Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/234

232 'So'm I,' I said. The man laughed and I saw red. I could have punched his face. Instead I drank half a pint of whiskey all at once—and you rescued me."

"Glad to have you," Beckett said.

"I really wanted to meet you," Ken continued. "Although not in this special way. And your boys—I've heard you have a marvelous bunch."

Beckett smiled, then tightened his grip upon his pipe. "My lads are a trifle Tennysonian. As the poet says:

And here is truth; but an' it please thee not Take thou the truth as thou has told it me. For truly, as thou sayest, a fairy king And fairy queen have built the city, son."

Ken laughed. Beckett chuckled. "My boys," he said, "are all light and fluff. Actors, or would be. Languid otherwise. I stir them up. You see, son, I am not old, yet old enough to be weary of a commercial theatre. Here I am king. I produce what I please to produce. The world comes to my doorstep. I make very little money and spend less. No more quarrels with producers nor with the guardians of public morals."

"I understand now."

"And I can understand you," Beckett said. "What are you trying to forget? Or should I have said 'whom'?"

"You are a curious blend of the pure physical specimen and of the self-analytical introvert," Beckett said. "Two individuals in one. It took us three days to sober you up to the point where you could talk sense to me. I suggest that you stop being a coward. Stop damning yourself for fancied sins. Stop drinking. Stop running away from