the look of appeal that one saw in the face of Dan Leno, in the face of James Welch, and it seemed that he might as easily cry as laugh. The words he had to say were poor, vapid things, but when he said them, he put some of his own life into them and gave them a greater value than they deserved. The turn of his head was comic; a queer little helpless movement of his hands was comic; the way in which he seemed to stop short and gulp as if he were bracing himself up was comic; the swift downward and then upward glance of his eyes, followed by an a.s.sumption of complete humility and resignation, these were comic. And when he appeared on the stage, the audience, knowing something of his quality, collectively lifted itself into an att.i.tude of attention.

A dismal young woman, singing a dreary lecherous song and showing an immense quant.i.ty of frilled underclothing, had occupied five or six minutes in boring the audience before _The Girl Gets Left_ began; and an air of la.s.situde had enveloped the men who were sitting in relaxed att.i.tudes in the theatre. Their eyes seemed to become dull, and they paid more attention to their pipes and their cigarettes than they paid to the young woman's underclothing.... But when _The Girl Gets Left_ began, and the whimsical face of Cream was seen peering through the window of the scene, the la.s.situde was lifted and the men's eyes began to brighten again. The first words, the first gesture of comic helplessness, from Cream sent a ripple of laughter round the theatre, and immediately the place was full of that queer, uncontrollable thing, personality.

John laughed heartily at the acting of his new friend, and he decided that he would certainly try to write a play for him. How good Mrs.

Cream must be if she were better than her husband, as he so proudly declared she was. It would be a privilege to write a play for people so clever.... Then Mrs. Cream, magnificently dressed, appeared, and as she did so, some of the atmosphere that enveloped the stage and the auditorium and made them one and very intimate, was dispelled. John watched her as she moved about the stage, and wondered why it was that the audience had suddenly become a little fidgetty. His eyes were full of astonishment. He gazed at Mrs. Cream as if he were trying to understand some ineluctable mystery.... He remembered how enthralled he had been by the acting of the girl who had played Juliet. He had been caught up and transported from the theatre to the very streets of Verona. He had felt that he was one of the crowd that followed the Montagues or the Capulets, and had been ready to bite his thumb with the best.... But here was something that left him uneasy and alien. He felt as if he were prying into private affairs, that at any moment someone, a policeman, perhaps, might come along and seize him for trespa.s.sing. He did not then know that bad acting always leaves an audience with a sensation of having intruded upon privacies ... that an actor who is incompetent leaves the people who see him acting badly with the feeling that they have vulgarly peeped into his dressing-room and seen him taking off his wig and wiping the paint from his face.

Mrs. Cream acted with great vigour; her voice roared over the footlights; and she seemed to hurl herself about the scene as if she were determined either to smash the furniture or to smash herself. She made much noise. Her gestures were lavish. Her dresses were very costly and full of glitter. She worked hard....

"But she can't act," said John to himself, sighing with relief when at last she left the stage to her husband.

The little man's small, fragile voice, with its comic hesitation and its puzzled note, sounded very restful after the torrential noises made by his wife, and in a few moments he had the minds of the audience fused again into one mind and made completely attentive. When the play was ended, there was very hearty applause, but none of it so hearty as the applause from John. The last few moments of the piece had been given to Mr. Cream, and he had left the audience with the pleased impression of himself and forgetful of the jar it had received from his wife....

"That wee man can act all right," said John, clapping his hands until they were sore.

IV

Hinde was waiting for him in the sitting-room when he returned to the lodging-house.

"What did you think of the Creams?" the journalist asked when they had greeted each other and had ended their congratulations on being Ulstermen.

"He's very good," John began....

"And she's rotten?" Hinde interrupted.

"Well!..."

"Oh, my dear fellow, you needn't be afraid of telling me what you think. There's only one person in the world who doesn't realise that Mrs. Cream can't act and never will be able to act ... and that's poor old Cream himself. He's as good a comedian as there is in the world--that little man: the essence of c.o.c.kney wit; and he does not know how good he is. He thinks that she is much better than he can ever hope to be, and she thinks so, too; but if it were not for him, MacDermott, she wouldn't get thirty shillings a week in a penny gaff!"

"They've asked me to write a play for them," John said.

"Are you going to do it?"

"I don't know. That play to-night was a very common sort of a piece.

It's not the style of play I want to do!..."

"What style of play _do_ you want to do?" Hinde asked.

"Good plays. Plays like Shakespeare wrote."

Hinde looked at him quickly. "Oh, well," he said, "there's no harm in aiming high!"

John told him of the book he had written at Ballyards, and of the story he had sent to _Blackwood's Magazine_.

"I've a great ambition to do big things," he said.

"There's no harm in that either," Hinde replied. "In the meantime, what are you going to do? It'll be a wheen of years yet before you can hope to get anything big done!"

"Oh, I don't know about that," John answered confidently. "The MacDermotts are great people for getting their own way!"

"Mebbe they are ... in Ballyards," Hinde retorted, "but this isn't Ballyards. And you can't spend all your time writing masterpieces.

You'll have to do a wee bit of ordinary common work. What about trying to get a job on a paper?"

"I don't mind taking a job if there's one to be got. Only what sort of a job?..."

Hinde teased him. "They'll not let you edit the _Times_ yet awhile," he said.

"I don't want to edit it," John replied.

"Well, that's a lucky thing for the man that's got the job now!"

John felt aggrieved at once. "You're coddin' me," he complained.

"Say that again," Hinde exclaimed enthusiastically.

"Say what again?"

"Say I'm coddin' you. I haven't heard that word for years. Gwon! Say it!"

"You're coddin' me!..."

"Isn't it lovely? Isn't it a grand word, that? Good Ulster talk!..."

The door opened and Lizzie entered the room.

"Mr. 'Inde!..." she said.

"Don't call me 'Inde," he shouted, jumping up from his chair. "What do you think the letter _h_ was put in the alphabet for? For you to leave it out?"

Lizzie smiled amiably at him. "Ow, go on," she said, "you're always 'avin' me on!" She turned to John. "'E's a 'oly terror, 'e is. Talks about me speakin' funny, but wot about 'im? I think Irish is the comicest way of talkin' I ever heard. Wot'll you 'ave for your breakfis, Mr. 'Inde?"

"_H_inde, woman, _H_inde!..."

"Well, wot'll you 'ave for your breakfis?"

"One of these days I'll have you fried and boiled and stewed!..."