Pelham Wodehouse - Jill the Reckless

"You talk too damn much!" said Mr. Goble, eyeing him with distaste.

"Well, go on, you say something. Something sensible."

"It is a very serious situation...." began the stage-director.

"Oh, shut up!" said Mr. Goble.

The stage-director subsided into his collar.

"I cannot play the overture again," protested Mr. Saltzburg. "I cannot!"

At this point Mr. Miller appeared. He was glad to see Mr. Goble. He had been looking for him, for he had news to impart.

"The girls," said Mr. Miller, "have struck! They won't go on!"

Mr. Goble, with the despairing gesture of one who realizes the impotence of words, dashed off for his favourite walk up stage. Wally took out his watch.

"Six seconds and a bit," he said approvingly, as the manager returned. "A very good performance. I should like to time you over the course in running-kit."

The interval for reflection, brief as it had been, had apparently enabled Mr. Goble to come to a decision.

"Go," he said to the stage-director, "and tell 'em that fool of a D'Arcy girl can play. We've got to get that curtain up."

"Yes, Mr. Goble."

The stage-director galloped off.

"Get back to your place," said the manager to Mr. Saltzburg, "and play the overture again."

"Again!"

"Perhaps they didn't hear it the first two times," said Wally.

Mr. Goble watched Mr. Saltzburg out of sight. Then he turned to Wally.

"That damned Mariner girl was at the bottom of this! She started the whole thing! She told me so. Well, I'll settle her ! She goes to-morrow!"

"Wait a minute," said Wally. "Wait one minute! Bright as it is, that idea is out !"

"What the devil has it got to do with you?"

"Only this, that if you fire Miss Mariner, I take that neat script which I've prepared and I tear it into a thousand fragments. Or nine hundred. Anyway, I tear it. Miss Mariner opens in New York, or I pack up my work and leave."

Mr. Goble's green eyes glowed.

"Oh, you're stuck on her, are you?" he sneered. "I see!"

"Listen, dear heart," said Wally, gripping the manager's arm, "I can see that you are on the verge of introducing personalities into this very pleasant little chat. Resist the impulse! Why not let your spine stay where it is instead of having it kicked up through your hat? Keep to the main issue. Does Miss Mariner open in New York or does she not?"

There was a tense silence. Mr. Goble permitted himself a swift review of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally, beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence restrained him. He wanted Wally's work. He needed Wally in his business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal feelings.

"All right!" he growled reluctantly.

"That's a promise," said Wally. "I'll see that you keep it." He looked over his shoulder. The stage was filled with gaily-coloured dresses. The mutineers had returned to duty. "Well, I'll be getting along. I'm rather sorry we agreed to keep clear of personalities, because I should have liked to say that, if ever they have a skunk-show at Madison Square Garden, you ought to enter—and win the blue ribbon. Still, of course, under our agreement my lips are sealed, and I can't even hint at it. Good-bye. See you later, I suppose?"

Mr. Goble, giving a creditable imitation of a living statue, was plucked from his thoughts by a hand upon his arm. It was Mr. Miller, whose unfortunate ailment had prevented him from keeping abreast of the conversation.

"What did he say?" enquired Mr. Miller, interested. "I didn't hear what he said!"

Mr. Goble made no effort to inform him.

Otis Pilkington had left Atlantic City two hours after the conference which had followed the dress-rehearsal, firmly resolved never to go near "The Rose of America" again. He had been wounded in his finest feelings. There had been a moment, when Mr. Goble had given him the choice between having the piece rewritten and cancelling the production altogether, when he had inclined to the heroic course. But for one thing Mr. Pilkington would have defied the manager, refused to allow his script to be touched, and removed the play from his hands. That one thing was the fact that, up to the day of the dress-rehearsal, the expenses of the production had amounted to the appalling sum of thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents, all of which had to come out of Mr. Pilkington's pocket. The figures, presented to him in a neatly typewritten column stretching over two long sheets of paper, had stunned him. He had had no notion that musical plays cost so much. The costumes alone had come to ten thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents, and somehow that odd fifty cents annoyed Otis Pilkington as much as anything on the list. A dark suspicion that Mr. Goble, who had seen to all the executive end of the business, had a secret arrangement with the costumer whereby he received a private rebate, deepened his gloom. Why, for ten thousand six hundred and sixty-three dollars and fifty cents you could dress the whole female population of New York State and have a bit left over for Connecticut. So thought Mr. Pilkington, as he read the bad news in the train. He only ceased to brood upon the high cost of costuming when in the next line but one there smote his eye an item of four hundred and ninety-eight dollars for "Clothing." Clothing! Weren't costumes clothing? Why should he have to pay twice over for the same thing? Mr. Pilkington was just raging over this, when something lower down in the column caught his eye. It was the words:—

Clothing .... 187.45

At this Otis Pilkington uttered a stifled cry, so sharp and so anguished that an old lady in the next seat, who was drinking a glass of milk, dropped it and had to refund the railway company thirty-five cents for breakages. For the remainder of the journey she sat with one eye warily on Mr. Pilkington, waiting for his next move.

This adventure quieted Otis Pilkington down, if it did not soothe him. He returned blushingly to a perusal of his bill of costs, nearly every line of which contained some item that infuriated and dismayed him. "Shoes" ($213.50) he could understand, but what on earth was "Academy. Rehl. $105.50"? What was "Cuts ... $15"? And what in the name of everything infernal was this item for "Frames," in which mysterious luxury he had apparently indulged to the extent of ninety-four dollars and fifty cents? "Props" occurred on the list no fewer than seventeen times. Whatever his future, at whatever poor-house he might spend his declining years, he was supplied with enough props to last his lifetime.

Otis Pilkington stared blankly at the scenery that flitted past the train windows. (Scenery! There had been two charges for scenery! "Friedmann, Samuel ... Scenery ... $3711" and "Unitt and Wickes ... Scenery ... $2120"). He was suffering the torments of the ruined gamester at the roulette-table. Thirty-two thousand eight hundred and fifty-nine dollars, sixty-eight cents! And he was out of pocket ten thousand in addition from the cheque he had handed over two days ago to Uncle Chris as his share of the investment of starting Jill in the motion-pictures. It was terrible! It deprived one of the power of thought.

The power of thought, however, returned to Mr. Pilkington almost immediately, for, remembering suddenly that Roland Trevis had assured him that no musical production, except one of those elaborate girl-shows with a chorus of ninety, could possibly cost more than fifteen thousand dollars at an outside figure, he began to think about Roland Trevis, and continued to think about him until the train pulled into the Pennsylvania Station.