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_ specialized 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 recognized 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 his 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 this 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. £4500 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 noughts 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 business-like.
"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 £2250 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. Harrier, uplifted.
"Let me see," said Edward Henry, after a long breath, "a quarter. That
makes it that you have to find £562, 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. "How-evah, 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 £2250 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
that 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 eyeglasses 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 £100 for?"
"But where am I to find the other half of the money--£2250?" 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 £2250 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 £100 for half. Your
quarter is therefore worth £50. Well, I'll pay you £50."
"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
naïve 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 taxi-cabs
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's 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 hob-nobbing 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 victimized by the deceit
of the telephone-call. Prior to the call they had assumed themselves
to be deprived for ever of the benefits which association with Sir
John Pilgrim could offer, and as a fact they were deprived for ever 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 quartet 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 a 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 daresay 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 apologized.
"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 Florance's stage-manager, and nearly as
famous as Archibald himself. Well, Wunch sent for me upstairs 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 _protége_ 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 of 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-Niners.' 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 rattled 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 daresay 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's
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 3 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!"