Pelham Wodehouse - Jill the Reckless

Down the aisle, springing from a seat at the back, shimmered Mr. Pilkington, wounded to the quick.

"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"

"Well?"

"That is the best epigram in the play."

"The best what?"

"Epigram. The best epigram in the play."

Mr. Goble knocked the ash off his cigar. "The public don't want epigrams. The public don't like epigrams. I've been in the show business fifteen years, and I'm telling you! Epigrams give them a pain under the vest. All right, get on."

Mr. Pilkington fluttered agitatedly. This was his first experience of Mr. Goble in the capacity of stage-director. It was the latter's custom to leave the early rehearsals of the pieces with which he was connected to a subordinate producer, who did what Mr. Goble called the breaking-in. This accomplished, he would appear in person, undo most of the other's work, make cuts, tell the actors how to read their lines, and generally enjoy himself. Producing plays was Mr. Goble's hobby. He imagined himself to have a genius in that direction, and it was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the lofty contempt of an Eastern despot.

Of this Mr. Pilkington was not yet aware.

"But, Mr. Goble ...!"

The potentate swung irritably round on him.

"What is it? What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"That epigram...."

"It's out!"

"But ...!"

"It's out!"

"Surely," protested Mr. Pilkington almost tearfully, "I have a voice...."

"Sure you have a voice," retorted Mr. Goble, "and you can use it any old place you want, except in my theatre. Have all the voice you like! Go round the corner and talk to yourself! Sing in your bath! But don't come using it here, because I'm the little guy that does all the talking in this theatre! That fellow makes me tired," he added complainingly to Wally, as Mr. Pilkington withdrew like a foiled python. "He don't know nothing about the show business, and he keeps butting in and making fool suggestions. He ought to be darned glad he's getting his first play produced and not trying to teach me how to direct it." He clapped his hands imperiously. The assistant stage-manager bent over the footlights. "What was that that guy said? Lord Finchley's last speech. Take it again."

The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English character actor who specialized in London "nuts," raised his eyebrows, annoyed. Like Mr. Pilkington, he had never before come into contact with Mr. Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying. He had not yet recovered from the agony of having that water-melon line cut out of his part. It was the only good line, he considered, that he had. Any line that is cut out of an actor's part is always the only good line he has.

"The speech about Omar Khayyám?" he enquired with suppressed irritation.

"I thought that was the way you said it. All wrong! It's Omar of Khayyám."

"I think you will find that Omar Khayyám is the—ah—generally accepted version of the poet's name," said the portrayer of Lord Finchley adding beneath his breath. "You silly ass!"

"You say Omar of Khayyám," bellowed Mr. Goble. "Who's running this show, anyway?"

"Just as you please."

Mr. Goble turned to Wally.

"These actors...." he began, when Mr. Pilkington appeared again at his elbow.

"Mr. Goble! Mr. Goble!"

"What is it now ?"

"Omar Khayyám was a Persian poet. His name was Khayyám."

"That wasn't the way I heard it," said Mr. Goble doggedly. "Did you ?" he enquired of Wally. "I thought he was born at Khayyám."

"You're probably quite right," said Wally, "but, if so, everybody else has been wrong for a good many years. It's usually supposed that the gentleman's name was Omar Khayyám. Khayyám, Omar J. Born A.D. 1050, educated privately and at Bagdad University. Represented Persia in the Olympic Games of 1072, winning the sitting high-jump and the egg-and-spoon race. The Khayyáms were quite a well-known family in Bagdad, and there was a lot of talk when Omar, who was Mrs. Khayyam's pet son, took to drink and writing poetry. They had had it all fixed for him to go into his father's date business."

Mr. Goble was impressed. He had a respect for Wally's opinion, for Wally had written "Follow the Girl" and look what a knock-out that had been. He stopped the rehearsal again.

"Go back to that Khayyám speech!" he said interrupting Lord Finchley in mid-sentence.

The actor whispered a hearty English oath beneath his breath. He had been up late last night, and, in spite of the fair weather, he was feeling a trifle on edge.

"' In the words of Omar of Khayyám'...."

Mr. Goble clapped his hands.

"Cut that 'of,'" he said. "The show's too long, anyway."

And, having handled a delicate matter in masterly fashion, he leaned back in his chair and chewed the end off another cigar.

For some minutes after this the rehearsal proceeded smoothly. If Mr. Goble did not enjoy the play, at least he made no criticisms except to Wally. To him he enlarged from time to time on the pain which "The Rose of America" caused him.

"How I ever came to put on junk like this beats me," confessed Mr. Goble frankly.

"You probably saw that there was a good idea at the back of it," suggested Wally. "There is, you know. Properly handled, it's an idea that could be made into a success."

"What would you do with it?"

"Oh, a lot of things," said Wally warily. In his younger and callower days he had sometimes been rash enough to scatter views on the reconstruction of plays broadcast, to find them gratefully absorbed and acted upon and treated as a friendly gift. His affection for Mr. Goble was not so overpowering as to cause him to give him ideas for nothing now.

"Any time you want me to fix it for you, I'll come along. About one and a half per cent of the gross would meet the case, I think."

Mr. Goble faced him, registering the utmost astonishment and horror.

"One and a half per cent for fixing a show like this? Why, darn it, there's hardly anything to do to it! It's—it's in !"

"You called it junk just now."

"Well, all I meant was that it wasn't the sort of thing I cared for myself. The public will eat it. Take it from me, the time is just about ripe for a revival of comic opera."

"This one will want all the reviving you can give it. Better use a pulmotor."

"But that long boob, that Pilkington ... he would never stand for my handing you one and a half per cent."

"I thought you were the little guy who arranged things round here."

"But he's got money in the show."

"Well, if he wants to get any out, he'd better call in somebody to rewrite it. You don't have to engage me if you don't want to. But I know I could make a good job of it. There's just one little twist the thing needs and you would have quite a different piece."

"What's that?" enquired Mr. Goble casually.

"Oh, just a little ... what shall I say? ... a little touch of what-d'you-call-it and a bit of thingummy. You know the sort of thing! That's all it wants."

Mr. Goble gnawed his cigar, baffled.

"You think so, eh?" he said at length.

"And perhaps a suspicion of je-ne-sais-quoi ," added Wally.

Mr. Goble worried his cigar, and essayed a new form of attack.

"You've done a lot of work for me," he said. "Good work!"

"Glad you liked it," said Wally.

"You're a good kid. I like having you around. I was half thinking of giving you a show to do this Fall. Corking book. French farce. Ran two years in Paris. But what's the good, if you want the earth?"

"Always useful, the earth. Good thing to have."