Complete Works of Bram Stoker (428 page)

‘When we were in the street he sez to me:

‘“Well?”

‘“It looks like the end, surr, though it’s only the beginning’.”

‘“Of course, Murphy, I’ll keep you on,” he sez.

‘“Thank ye, surr,” sez I, “but I’m makin’ other arrangements.”

‘“How do ye mane?” sez he.

‘“I mane this, surr,” sez I, “that ye’ve planted me for yer own purposes, an’ now I intind that what grows out iv me plantin’ is me own.”

‘“I don’t undhershtand,” sez he, “yit!”

‘“Ye will by an’ by,” sez I. “Look here, Misther Gustavus, for yer own nefayrious purposes ye tould me t’ engage a lot iv childher for the pantomime, an’ ye tould me t’ ingage them in me own name. That was so that whin the polis’d come at ye ye might say, as ye done just now to the beak, that it wasn’t you at all, but me. Now it was ayther you or me what engaged them be conthract. If ‘twas you ye had to shtand the racket, or would have done if the sayson had begun - which it hadn’t; an’ ye’d have th’ advantage, too. But ye said it wasn’t you whin ye thought the polis had got ye, an’ ye wanted to have me run in for it. So that’s off. But if ‘twas me what engaged thim, thin ‘tis me what’ll git the benefit. See? Moreover, ye discharrged me in the Coort, an’ the beak himself said ye’d have to pay me me salary for a week. So now I’m free av ye, wid the kay iv the shtreet in me hand. But I’ve got the conthracts what I’ve made wid a lot iv people in all kinds iv places. These are me own prawperty, an’ I’m goin’ to use thim in me own way. The only conthracts what is made in your name is wid the childher for yer own pantomime, an’ thim ye has to shtand be. I might have tould his worship that they wor your conthracts, but I thought as ye swore at the beginnin’ that they worn’t I’d hould them over in case ye should git obstreperous later on.

‘“So now ye’re in the soup. Ye won’t be let play the childher what ye engaged. An’ I can tell ye now that ye won’t be allowed any childhers at all, at all. But I’ve got meself in me own employment a number iv likely young weemen iv shmall patthem what’ll be able to play in shpite iv all the polis in the counthry. So av ye’re wishful to git what ye want, Misther Gustavus, it’s me that ye’ll have t’apply to. I hould the whole shtock. There is no use yer kickin’. I can prove me bona fides all along the line. ‘Tis you what’ll figure out as the bloated capitalist what deceived the poor honest workin’ man - that’s me - what thrusted him. What made nefayrious conthracts wid poor innocent childhers what’ll have a hungry Christmas. An’ what perjured hisself in a courthouse, which can be proved be the beak hisself an’ some iv yer conthracts ye made wid the childher. Not be me, av coorse, for didn’t ye swear that I was not in yer sarvice. But anyhow ye have got a force majeure clause in. That’ll not look well, will it? As if ‘twas I what put it in, whin I haven’t the same clause even for me own purtection in me own conthracts.”

‘“So, Misther Gustavus, ye’d betther be quick in engagin’ some iv me throup iv dancers. I’ll only charge double for sich iv thim what is took from me by me first pathron.”

‘Well, th’ ould man was in a clift shtick, an’ knew it. So he made me come back wid him to his office, an’ then an’ there made an iron-clad conthract wid me for the sarvices iv more’n a hundhred iv me dwarfs. “Mind ye,” I had said to him, “ye can have as many as iver ye want at the price av ye take tham at wanst. But if ye lave it over to take more later in case ye find ye’ve not enough, ye’ll have to come in line wid the rest av the managers. No man can come in on the ground floor a second time!”

‘It all kem off well. As soon as the rehearsals began the polis woke up an’ got shpry all over the counthry. The managers was all run in. Like ould Gustavus they couldn’t be punished bekase they hadn’t done nothin’ wrong, as yet. But they tuk fright, as was intended, an’ gave undhertakins not to employ any childher at all while th’ Act run. An’ so they all had to come, in the long run, to me what had cornered all the dwarfs. Mind ye, I was careful not to use that word, for if they’d any iv them heard it, they’d have riz up an’ flew away like a flock iv pigeons does, all about nothin’.

‘Then the fun began. Shmall weemin is more up in themselves than big wans. So the shtage managers an’ bally masters what was in the habit of drillin’ childher in the pantomime sayson soon found out the differ. Some iv them thried to thrate the little weemin - “beautiful childher” is what I called them, so they thought I was a very nice man, an’ we got on well with aich other, an’ I had no quarrellin’ wid them - as if they was kids, an’ ordhered them about somethin’ crool. They soon found out the mishtake. Wan iv them - Cuthbert Kinsey it was, of the Royal at Queenhythe - gave wan iv them a slap on th’ ear. But she could scrap a bit, so she could; she was a sturdy, plucky little party what could whip her weight in wild cats, as the Yankees say. She just put up her dooks an’ wint for him. She gave him wan on the bread-basket an’ another on the boko what made him go into the claret business sthraight. So for that sayson he kep his hooks down. My! but there was scrappin’ in some theyatres, for the budlets wouldn’t shtand no guff. An’ whin the bally masters an’ shtage managers found they was weemin an’ tried to make love to them things was worse. Moreover, they tuk breaches iv promise whiniver the chap had any oof at all. I’m tellin’ ye the carnage among bachelors in theyatres that year was frightful. I was a bachelor meself in thim days, so I have cause enough to know it!’

‘Was that when and how you met your wife, Mr Roscoe?’ asked the Second Old Woman, a big-built woman with a temper of her own.

The rest of the Company smiled, for it was an open secret that Mrs Roscoe, who had once been wardrobe mistress, had been required to leave the Company on account of her success in a face-slapping episode wherein the Second Old Woman had fared badly. The Super Master, who, both as one occupying a post on the managerial staff and also as an Irishman from whom a large measure of courtesy to women was expected, kept strict guard on his temper except when quelling a riot or pleasantry amongst his own crowd, answered sweetly:

‘Yes, ma’am. I am proud to say it was. I bless the day.’

‘She is not here, I notice,’ said the Second Old Woman, with a suavity equal to his own. ‘May I ask you why that is?’

‘Certainly, ma’am.’ he replied heartily. ‘She is away on a long tour in America with a first-class Company.’

‘Oh! And she is Wardrobe - as an assistant, I suppose?’

‘No, ma’am,’ he replied sadly. ‘I regret to say she has gone down in the world.’

‘I see. A Dresser, then?’

‘No, ma’am. Lower still; she is First Old Woman. But then I should say that it is a Company so good that the Old Women are played by young and pretty ones. Not by real has-beens or never- wases, as is usually the case!’ The ready laugh of the younger members of the Company showed that the shot had told. The Second Old Woman’s anger flamed out in her face as she said still - by a great effort - suavely:

‘I hope she is now respectable?’

‘Keeps, ma’am! - keeps, not “is”! She is and has always been respectable. And is always a quiet, tender-hearted woman. Except, of course, when she has to chastise insolence - as you very well know.’

The Second Old Woman contented herself by glaring, as she realised from the universal titter that the laugh was against her. The Super Master swallowed his consolation - steaming hot though it was.

The MC turned to the next on the line, The Advance Agent, an alert-looking man of middle age.

‘I hope you will give us something next, Alphage. It is so seldom that we have the honour of seeing you whilst we are on the road that we should look on it as the lost opportunity of our lives if we do not hear some story or reminiscence of your own life.’

‘All right, old man. I’ll do what I can. You won’t mind, I hope, Ladies and Gentlemen, if it is a bit dull. But the fact is that I’ve been so much in the habit of inventing lies about my stars that plain fact comes to be prosaic. Anyhow, it may be a change for me; I’m tired of finding out new virtues of my employers or ringing the changes on the old ones.

A CRIMINAL STAR

‘Of course, you all remember Wolseley Gartside -’

‘Rather!’ This was from the Tragedian. ‘I remember when he took that name. Indeed, I was not pleased with him about it; it clashed with the name I had taken myself - or, rather - ahem! - which my sponsors took for me at my christening. I consoled myself with the reflection that Wolseley was a later name historically than Wellesley.’ The Advance Agent went on:

‘Gartside, like many others who have risen from the ranks - the ranks of his profession - was, well, a wee, tiny bit over-sensitive in matters of public esteem. In fact, he did not like to be neglected -’

Here the Second Heavies interrupted with a rapidity and acerbity which left an impression that indignation was founded on aggrievement:

‘“Over-sensitive in matters of public esteem!” I like that. He had got the swelled head bad, if that be what you mean. He wanted the earth, he did! The way he hustled other people off the posters was indecent! And the size of type he clamoured for was an inducement to blindness and an affront to the common sense of an educated community.’ The Advance Agent went on calmly:

‘- did not like to be neglected. This was all bad enough when he was engaged by someone else; but when he was out on his own with nothing to check him except the reports of his treasurer, he became a holy terror. There wasn’t any crowding of names off the bill then; there were simply no names at all. Names of other people, I mean; his name was all right so long as the paper was up to the biggest stands, and the types were the largest to be had in the town. Later on he went even further and had all his printing done in London or New York from types cut special.’ The Second Heavies cut in again:

‘No! Mr Wolseley Gartside didn’t mean to get neglected so long as there was a public Press to be influenced or a hoarding to be covered.’

‘Exactly!’ said the Advance Agent drily. He was beginning to fear that his pitch would be queered by the outpouring of the grievances of the Second Heavies. The professional instinct of the audience made for peace. They were all trained to listen. Mr Alphage seized the opportunity, and went on:

‘When he was arranging his first American tour he wanted to get someone who, as a persona grata, could command the Press; who understood human nature to the core; who had the instinct of a diplomatist, the experience of a field-marshall, the tact of an Attorney-General; the -’

‘All right, old man. We know you took him in tow.’

‘Thank you, Bones! I understand. Gartside was a tragedian, too, and of course wanted the whole stage. They’re all the same.’

‘Well, of all the -’ began Dovercourt; but there he stopped. There was a readiness of repartee about the Advance Agent that disturbed his self-serenity.

‘So I took him in tow, as Bones calls it. I thought my work was piloting. But Bones knows; he, too, belongs to the hungry, egotist lot who have to be dragged into publicity - like Wolseley Gartside!

‘Well, before I started out, which he insisted should be a full week ahead of him, he began to teach me my business. At first I pointed out to him that the whole mechanism of advance publicity wasn’t wrong because he hadn’t done it. But he took me up short, and expressed his opinions pretty freely, I admit. He gave me quite a dissertation on publicity, telling me that to hit the public you must tell them plenty. They wanted to know all about a man; they didn’t care much whether it was good or bad; but on the whole they preferred bad. Then he went on to give me what he called my instructions. That I was to have paragraphs about him every day. “Make me out,” he said, “a sort of Don Juan, with a fierce, revengeful nature. A man from whose hate no man is safe; no woman from his love. Never mind moral character. The public don’t want it - nor no more do I. Say whatever you please about me so long as you make people talk. Now I don’t want argument with you. Do you just carry out my instructions, and all will be well. But if you don’t, you’ll get the order of the chuck.” I didn’t want to argue with him. To begin with, a man like that isn’t worth argument - especially about instructions. Instructions!  Just fancy an Advance Agent who knows his business being instructed by a Star that he has got to boom, and to whose vanity - no, sensitiveness - he has to minister. Why, compared with even a duffer at my work the biggest and brightest star in the theatrical firmament don’t know enough to come in out of the rain! I was very angry with him, I admit; but in a flash there came to me out of his own very instructions an idea which put anger out of my mind. The top dog isn’t angry - though he may bite! “Very well, Mr Wolseley Gartside,” said I to myself, said I, “I’ll carry out your instructions with exactness. They’re yours, not mine; so if anything comes out wrong you are the responsible party.” Before I went to bed I wrote out a mem of my “instructions.”

‘“The public want to know everything about a man. Tell them plenty - all they want. They don’t care whether it’s good or bad. On the whole, they prefer bad. Give them paragraphs every day. Make me a Don Juan, fierce, revengeful, passionate. No man safe from my hate; no woman from my love. Don’t aim at moral character; the public don’t want it; no more do I. Say whatever you please about me so long as you make people talk. Make things lively before I come!”

‘I headed this “Instructions to Montague Phase Alphage, Advance Agent to Wolseley Gartside, Esquire.” In the morning I brought it to him and asked him to sign and date it, as I wished to carry out his instructions to the full, and to take for myself advantage of his wisdom and his splendid initiative power. He signed it, looking very pleased. The sort of smirk that tragedians use when they’re feeling good.

‘The next day I started out on my travels. The tour was to begin with a week of one-night stands. Wolseley Gartside had insisted on making out the tour himself, and, of course, he knew better than anybody - everybody else. You know what that means, Wragge. I certainly covered the ground for him that week. I simply lived in trains, and I wore out the stairs of all the offices of what they called newspapers. Do you know, I think there must be a special angelic squad told off to look after advance agents. And if there is, my chap must have had what they call a hellova time. It’s a direct mercy that I didn’t develop acute DT in letting the penny-a-liners of that group of one-horse towns have the time of their lives. They tumbled to it quick that they would not have to write any themselves, for, of course, I did all that myself. It was best that way, anyhow, for not one of them could have written a decent par to save his soul.