Page:Georgie by Dorothea Deakin, 1906.djvu/124

"Georgie" I gasped.

"If I had thirty pounds," said Mr. Lappin dreamily, "I'd run such a little show as you've never seen. I'd wake up the Midlands as no one else has ever waked 'em up. I would so."

I thought he was probably right, but made no comment.

"I'd get out of this first. It's a bald pitch; but I'd coin money in some towns I know of, if I was sure of my halls and a few weeks' salaries."

I wondered idly, as I looked at him, if he was really the scoundrel I had thought him, or merely the wandering and improvident minstrel he pretended to be. An old proverb floated into my mind as I gazed into his keen eyes: "Take the washing off the hedges; the actors are coming to town."

But Mr. Lappin construed my silence to his own advantage.

"If you want to put a little money into a dead sure thing," he said graciously, "here's your chance. The pianist and 108