STILL WITH THE RELUCTANT CONSENT OF AGNES, BOBBY INVESTS IN THE FINE
ARTS
That week's "season of grand opera" was an unqualified success,
following closely the lines laid down by the experienced Mr. Spratt.
Caravaggio and Ricardo and Philippi and Villenauve became household
words, after the Monday night performance of _Carmen_, and for the
balance of the week shining carriages rolled up to the entrance of the
Orpheum, disgorging load after load of high-hatted gentlemen and
long-plumed ladies. Before the end of the engagement it was definitely
known that Bobby's investment would yield a profit, even deducting for
the days of idleness during which he had been compelled to support the
rehearsing company. The powers of darkness thereupon set vigorously to
work upon him to carry the company on through the rest of its season.
It was then that the storm broke. Against his going further with the
company Agnes Elliston interposed an objection so decided and so
unflattering that the _entente cordiale_ at the Elliston home was
strained dangerously near to the breaking point, and in this she was
aided and abetted by Aunt Constance, who ridiculed him, and by Uncle
Dan Elliston, who took him confidentially for a grave and hardheaded
remonstrance. Chalmers, Johnson, and even Applerod wrestled with him
in spirit; his friends at the Idlers' Club "guyed" him unmercifully,
and even Biff Bates, though his support was earnestly sought by the
Signorina Caravaggio, also counseled him roughly against it, and
through it all Bobby was made to feel that he was a small boy who had
proposed to eat a peck of green apples and then go in swimming in
dog-days. Another note from his father, handed to him by the faithful
and worried Johnson, was the deciding straw:
_To My Son Robert, About That Theatrical Venture_
"When a man who knows nothing of the business backs a show,
there's usually a woman at the bottom of it--and that kind of
woman is mostly rank poison to a normal man, even if she is a
good woman. No butterfly ever goes back into its chrysalis and
becomes a grub again. Let birds of a feather flock together,
Bobby."
That unfortunate missive, for once shooting so wide the mark, pushed
Bobby over the edge. There was a streak of stubbornness in him which,
well developed and turned into proper channels, was likely to be very
valuable, but until he learned to use that stubbornness in the right
way it bade fair to plunge him into more difficulties than he could
extricate himself from with profit. Even Agnes, reading that note,
indignantly agreed with Bobby that he was being unjustly misread.
"It is absurd," he explained to her. "This is the first
dividend-paying investment I have been able to make so far, and I'm
going to keep it up just as long as I can make money out of it. I'd be
very foolish if I didn't. Besides, this is just a little in-between
flyer, while I'm conservatively waiting for a good, legitimate
opening. It can take, at most, but a very small part of my two hundred
and fifty thousand."
Agnes, though defending him against his father, was still reluctant
about the trip, but suddenly, with a curious smile, she withdrew all
objections and even urged him to go ahead.
"Bobby," said she, still with that curious smile and strangely shining
eyes, and putting both her hands upon his shoulders, "I see that you
must go ahead with this. I--I guess it will be good for you. Somehow,
I think that this is to be your last folly, that you are really
learning that the world is not all polo and honor-bets. So go
ahead--and I'll wait here."
He could not know how much that hurt her. He only knew, after she had
talked more lightly of his trip, that he had her full and free
consent, and, highly elated with his first successful business
venture, he took up the contracts of the Neapolitan Grand Opera
Company where Signor Matteo, the decamped manager and producer, had
dropped them. The members of the company having attached the scenery
and effects for back salaries, sold them to Bobby for ten thousand
dollars, and he immediately found himself confronted by demands for
settlements, with the alternative of damage suits, from the two cities
in which the company had been booked for the two past weeks.
Had Bobby not bound himself irrevocably to contracts which made him
liable for the salaries of every member of this company for the next
twenty weeks, he would have withdrawn instantly at the first hint of
these suits; but, now that he was in for it, he promptly compromised
them at a rate which made Spratt furious.
"If I'd thought," said Spratt angrily in the privacy of the Orpheum
office, "that you were sucker enough to get roped in for the full
season, I'd have tossed you out of the running for this week. This
game is a bigger gamble than the Stock Exchange. The smartest
producers in the business never know when they have a winner or a
loser. More than that, while all actors are hard to handle, of all the
combinations on earth, a grand opera company is the worst. I'll bet a
couple of cold bottles that before you're a week on the road you'll
have leaks in your dirigible over some crazy dramatic stunts that are
not in the book of any opera of the Neapolitan repertoire."
The prediction was so true that it was proved that very night, which
was Friday, during the repetition of _Carmen_. It seemed that Biff
Bates, by means of the supreme dominance of the Caravaggio, had been
made free of the stage, a rare privilege, and one that enabled Biff to
spend his time, under unusual and romantic circumstances, very much in
the company of the Celtic Signorina; all of which was very much to the
annoyance, distress and fury of Signor Ricardo, especially on _Carmen_
night. At all other times the great Ricardo thought very well indeed
of the Signorina Nora, only being in any degree near to unfaithfulness
when, on _Aida_ nights, he sang to vivacious little Madam Villenauve;
but on _Carmen_ nights he was devotedly, passionately, madly in love
with the divine Car-r-r-r-avaggio! Else how could he sing the
magnificent second act aria? Life without her on those nights would be
a hollow mockery, the glance of any possible rival in her direction a
desecration. Why, he even had to restrain himself to keep from doing
actual damage to Philippi, who, though on the shady side of
forty-five, still sang a most dashing Escamillo; nor was his jealousy
less poignant because Philippi and Caravaggio were sworn enemies.
Thus it may be understood--by any one, at least, who has ever loved
ecstatically and fervidly and even hectically, like the great
Ricardo--how on Monday and Wednesday nights and the Thursday matinee,
all of which were Caravaggio performances, he resented Biff's
presence. From dark corners he more darkly watched them chatting in
frank enjoyment of each other's company; he made unexpected darts in
front of their very eyes to greet them with the most alarming scowls;
and because he insolently brushed the shoulder of the peaceably
inclined and self-sure Biff upon divers occasions, and Biff made no
sign of resentment, he imagined that Biff trembled in his boots
whenever he noted the approach of the redoubtable Ricardo with his
infinitesimal but ferocious mustachios. Great, then, was his wonder,
to say nothing of his rage, when Biff, after all the scowls and
shoulderings that he had received on Thursday, actually came around
for Friday night's _Carmen_ performance!
Even before the fierce Ricardo had gone into his dressing-room he was
already taking upon himself the deadly character of Don Jose, and his
face surged red with fury when he saw Biff Bates, gaily laughing as if
no doom impended, come in at the stage door with the equally gay and
care-free Caravaggio. But after Signor Ricardo had donned the costume
and the desperateness of the brigadier Don Jose--it was then that the
fury sank into his soul! And that fury boiled and seethed as, during
the first and second acts, he found in the wings Signorina
Car-r-r-r-r-r-avaggio absorbed in pleasant but very significant chat
with his deadly enemy, the crude, unmusical, inartistic, soulless
Biffo de Bates-s-s-s! But, ah! There was another act to come, the
third act, at the beginning of which the property man handed him the
long, sharp, wicked-looking, bloodthirsty knife with which he was to
fight Escamillo, and with which in the fourth act he was to kill
Carmen. The mere possession of that knife wrought the great tenor's
soul to gory tragedy; so much so that immediately after the third act
curtain calls he rushed directly to the spot where he knew the
contemptible Signor Biffo de Bates-s-s-s to be standing, and with
shrill Latin imprecations flourished that keen, glistening blade
before the eyes of the very much astounded Biff.
For a moment, thoroughly incredulous, Biff refused to believe it,
until a second demonstration compelled him to acknowledge that the
great Ricardo actually meant threatening things toward himself. When
this conviction forced its way upon him, Biff calmly reached out, and,
with a grip very much like a bear-trap, seized Signor Ricardo by the
forearm of the hand which held the knife. With his unengaged hand Biff
then smacked the Signor Ricardo right severely on the wrist.
"You don't mean it, you know, Sig-nor Garlic," he calmly observed. "If
I thought you did I'd smack you on both wrists. Why, you little red
balloon, I ain't afraid of any mutt on earth that carries a knife like
that, as long as I got my back to the wall."
Still holding the putty-like Signor by the forearm, he delicately
abstracted from his clasp the huge knife, and, folding it up gravely,
handed it back to him; then deliberately he turned his back on the
Signor and pushed his way through the delightedly horror-stricken
emotionalists who had gathered at the fray, and strolled over to where
Signorina Caravaggio had stood an interested and mirth-shaken
observer.
"You mustn't think all Italians are like that, Biff," she said, her
first impulse, as always, to see justice done; "but singers are a
different breed. I don't think he's bluffing, altogether. If he got a
real good chance some place in the dark, and was sure that he wouldn't
be caught, he might use a stiletto on you."
"If he ever does I'll slap his forehead," said Biff. "But say, he uses
that cleaver again in the show?"
The Signorina Nora shrugged her shoulders.
"He's supposed to stab me with it in this next act."
"He is!" exclaimed Biff. "Well, just so he don't make any mistake I'm
going over and paste him one."
It was not necessary, for Signor Ricardo, after studying the matter
over and seeing no other way out of it, proceeded to have a fit. No
one, not even the illustrious Signor, could tell just how much of that
fit was deliberate and artificial, and just how much was due to an
overwrought sensitive organization, but certain it was that the Signor
Ricardo was quite unable to go on with the performance, and Monsieur
Noire himself, as agitated as a moment before the great Ricardo had
been, frantically rushed up to Biff and grabbed him roughly by the
shoulders.
"Too long," shrieked he, "we have let you be annoying the artists, by
reason of the Caravaggio. But now you shall do the skidooing."
With a laugh Biff looked back over his shoulder at the Caravaggio, and
permitted Monsieur Noire to eject him bodily from the stage door upon
the alley.
The next morning, owing to the prompt action and foresightedness of
Spratt, all the papers contained the very pretty story that the great
Ricardo had succumbed to his own intensity of emotions after the third
act of _Carmen_, and had been unable to go on, giving way to the
scarcely less great Signor Dulceo. That same morning Bobby was
confronted by the first of a long series of similar dilemmas. The
Signorina Caravaggio must leave the company or Signor Ricardo would do
so. No stage was big enough to hold the two; moreover, Ricardo meant
to have the heart's blood of Signor Biffo de Bates-s-s-s!
With a sigh, Bobby, out of his ignorance and independence, took the
only possible course to preserve peace, and emphatically told Signor
Ricardo to pack up and go as quickly as possible, which he went away
vowing to do. Naturally the great tenor thought better of it after
that, and though he had already been dropped from the cast of _Il
Trovatore_ on Saturday afternoon, he reported just the same. And he
went on with the company.
It was not until they went upon the road, however, that Bobby fully
realized what a lot of irresponsible, fretful, peevish children he had
upon his hands. With the exception of serene Nora McGinnis, every one
of the principals was at daggers drawn with all the others, sulking
over the least advantage obtained by any one else, and accepting
advantage of their own as only a partial payment of their supreme
rank. The one most at war with her own world was Madam Villenauve,
whose especial _bete noire_ was the MeeGeenees, whom, by no
possibility, could she ever under any circumstance be induced to call
Caravaggio.
On the second day of their next engagement, as Bobby strode through
the corridor of the hotel, shortly after luncheon, he was stopped by
Madam Villenauve, who had been waiting for him in the door of her
room. She was herself apparently just dressing to go out, for her
coiffure was made and she had on a short underskirt, a kimono-like
dressing-jacket and her street shoes.
"I wish to speak wiz you on some beezness, Meester Burnit," she told
him abruptly, and with an imperatively beckoning hand stepped back
with a bow for him to enter.
With just a moment of surprised hesitation he stepped into the room,
whereupon the Villenauve promptly closed the door. A week before Bobby
would have been a trifle astonished by this proceeding, but in that
week he had seen so many examples of unconscious unconventionalities
in and about the dressing-rooms and at the hotel, that he had
readjusted his point of view to meet the peculiar way of life of these
people, and, as usual with readjustments, had readjusted himself too
far. He found the room in a litter, with garments of all sorts cast
about in reckless disorder.
"I have been seeing you last night," began Madam Villenauve, shaking
her finger at him archly as she swept some skirts off a chair for him
to sit down, and then took her place before her dressing-table, where
she added the last deft touch to her coiffure. "I have been seeing you
smiling at ze reedeec'lous Carmen. Oh, la, la! Carmen!" she shrilled.
"It is I, monsieur, I zat am ze Carmen. It was zis Matteo, the
scoundrel who run away wiz our money, zat allow le Ricardo to say whom
he like to sing to for Carmen. Ricardo ees in loaf wiz la MeeGeenees.
Le Ricardo is a fool, so zis Ricardo sing Carmen ever tam to ze great,
grosse monstair MeeGeenees; an' ever'body zey laugh. Ze chorus laugh,
ze principals laugh, le Monsieur Noire he laugh, even zat
Fruehlingsvogel zat have no humair, he laugh, an' ze audience laugh,
an' las' night I am seeing you laugh. Ees eet not so? _Mais!_ It is
absurd! It is reedeec'lous. Le Ricardo make fool over la MeeGeenees.
_I_ sing ze Carmen! I _am_ ze Carmen! You hear me sing Aida? Eet ees
zat way. I sing Carmen. Now I s'all sing Carmen again! Ees eet not?"
As Madam Villenauve talked, punctuating her remarks with quick,
impatient little gestures, she jerked off her dressing-jacket and
threw it on the floor, and Bobby saved himself from panic by reminding
himself that her frank anatomical display was, in the peculiar ethics
of these people, no more to be noticed than if she were in an evening
gown, which was very reasonable, after all, once you understood the
code. Still voicing her indignation at having been displaced in the
role of Carmen by the utterly impossible and preposterous Caravaggio,
she caught up her waist and was about to slip it on, while Bobby, with
an amused smile, reflected that presently he would no doubt be
nonchalantly requested to hook it in the back, when some one tried the
door-knob. A knock followed and Madam Villenauve went to the door.
"Who ees it?" she asked with her hand on the knob.
"It is I; Monsieur Noire," was the reply.
"Oh, la, come in, zen," she invited, and threw open the door.
Monsieur Noire entered, but, finding Bobby in the chair by the
dresser, stopped uncertainly in the doorway.
"Oh, come on een," she gaily invited; "we are all ze good friends;
_oui_?"
It appeared that Monsieur Noire came in all politeness, yet with rigid
intention, to inquire about a missing piece of music from the score of
_Les Huguenots_, and Madam Villenauve, in all politeness and yet with
much indignation, assured him that she did not have it; whereupon
Monsieur Noire, with all politeness but cold insistence, demanded that
she look for it; whereupon Madam Villenauve, though once more
protesting that she had it not, in all politeness and yet with
considerable asperity, declared that she would not search for it;
whereupon Monsieur Noire, observing the piece of music in question
peeping out from beneath a conglomerate pile of newspapers, clothing
and toilet articles, laid hands upon it and departed. Madam
Villenauve, entirely unruffled now that it was all over, but still
chattering away with great volubility about the crime of Carmen,
finished her dressing and bade Bobby hook the back of her waist, and
by sheer calmness and certainty of intention forced him to accompany
her over to rehearsal.
Whatever annoyance he might have felt over this was lost in his
amusement when he reached the theater in finding Biff Bates upon the
stage waiting for him; and Biff, while waiting, was quite excusably
whiling the time away with the adorable Miss McGinnis.
"You see, Young Fitz lives here," Biff brazenly explained, "and I run
up to see him about that exhibition night I'm going to have at the
gym. I'm going to have him go on with Kid Jeffreys."
"Biff," said Bobby warmly, "I want to congratulate you on your
business enterprise. Have you seen Young Fitz yet?"
"Well, no," confessed Biff. "I just got here about an hour ago. I
didn't know your hotel, but it was a cinch from the bills to tell
where the show was, so I came right around to the theater to see you
first."
"Exactly," admitted Bobby. "Do you _expect_ to see Young Fitz?"
"Well, maybe, if I get time," said Biff with a sheepish grin. "Just
now I'm going out for a drive with Miss McGinnis."
"Caravaggio," corrected that young lady with a laugh.
"McGinnis for mine," declared Biff. "By the way, Bobby, I saw a
certain party before I left town and she gave me this letter for you.
Certain party is as cheerful as a chunk of lead about your trip,
Bobby, but she makes the swellest bluff I ever saw that she's tickled
to death with it."
With this vengeful shot in retaliation for his excuse about Young Fitz
having been doubted he sailed away with the Caravaggio, who, though
required to report at every rehearsal, was not in the cast for that
night and was readily excused from further attendance. Since Bobby had
received a very pleasant letter from Agnes when he got up that morning
he opened this missive with a touch of curiosity added to the thrill
with which he always took in his hands any missive, no matter how
trivial, from her. It was but a brief note calling attention to the
enclosed newspaper clipping, and wishing him success in his new
venture. The clipping was a flamboyant article describing the decision
of the city council to install a magnificent new ten-million-dollar
waterworks system, and the personally interesting item in it, ringed
around with a pencil mark, was that Silas Trimmer had been appointed
by Mayor Garland as president of the waterworks commission.
It was not news that could alter his fortunes in any way so far as he
could see, but it did remind him, with a strange whipping of his
conscience, that, after all, his place was back home, and that his
proper employment should be the looking after his home interests. For
the first time he began to have a dim realization that a man's place
was among his enemies, where he could watch them.