MR. SACHS TALKS
I.
It was the sudden flash of the photographer's magnesium light, plainly
felt by him through his closed lids, that somehow instantly inspired
Edward Henry to a definite and ruthless line of action. He opened his
eyes and beheld the triumphant group, and the photographer himself,
victorious over even the triumphant, in a superb pose that suggested
that all distinguished mankind in his presence was naught but food for
the conquering camera. The photographer smiled indulgently, and his
smile said: "Having been photographed by me, you have each of you
reached the summit of your career. Be content. Retire! Die! Destiny
is accomplished!"
"Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid, "I do believe your eyes were shut!"
"So do I!" Edward Henry curtly agreed.
"But you'll spoil the group!"
"Not a bit of it!" said Edward Henry. "I always shut my eyes when I'm
being photographed by flash-light. I open my mouth instead. So long as
something's open, what does it matter?"
The truth was that only in the nick of time had he, by a happy miracle
of ingenuity, invented a way of ruining the photograph. The absolute
necessity for its ruin had presented itself to him rather late in the
proceedings, when the photographer had already finished arranging the
hands and shoulders of everybody in an artistic pattern. The photograph
had to be spoilt for the imperative reason that his mother, though she
never read a newspaper, did as a fact look at a picture newspaper, _The
Daily Film_, which from pride she insisted on paying for out of her own
purse, at the rate of one halfpenny a day. Now _The Daily Film_
specialised in theatrical photographs, on which it said it spent large
sums of money; and Edward Henry in a vision had seen the historic group
in a future issue of the _Film_. He had also, in the same vision, seen
his mother conning the said issue, and the sardonic curve of her lips as
she recognised her son therein, and he had even heard her dry, cynical,
contemptuous exclamation: "Bless us!" He could never have looked
squarely in his mother's face again if that group had appeared in her
chosen organ! Her silent and grim scorn would have crushed his
self-conceit to a miserable, hopeless pulp. Hence his resolve to render
the photograph impossible.
"Perhaps I'd better take another one?" the photographer suggested.
"Though I think Mr.--er--Machin was all right." At the supreme crisis
the man had been too busy with his fireworks to keep a watch on every
separate eye and mouth of the assemblage.
"Of course I was all right!" said Edward Henry, almost with brutality.
"Please take that thing away as quickly as you can. We have business to
attend to."
"Yes, sir," agreed the photographer, no longer victorious.
Edward Henry rang the bell, and two gentlemen in waiting arrived.
"Clear this table immediately!"
The tone of the command startled everybody except the gentlemen in
waiting and Mr. Seven Sachs. Rose Euclid gave vent to her nervous
giggle. The poet and Mr. Marrier tried to appear detached and
dignified, and succeeded in appearing guiltily confused--for which they
contemned themselves. Despite their volition, the glances of all three
of them too clearly signified: "This capitalist must be humoured. He
has an unlimited supply of actual cash, and therefore he has the right
to be peculiar. Moreover, we know that he is a card...." And,
curiously, Edward Henry himself was deriving great force of character
from the simple reflection that he had indeed a lot of money, real
available money, his to do utterly as he liked with it, hidden in a
secret place in that very room. "I'll show 'em what's what!" he
privately mused. "Celebrities or not, I'll show 'em! If they think
they can come it over me--!"
It was, I regret to say, the state of mind of a bully. Such is the
noxious influence of excessive coin!
He reproached the greatest actress and the greatest dramatic poet for
deceiving him, and quite ignored the nevertheless fairly obvious fact
that he had first deceived them.
"Now then," he began, with something of the pomposity of a chairman at a
directors' meeting, as soon as the table had been cleared and the room
emptied of gentlemen in waiting and photographer and photographic
apparatus, "let us see exactly where we stand."
He glanced specially at Rose Euclid, who with an air of deep business
acumen returned the glance.
"Yes," she eagerly replied, as one seeking after righteousness, "_do_
let's see."
"The option must be taken up to-morrow. Good! That's clear. It came
rather casual-like, but it's now clear. L4,500 has to be paid down to
buy the existing building on the land and so on.... Eh?"
"Yes. Of course Mr. Bryany told you all that, didn't he?" said Rose
brightly.
"Mr. Bryany did tell me," Edward Henry admitted sternly. "But if Mr.
Bryany can make a mistake in the day of the week he might make a mistake
in a few naughts at the end of a sum of money."
Suddenly Mr. Seven Sachs startled them all by emerging from his silence
with the words:
"The figure is O.K."
Instinctively Edward Henry waited for more; but no more came. Mr. Seven
Sachs was one of those rare and disconcerting persons who do not keep on
talking after they have finished. He resumed his tranquillity, he
re-entered into his silence, with no symptom of self-consciousness,
entirely cheerful and at ease. And Edward Henry was aware of his
observant and steady gaze. Edward Henry said to himself: "This man is
expecting me to behave in a remarkable way. Bryany has been telling him
all about me, and he is waiting to see if I really am as good as my
reputation. I have just got to be as good as my reputation!" He looked
up at the electric chandelier, almost with regret that it was not gas.
One cannot light one's cigarette by twisting a hundred-pound bank-note
and sticking it into an electric chandelier. Moreover, there were some
thousands of matches on the table. Still further, he had done the
cigarette-lighting trick once for all. A first-class card must not
repeat himself.
"This money," Edward Henry proceeded, "has to be paid to Slossons, Lord
Woldo's solicitors, to-morrow, Wednesday, rain or shine?" He finished
the phrase on a note of interrogation, and as nobody offered any reply,
he rapped on the table, and repeated, half menacingly: "Rain or shine!"
"Yes," said Rose Euclid, leaning timidly forward, and taking a cigarette
from a gold case that lay on the table. All her movements indicated an
earnest desire to be thoroughly businesslike.
"So that, Miss Euclid," Edward Henry continued impressively but with a
wilful touch of incredulity, "you are in a position to pay your share of
this money to-morrow?"
"Certainly!" said Miss Euclid. And it was as if she had said,
aggrieved: "Can you doubt my honour?"
"To-morrow morning?"
"Ye-es."
"That is to say, to-morrow morning you will have L2,250 in actual
cash--coin, notes--actually in your possession?"
Miss Euclid's disengaged hand was feeling out behind her again for some
surface upon which to express its emotion and hers.
"Well--" she stopped, flushing.
("These people are astounding," Edward Henry reflected, like a god.
"She's not got the money. I knew it!")
"It's like this, Mr. Machin," Marrier began.
"Excuse me, Mr. Marrier," Edward Henry turned on him, determined if he
could to eliminate the optimism from that beaming face. "Any friend of
Miss Euclid's is welcome here, but you've already talked about this
theatre as 'ours,' and I just want to know where you come in."
"Where I come in?" Marrier smiled, absolutely unperturbed. "Miss Euclid
has appointed me general manajah."
"At what salary, if it isn't a rude question?"
"Oh! We haven't settled details yet. You see the theatre isn't built
yet."
"True!" said Edward Henry. "I was forgetting! I was thinking for the
moment that the theatre was all ready and going to be opened to-morrow
night with 'The Orient Pearl.' Have you had much experience of managing
theatres, Mr. Marrier? I suppose you have."
"Eho, yes!" exclaimed Mr. Marrier. "I began life as a lawyah's clerk,
but--"
"So did I," Edward Henry interjected.
"How interesting!" Rose Euclid murmured with fervency, after puffing
forth a long shaft of smoke.
"However, I threw it up," Marrier went on.
"I didn't," said Edward Henry. "I got thrown out!"
Strange that in that moment he was positively proud of having been
dismissed from his first situation! Strange that all the company, too,
thought the better of him for having been dismissed! Strange that
Marrier regretted that he also had not been dismissed! But so it was.
The possession of much ready money emits a peculiar effluence in both
directions--back to the past, forward into the future.
"I threw it up," said Marrier, "because the stage had an irresistible
attraction for me. I'd been stage-manajah for an amateur company, you
knaoo. I found a shop as stage-manajah of a company touring 'Uncle
Tom's Cabin.' I stuck to that for six years, and then I threw that up
too. Then I've managed one of Miss Euclid's provincial tours. And since
I met our friend Trent, I've had the chance to show what my ideas about
play-producing really are. I fancy my production of Trent's one-act
play won't be forgotten in a hurry.... You know--'The Nymph?' You read
about it, didn't you?"
"I did not," said Edward Henry. "How long did it run?"
"Oh! it didn't run. It wasn't put on for a run. It was part of one of
the Sunday-night shows of the Play-Producing Society, at the Court
Theatre. Most intellectual people in London, you know. No such audience
anywhere else in the wahld!" His rather chubby face glistened and
shimmered with enthusiasm. "You bet!" he added. "But that was only by
the way. My real game is management--general management. And I think I
may say I know what it is."
"Evidently!" Edward Henry concurred. "But shall you have to give up any
other engagement in order to take charge of the Muses' Theatre? Because
if so--"
Mr. Marrier replied:
"No."
Edward Henry observed:
"Oh!"
"But," said Marrier reassuringly, "if necessary I would throw up any
engagement--you understand me, any--in favour of the Intellectual
Theatah as I prefer to call it. You see, as I own part of the option--"
By these last words Edward Henry was confounded, even to muteness.
"I forgot to mention, Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid very quickly. "I've
disposed of a quarter of my half of the option to Mr. Marrier. He fully
agreed with me it was better that he should have a proper interest in
the theatre."
"Why of course!" cried Mr. Marrier, uplifted.
"Let me see," said Edward Henry, after a long breath, "a quarter--that
makes it that you have to find L562 10s, to-morrow, Mr. Marrier."
"Yes."
"To-morrow morning--you'll be all right?"
"Well, I won't swear for the morning, but I shall turn up with the stuff
in the afternoon anyhow. I've two men in tow, and one of them's a
certainty."
"Which?"
"I don't know which," said Mr. Marrier. "Howevah, you may count on yours
sincerely, Mr. Machin."
There was a pause.
"Perhaps I ought to tell you," Rose Euclid smiled, "perhaps I ought to
tell you that Mr. Trent is also one of our partners. He has taken
another quarter of my half."
Edward Henry controlled himself.
"Excellent!" said he with glee. "Mr. Trent's money all ready too?"
"I am providing most of it--temporarily," said Rose Euclid.
"I see. Then I understand you have your three quarters of L2,250 all
ready in hand."
She glanced at Mr. Seven Sachs.
"Have I, Mr. Sachs?"
And Mr. Sachs, after an instant's hesitation, bowed in assent.
"Mr. Sachs is not exactly going into the speculation, but he is lending
us money on the security of our interests. That's the way to put it,
isn't it, Mr. Sachs?"
Mr. Sachs once more bowed.
And Edward Henry exclaimed:
"Now I really do see!"
He gave one glance across the table at Mr. Seven Sachs, as who should
say: "And have you too allowed yourself to be dragged into this affair?
I really thought you were cleverer. Don't you agree with me that we're
both fools of the most arrant description?" And under the brief glance
Mr. Seven Sachs's calm deserted him as it had never deserted him on the
stage, where for over fifteen hundred nights he had withstood the menace
of revolvers, poison, and female treachery through three hours and four
acts without a single moment of agitation.
Apparently Miss Rose Euclid could exercise a siren's charm upon nearly
all sorts of men. But Edward Henry knew one sort of men upon whom she
could not exercise it; namely, the sort of men who are born and bred in
the Five Towns. His instinctive belief in the Five Towns as the sole
cradle of hard practical common sense was never stronger than just now.
You might by wiles get the better of London and America, but not of the
Five Towns. If Rose Euclid were to go around and about the Five Towns
trying to do the siren business, she would pretty soon discover that she
was up against something rather special in the way of human nature!
Why, the probability was that these three--Rose Euclid (only a few hours
since a glorious name and legend to him), Carlo Trent, and Mr.
Marrier--could not at that moment produce even ten pounds between them!
... And Marrier offering to lay fivers! ... He scornfully pitied them.
And he was not altogether without pity for Seven Sachs, who had
doubtless succeeded in life by sheer accident and knew no more than an
infant what to do with his too easily earned money.
II.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "shall I tell you what I've decided?"
"Please do!" Rose Euclid entreated him.
"I've decided to make you a present of my half of the option."
"But aren't you going in with us?" exclaimed Rose, horror-struck.
"No, madam."
"But Mr. Bryany told us positively you were! He said it was all
arranged!"
"Mr. Bryany ought to be more careful," said Edward Henry. "If he
doesn't mind, he'll be telling a downright lie some day."
"But you bought half the option!"
"Well," said Edward Henry, reasoning. "What _is_ an option? What does
it mean? It means you are free to take something or leave it. I'm
leaving it."
"But why?" demanded Mr. Marrier, gloomier.
Carlo Trent played with his eye-glasses and said not a word.
"Why?" Edward Henry replied. "Simply because I feel I'm not fitted for
the job. I don't know enough. I don't understand. I shouldn't go the
right way about the affair. For instance, I should never have guessed
by myself that it was the proper thing to settle the name of the theatre
before you'd got the lease of the land you're going to build it on.
Then I'm old-fashioned. I hate leaving things to the last moment; but
seemingly there's only one proper moment in these theatrical affairs,
and that's the very last. I'm afraid there'd be too much trusting in
Providence for my taste. I believe in trusting in Providence, but I
can't bear to see Providence overworked. And I've never even tried to
be intellectual, and I'm a bit frightened of poetry plays--"
"But you've not read my play!" Carlo Trent mutteringly protested.
"That is so," admitted Edward Henry.
"Will you read it?"
"Mr. Trent," said Edward Henry. "I'm not so young as I was."
"We're ruined!" sighed Rose Euclid with a tragic gesture.
"Ruined?" Edward Henry took her up, smiling. "Nobody is ruined who
knows where he can get a square meal. Do you mean to tell me you don't
know where you're going to lunch to-morrow?" And he looked hard at her.
It was a blow. She blenched under it.
"Oh, yes," she said, with her giggle, "I know that."
("Well you just don't!" he answered her in his heart. "You think you're
going to lunch with John Pilgrim. And you aren't. And it serves you
right!")
"Besides," he continued aloud, "how can you say you're ruined when I'm
making you a present of something that I paid L100 for?"
"But where am I to find the other half of the money--L2,250?" she burst
out. "We were depending absolutely on you for it. If I don't get it,
the option will be lost, and the option's very valuable."
"All the easier to find the money then!"
"What? In less than twenty-four hours? It can't be done. I couldn't
get it in all London."
"Mr. Marrier will get it for you ... one of his certainties!" Edward
Henry smiled in the Five Towns' manner.
"I might, you knaoo!" said Marrier, brightening to full hope in the
fraction of a second.
But Rose Euclid only shook her head.
"Mr. Seven Sachs, then?" Edward Henry suggested.
"I should have been delighted," said Mr. Sachs with the most perfect
gracious tranquillity. "But I cannot find another L2,250 to-morrow."
"I shall just speak to that Mr. Bryany!" said Rose Euclid, in the
accents of homicide.
"I think you ought to," Edward Henry concurred. "But that won't help
things. I feel a little responsible, especially to a lady. You have a
quarter of the whole option left in your hands, Miss Euclid. I'll pay
you at the same rate as Bryany sold to me. I gave L100 for half. Your
quarter is therefore worth L50. Well, I'll pay you L50."
"And then what?"
"Then let the whole affair slide."
"But that won't help me to my theatre!" Rose Euclid said, pouting. She
was now decidedly less unhappy than her face pretended, because Edward
Henry had reminded her of Sir John Pilgrim, and she had dreams of world
triumphs for herself and for Carlo Trent's play. She was almost glad to
be rid of all the worry of the horrid little prospective theatre.
"I have bank-notes," cooed Edward Henry softly.
Her head sank.
Edward Henry rose in the incomparable yellow dressing-gown and walked to
and fro a little, and then from his secret store he produced a bundle of
notes, and counted out five tens and, coming behind Rose, stretched out
his arm and laid the treasure on the table in front of her under the
brilliant chandelier.
"I don't want you to feel you have anything against me," he cooed still
more softly.
Silence reigned. Edward Henry resumed his chair and gazed at Rose
Euclid. She was quite a dozen years older than his wife, and she looked
more than a dozen years older. She had no fixed home, no husband, no
children, no regular situation. She accepted the homage of young men,
who were cleverer than herself save in one important respect. She was
always in and out of restaurants and hotels and express trains. She was
always committing hygienic indiscretions. She could not refrain from a
certain girlishness which, having regard to her years, her waist, and
her complexion, was ridiculous. His wife would have been afraid of her,
and would have despised her, simultaneously. She was coarsened by the
continual gaze of the gaping public. No two women could possibly be more
utterly dissimilar than Rose Euclid and the cloistered Nellie.... And
yet, as Rose Euclid's hesitant fingers closed on the bank-notes with a
gesture of relief, Edward Henry had an agreeable and kindly sensation
that all women were alike, after all, in the need of a shield, a
protection, a strong and generous male hand. He was touched by the
spectacle of Rose Euclid, as naive as any young lass when confronted by
actual bank-notes; and he was touched also by the thought of Nellie and
the children afar off, existing in comfort and peace, but utterly,
wistfully, dependent on himself.
"And what about me?" growled Carlo Trent.
"You?"
The fellow was only a poet. He negligently dropped him five fivers, his
share of the option's value.
Mr. Marrier said nothing, but his eye met Edward Henry's, and in silence
five fivers were meted out to Mr. Marrier also.... It was so easy to
delight these persons who apparently seldom set eyes on real ready
money.
"You might sign receipts, all of you, just as a matter of form," said
Edward Henry.
A little later, the three associates were off.
"As we're both in the hotel, Mr. Sachs," said Edward Henry, "you might
stay for a chat and a drink."
Mr. Seven Sachs politely agreed.
Edward Henry accompanied the trio of worshippers and worshipped to the
door of his suite, but no further, because of his dressing-gown. Rose
Euclid had assumed a resplendent opera-cloak. They rang imperially for
the lift. Lackeys bowed humbly before them. They spoke of taxicabs and
other luxuries. They were perfectly at home in the grandeur of the
hotel. As the illuminated lift carried them down out of sight, their
smiling heads disappearing last, they seemed exactly like persons of
extreme wealth. And indeed for the moment they were wealthy. They had
parted with certain hopes, but they had had a windfall; and two of them
were looking forward with absolute assurance to a profitable meal and
deal with Sir John Pilgrim on the morrow.
"Funny place, London!" said the provincial to himself as he re-entered
his suite to rejoin Mr. Seven Sachs.
III.
"Well, sir," said Mr. Seven Sachs, "I have to thank you for getting me
out of a very unsatisfactory situation."
"Did you really want to get out of it?" asked Edward Henry.
Mr. Sachs replied simply.
"I did, sir. There were too many partners for my taste."
They were seated more familiarly now in the drawing-room, being indeed
separated only by a small table upon which were glasses. And whereas on
a night in the previous week Edward Henry had been entertained by Mr.
Bryany in a private parlour at the Turk's Head, Hanbridge, on this night
he was in a sort repaying the welcome to Mr. Bryany's master in a
private parlour at Wilkins's, London. The sole difference in favour of
Mr. Bryany was that, while Mr. Bryany provided cigarettes and whisky,
Edward Henry was providing only cigarettes and Vichy water. Mr. Seven
Sachs had said that he never took whisky; and though Edward Henry's
passion for Vichy water was not quite ungovernable, he thought well to
give rein to it on the present occasion, having read somewhere that
Vichy water placated the stomach.
Joseph had been instructed to retire.
"And not only that," resumed Mr. Seven Sachs, "but you've got a very
good thing entirely into your own hands! Masterly, sir! Masterly!
Why, at the end you positively had the air of doing them a favour! You
made them believe you _were_ doing them a favour."
"And don't you think I was?"
Mr. Sachs reflected, and then laughed.
"You were," he said. "That's the beauty of it. But at the same time you
were getting away with the goods!"
It was by sheer instinct, and not by learning, that Edward Henry fully
grasped, as he did, the deep significance of the American idiom employed
by Mr. Seven Sachs. He, too, laughed, as Mr. Sachs had laughed. He was
immeasurably flattered. He had not been so flattered since the Countess
of Chell had permitted him to offer her China tea, meringues, and Berlin
pancakes at the Sub Rosa tea-rooms in Hanbridge--and that was a very
long time ago.
"You really _do_ think it's a good thing?" Edward Henry ventured, for he
had not yet been convinced of the entire goodness of theatrical
enterprise near Piccadilly Circus.
Mr. Seven Sachs convinced him--not by argument, but by the sincerity of
his gestures and tones; for it was impossible to question that Mr. Seven
Sachs knew what he was talking about. The shape of Mr. Seven Sachs'
chin was alone enough to prove that Mr. Sachs was incapable of a mere
ignorant effervescence. Everything about Mr. Sachs was persuasive and
confidence-inspiring. His long silences had the easy vigour of oratory,
and they served also to make his speech peculiarly impressive.
Moreover, he was a handsome and a dark man, and probably half a dozen
years younger than Edward Henry. And the discipline of lime-light had
taught him the skill to be forever graceful. And his smile, rare enough,
was that of a boy.
"Of course," said he, "if Miss Euclid and the others had had any sense,
they might have done very well for themselves. If you ask me, the
option alone is worth ten thousand dollars. But then they haven't any
sense! And that's all there is to it!"
"So you'd advise me to go ahead with the affair on my own?"
Mr. Seven Sachs, his black eyes twinkling, leaned forward and became
rather intimately humorous:
"You look as if you wanted advice, don't you?" said he.
"I suppose I do, now I come to think of it!" agreed Edward Henry with a
most admirable quizzicalness; in spite of the fact that he had not
really meant to "go ahead with the affair," being in truth a little
doubtful of his capacity to handle it.
But Mr. Seven Sachs was, all unconsciously, forcing Edward Henry to
believe in his own capacities; and the two, as it were, suddenly
developed a more cordial friendliness. Each felt the quick lifting of
the plane of their relations, and was aware of a pleasurable emotion.
"I'm moving onwards--gently onwards," crooned Edward Henry to himself.
"What price Brindley and his half-crown now?" Londoners might call him
a provincial, and undoubtedly would call him a provincial; he admitted,
even, that he felt like a provincial in the streets of London. And yet
here he was, "doing Londoners in the eye all over the place," and
receiving the open homage of Mr. Seven Sachs, whose name was the basis
of a cosmopolitan legend.
And now he made the cardinal discovery, which marks an epoch in the life
of every man who arrives at it, that world-celebrated persons are very
like other persons. And he was happy and rather proud in this
discovery, and began to feel a certain vague desire to tell Mr. Seven
Sachs the history of his career--or at any rate the picturesque portions
of it. For he, too, was famous in his own sphere; and in the
drawing-room of Wilkins's one celebrity was hobnobbing with another!
("Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. Brindley!") Yes, he was
happy, both in what he had already accomplished, and in the
contemplation of romantic adventures to come.
And yet his happiness was marred--not fatally, but quite appreciably--by
a remorse that no amount of private argument with himself would conjure
away. Which was the more singular in that a morbid tendency to remorse
had never been among Edward Henry's defects! He was worrying, foolish
fellow, about the false telephone-call in which, for the purpose of
testing Rose Euclid's loyalty to the new enterprise, he had pretended to
be the new private secretary of Sir John Pilgrim. Yet what harm had it
done? And had it not done a lot of good? Rose Euclid and her youthful
worshipper were no worse off than they had been before being victimised
by the deceit of the telephone-call. Prior to the call they had assumed
themselves to be deprived forever of the benefits which association with
Sir John Pilgrim could offer, and as a fact they were deprived forever
of such benefits. Nothing changed there! Before the call they had had
no hope of lunching with the enormous Sir John on the morrow, and as a
fact they would not lunch with the enormous Sir John on the morrow.
Nothing changed there either! Again, in no event would Edward Henry
have joined the trio in order to make a quartette in partnership. Even
had he been as convinced of Rose's loyalty as he was convinced of her
disloyalty, he would never have been rash enough to co-operate with such
a crew. Again, nothing changed!
On the other hand, he had acquired an assurance of the artiste's
duplicity, which assurance had made it easier for him to disappoint her,
while the prospect of a business repast with Sir John had helped her to
bear the disappointment as a brave woman should. It was true that on
the morrow, about lunch-time, Rose Euclid and Carlo Trent might have to
live through a few rather trying moments, and they would certainly be
very angry; but these drawbacks would have been more than compensated
for in advance by the pleasures of hope. And had they not between them
pocketed seventy-five pounds which they had stood to lose?
Such reasoning was unanswerable, and his remorse did not attempt to
answer it. His remorse was not open to reason; it was one of those
stupid, primitive sentiments which obstinately persist in the refined
and rational fabric of modern humanity.
He was just sorry for Rose Euclid.
"Do you know what I did?" he burst out confidentially, and confessed the
whole telephone trick to Mr. Seven Sachs.
Mr. Seven Sachs, somewhat to Edward Henry's surprise, expressed high
admiration of the device.
"A bit mean, though, don't you think?" Edward Henry protested weakly.
"Not at all!" cried Mr. Sachs. "You got the goods on her. And she
deserved it."
(Again this enigmatic and mystical word "goods"! But he understood it.)
Thus encouraged, he was now quite determined to give Mr. Seven Sachs a
brief episodic account of his career. A fair conversational opening was
all he wanted in order to begin.
"I wonder what will happen to her--ultimately?" he said, meaning to work
back from the ends of careers to their beginnings, and so to himself.
"Rose Euclid?"
"Yes."
Mr. Sachs shook his head compassionately.
"How did Mr. Bryany get in with her?" asked Edward Henry.
"Bryany is a highly peculiar person," said Mr. Seven Sachs familiarly.
"He's all right so long as you don't unstrap him. He was born to
convince newspaper reporters of his own greatness."
"I had a bit of talk with him myself," said Edward Henry.
"Oh, yes! He told me all about you."
"But _I_ never told him anything about myself," said Edward Henry
quickly.
"No, but he has eyes, you know, and ears too. Seems to me the people of
the Five Towns do little else of a night but discuss you, Mr. Machin.
_I_ heard a good bit when _I_ was down there, though I don't go about
much when I'm on the road. I reckon I could write a whole biography of
you."
Edward Henry smiled self-consciously. He was of course enraptured, but
at the same time it was disappointing to find Mr. Sachs already so fully
informed as to the details of his career. However, he did not intend to
let that prevent him from telling the story afresh, in his own manner.
"I suppose you've had your adventures too," he remarked with
nonchalance, partly from politeness, but mainly in order to avoid the
appearance of hurry in his egotism.
IV.
"You bet I have!" Mr. Seven Sachs cordially agreed, abandoning the end
of a cigarette, putting his hands behind his head, and crossing his
legs.
Whereupon there was a brief pause.
"I remember--" Edward Henry began.
"I dare say you've heard--" began Mr. Seven Sachs simultaneously.
They were like two men who by inadvertence had attempted to pass through
a narrow doorway abreast. Edward Henry, as the host, drew back.
"I beg your pardon!" he apologised.
"Not at all," said Seven Sachs. "I was only going to say you've
probably heard that I was always up against Archibald Florance."
"Really!" murmured Edward Henry, impressed in spite of himself; for the
renown of Archibald Florance exceeded that of Seven Sachs as the sun the
moon, and was older and more securely established than it as the sun the
moon. The renown of Rose Euclid was as naught to it. Doubtful it was
whether, in the annals of modern histrionics, the grandeur and the
romance of that American name could be surpassed by any renown save that
of the incomparable Henry Irving. The retirement of Archibald Florance
from the stage a couple of years earlier had caused crimson gleams of
sunset splendour to shoot across the Atlantic and irradiate even the
Garrick Club, London, so that the members thereof had to shade their
offended eyes. Edward Henry had never seen Archibald Florance, but it
was not necessary to have seen him in order to appreciate the majesty of
his glory. No male in the history of the world was ever more
photographed, and few have been the subject of more anecdotes.
"I expect he's a wealthy chap in his old age," said Edward Henry.
"Wealthy!" exclaimed Mr. Sachs. "He's the richest actor in America, and
that's saying in the world. He had the greatest reputation. He's still
the handsomest man in the United States--that's admitted--with his white
hair! They used to say he was the cruellest, but it's not so. Though
of course he could be a perfect terror with his companies."
"And so you knew Archibald Florance?"
"You bet I did. He never had any friends--never--but I knew him as well
as anybody could. Why, in San Francisco, after the show, I've walked
with him back to his hotel, and he's walked with me back to mine, and so
on, and so on, till three or four o'clock in the morning. You see, we
couldn't stop until it happened that he finished a cigar at the exact
moment when we got to his hotel door. If the cigar wasn't finished,
then he must needs stroll back a bit, and before I knew where I was he'd
be lighting a fresh one. He smoked the finest cigars in America. I
remember him telling me they cost him three dollars apiece."
And Edward Henry then perceived another profound truth, his second
cardinal discovery on that notable evening; namely, that no matter how
high you rise, you will always find that others have risen higher. Nay,
it is not until you have achieved a considerable peak that you are able
to appreciate the loftiness of those mightier summits. He himself was
high, and so he could judge the greater height of Seven Sachs; and it
was only through the greater height of Seven Sachs that he could form an
adequate idea of the pinnacle occupied by the unique Archibald Florance.
Honestly, he had never dreamt that there existed a man who habitually
smoked twelve-shilling cigars--and yet he reckoned to know a thing or
two about cigars!
"I am nothing!" he thought modestly. Nevertheless, though the savour of
the name of Archibald Florance was agreeable, he decided that he had
heard enough for the moment about Archibald Florance, and that he would
relate to Mr. Sachs the famous episode of his own career in which the
Countess of Chell and a mule had so prominently performed.
"I remember--" he recommenced.
"My first encounter with Archibald Florance was very funny," proceeded
Mr. Seven Sachs, blandly deaf. "I was starving in New York,--trying to
sell a new razor on commission,--and I was determined to get on to the
stage. I had one visiting card left--just one. I wrote 'Important' on
it, and sent it up to Wunch. I don't know whether you've ever heard of
Wunch. Wunch was Archibald Florence's stage-manager, and nearly as
famous as Archibald himself. Well, Wunch sent for me up-stairs to his
room, but when he found I was only the usual youngster after the usual
job he just had me thrown out of the theatre. He said I'd no right to
put 'Important' on a visiting card. 'Well,' I said to myself, 'I'm
going to get back into that theatre somehow!' So I went up to
Archibald's private house--Sixtieth Street I think it was, and asked to
see him, and I saw him. When I got into his room, he was writing. He
kept on writing for some minutes, and then he swung round on his chair.
"'And what can I do for you, sir?' he said.
"'Do you want any actors, Mr. Florance?' I said.
"'Are you an actor?' he said.
"'I want to be one,' I said.
"'Well,' he said, 'there's a school round the corner.'
"'Well,' I said, 'you might give me a card of introduction, Mr.
Florance.'
"He gave me the card. I didn't take it to the school. I went straight
back to the theatre with it, and had it sent up to Wunch. It just said,
'Introducing Mr. Sachs, a young man anxious to get on.' Wunch took it
for a positive order to find me a place. The company was full, so he
threw out one poor devil of a super to make room for me. Curious
thing--old Wunchy got it into his head that I was a _protege_ of
Archibald's, and he always looked after me. What d'ye think about
that?"
"Brilliant!" said Edward Henry. And it was! The simplicity of the thing
was what impressed him. Since winning a scholarship at school by
altering the number of marks opposite his name on a paper lying on the
master's desk, Edward Henry had never achieved advancement by a device
so simple. And he thought: "I am nothing! The Five Towns is nothing!
All that one hears about Americans and the United States is true. As
far as getting on goes, they can make rings round us. Still, I shall
tell him about the countess and the mule--"
"Yes," continued Mr. Seven Sachs, "Wunch was very kind to me. But he
was pretty well down and out, and he left, and Archibald got a new
stage-manager, and I was promoted to do a bit of assistant
stage-managing. But I got no increase of salary. There were two women
stars in the play Archibald was doing then--'The Forty-Niners.'
Romantic drama, you know! Melodrama you'd call it over here. He never
did any other sort of play. Well, these two women stars were about
equal, and when the curtain fell on the first act they'd both make a
bee-line for Archibald to see who'd get to him first and engage him in
talk. They were jealous enough, of each other to kill. Anybody could
see that Archibald was frightfully bored, but he couldn't escape. They
got him on both sides, you see, and he just _had_ to talk to 'em, both
at once. I used to be fussing around fixing the properties for the next
act. Well, one night he comes up to me, Archibald does, and he says:
"'Mr.--what's your name?'
"'Sachs, sir,' I says.
"'You notice when those two ladies come up to me after the first act.
Well, when you see them talking to me, I want you to come right along
and interrupt,' he says.
"'What shall I say, sir?'
"'Tap me on the shoulder, and say I'm wanted about something very
urgent. You see?'
"So the next night when those women got hold of him, sure enough, I went
up between them and tapped him on the shoulder. 'Mr. Florance,' I said,
'something very urgent.' He turned on me and scowled: 'What is it?' he
said, and he looked very angry. It was a bit of the best acting the old
man ever did in his life. It was so good that at first I thought it was
real. He said again louder, 'What is it?' So I said, 'Well, Mr.
Florance, the most urgent thing in this theatre is that I should have an
increase in salary!' I guess I licked the stuffing out of him that
time."
Edward Henry gave vent to one of those cordial and violent guffaws which
are a specialty of the humorous side of the Five Towns. And he said to
himself: "I should never have thought of anything as good as that."
"And did you get it?" he asked.
"The old man said not a word," Mr. Seven Sachs went on in the same even
tranquil smiling voice. "But next pay-day I found I'd got a rise of ten
dollars a week. And not only that, but Mr. Florance offered me a
singing part in his new drama, if I could play the mandolin. I
naturally told him I'd played the mandolin all my life. I went out and
bought a mandolin and hired a teacher. He wanted to teach me the
mandolin, but I only wanted him to teach me that one accompaniment. So I
fired him, and practised by myself night and day for a week. I got
through all the rehearsals without ever singing that song. Cleverest
dodging I ever did! On the first night I was so nervous I could
scarcely hold the mandolin. I'd never played the infernal thing before
anybody at all--only up in my bedroom. I struck the first chord, and
found the darned instrument was all out of tune with the orchestra. So
I just pretended to play it, and squawked away with my song, and never
let my fingers touch the strings at all. Old Florance was waiting for
me in the wings. I knew he was going to fire me. But no! 'Sachs,' he
said, 'that accompaniment was the most delicate piece of playing I ever
heard. I congratulate you.' He was quite serious. Everybody said the
same! Luck, eh?"
"I should say so," said Edward Henry, gradually beginning to be
interested in the odyssey of Mr. Seven Sachs. "I remember a funny thing
that happened to me--"
"However," Mr. Sachs swept smoothly along, "that piece was a failure.
And Archibald arranged to take a company to Europe with 'Forty-Miners.'
And I was left out! This rattled me, specially after the way he liked
my mandolin-playing. So I went to see him about it in his dressing-room
one night, and I charged around a bit. He did rattle me! Then I raided
him. I would get an answer out of him. He said:
"'I'm not in the habit of being cross-examined in my own dressing-room.'
"I didn't care what happened then, so I said:
"'And I'm not in the habit of being treated as you're treating me.'
"All of a sudden he became quite quiet, and patted me on the shoulder.
'You're getting on very well, Sachs,' he said. 'You've only been at it
one year. It's taken me twenty-five years to get where I am.'
"However, I was too angry to stand for that sort of talk. I said to
him:
"'I dare say you're a very great and enviable man, Mr. Florance, but I
propose to save fifteen years on your twenty-five. I'll equal or better
your position in ten years.'
"He shoved me out--just shoved me out of the room.... It was that that
made me turn to play-writing. Florance wrote his own plays sometimes,
but it was only his acting and his face that saved them. And they were
too American. He never did really well outside America except in one
play, and that wasn't his own. Now, I was out after money. And I still
am. I wanted to please the largest possible public. So I guessed there
was nothing for it but the universal appeal. I never write a play that
won't appeal to England, Germany, France, just as well as to America.
America's big, but it isn't big enough for me.... Well, as I was
saying, soon after that I got a one-act play produced at Hannibal,
Missouri. And the same week there was a company at another theatre
there playing the old man's 'Forty-Niners.' And the next morning the
theatrical critic's article in the Hannibal _Courier-Post_ was headed:
'Rival attractions. Archibald Florance's "Forty-Niners" and new play by
Seven Sachs.' I cut that heading out and sent it to the old man in
London, and I wrote under it, 'See how far I've got in six months.'
When he came back he took me into his company again.... What price that,
eh?"
Edward Henry could only nod his head. The customarily silent Seven
Sachs had little by little subdued him to an admiration as mute as it
was profound.
"Nearly five years after that I got a Christmas card from old Florance.
It had the usual printed wishes,--'Merriest possible Christmas, and so
on,'--but underneath that Archibald had written in pencil, 'You've still
five years to go.' That made me roll my sleeves up, as you may say.
Well, a long time after that I was standing at the corner of Broadway
and Forty-fourth Street, and looking at my own name in electric letters
on the Criterion Theatre. First time I'd ever seen it in electric
letters on Broadway. It was the first night of 'Overheard.' Florance
was playing at the Hudson Theatre, which is a bit higher up Forty-fourth
Street, and _his_ name was in electric letters too, but further off
Broadway than mine. I strolled up, just out of idle curiosity, and
there the old man was standing in the porch of the theatre, all alone!
'Hullo, Sachs,' he said, 'I'm glad I've seen you. It's saved me
twenty-five cents.' I asked how. He said, 'I was just going to send
you a telegram of congratulations.' He liked me, old Archibald did. He
still does. But I hadn't done with him. I went to stay with him at his
house on Long Island in the spring. 'Excuse me, Mr. Florance,' I says
to him. 'How many companies have you got on the road?' He said, 'Oh!
I haven't got many now. Five, I think.' 'Well,' I says. 'I've got six
here in the United States, two in England, three in Austria, and one in
Italy.' He said, 'Have a cigar, Sachs; you've got the goods on me!' He
was living in that magnificent house all alone, with a whole regiment of
servants."
V.
"Well," said Edward Henry, "you're a great man!"
"No, I'm not," said Mr. Seven Sachs. "But my income is four hundred
thousand dollars a year, and rising. I'm out after the stuff, that's
all."
"I say you are a great man!" Edward Henry repeated. Mr. Sachs' recital
had inspired him. He kept saying to himself: "And I'm a great man too.
And I'll show 'em."
Mr. Sachs, having delivered himself of his load, had now lapsed
comfortably back into his original silence, and was prepared to listen.
But Edward Henry somehow had lost the desire to enlarge on his own
variegated past. He was absorbed in the greater future.
At length he said very distinctly:
"You honestly think I could run a theatre?"
"You were born to run a theatre," said Seven Sachs.
Thrilled, Edward Henry responded:
"Then I'll write to those lawyer people, Slossons, and tell 'em I'll be
around with the brass about eleven to-morrow."
Mr. Sachs rose. A clock had delicately chimed two.
"If ever you come to New York, and I can do anything for you--" said Mr.
Sachs heartily.
"Thanks," said Edward Henry. They were shaking hands. "I say," Edward
Henry went on, "there's one thing I want to ask you. Why _did_ you
promise to back Rose Euclid and her friends? You must surely have
known--" He threw up his hands.
Mr. Sachs answered:
"I'll be frank with you. It was her cousin that persuaded me into
it--Elsie April."
"Elsie April? Who's she?"
"Oh! You must have seen them about together--her and Rose Euclid.
They're nearly always together."
"I saw her in the restaurant here to-day with a rather jolly girl--blue
hat."
"That's the one. As soon as you've made her acquaintance you'll
understand what I mean," said Mr. Seven Sachs.
"Ah! But I'm not a bachelor like you," Edward Henry smiled archly.
"Well, you'll see when you meet her," said Mr. Sachs. Upon which
enigmatic warning he departed, and was lost in the immense glittering
nocturnal silence of Wilkins's.
Edward Henry sat down to write to Slossons by the three A.M. post. But
as he wrote he kept saying to himself: "So Elsie April's her name, is
it? And she actually persuaded Sachs--Sachs--to make a fool of himself!"