Page:Once a Week Dec 1860 to June 61.pdf/157

 146 “Everything in the world; everything without exception. But if you will take my advice you will try our highly superior cold brandy-and-water at nothing per glass, waiters included.”

“I understand. As thou sayest, so let it be.”

And the manager, the devil, and the author were soon provided with their beverage.

“Now of course you won’t talk before me,” said the fiend, “so I shall finish this, and go.”

“Unless Hawkesley has any secrets, I have none,” said Aventayle, “and you should always try, Grayling, to remain in the society of the good and virtuous, because you may improve yourself by their conversation and example: and you should also, Grayling, pass the brandy when you have helped yourself.”

“I have been dining at the club,” said Hawkesley, “and thought I would walk round and tell you that I have read that piece you gave me.”

“Ah! well?”

“In its present form, it is out of the question.”

“Rough and crude. I told you so.”

“The story won’t do. They wouldn’t stand it.”

“They’ll stand a good deal, too.”

“Yes, but this is too cynically offensive to be endured. They will sit and cry over a Traviata who whines because her lungs are going, but they would hiss her if she were in health, and prosperous and defiant, like one of the women in this thing. It won’t do, Aventayle.”

“If you say so on consideration, there is an end of the matter; but the play seemed to me to have some very strong stuff in it.”

“Strong as hartshorn,” said Hawkesley. “But it will not do for you. I wish it would.”

“Which means that you don’t want to work.”

“No, it does not, my dear fellow. I have a good notion for you. But I would rather not have taken it up until after Christmas ; and if you could bring out this thing, I should have been glad of the interval. But I shall be ready for you soon.”

“That’s well. Anything for this boy?” said the manager, indicating the fiend.

“Plenty.”

“That’s well again, and we’ll ask you no more questions.”

“I want to ask you one or two. You said you knew nothing of the man who sends you this piece, except that his name is Adair.”

“Nothing,” said Aventayle, “but he writes me a long letter, after the manner and fashion of young dramatists, explaining his play at great length, as if it was not strong enough to explain itself.”

“Would you mind showing me his letter?”

“Not a bit,” said Aventayle. “But I should very much mind looking for it.” And he pointed, with a piteous look, at the mass of correspondence before him.

“But I should particularly like to see it.”

“H’m. In that case you shall, but it is a cruel thing to ask me to go through all that heap.”

“Why don’t you keep your papers in order?”

“Manage a theatre for a fortnight, and you’ll see, my boy,” said Mr. Aventayle, beginning a search among his letters.

“I will come and sort them and docket them for you.”

“You’ll go and mind your own business, which is the finishing my piece. Have you got a good title?”

“Yes, excellent.”

“Then the piece will be good. I have noticed that if a man fumbles over a title, he has generally written without purpose. Confound the letter !” the manager growled, or may have said worse.

“I couldn’t sit in such a room as this,” said Mr. Grayling.

“Who said you could? You are not sitting. Nobody asked you to sit,” grumbled Aventayle, with pretended petulance, as he turned over his heaps, and was reminded at every turn of something he had neglected to attend to, or somebody who ought to have been obliged or abused. At the recurrence of each of these suggestions the manager fired off a fresh growl.

“I’m afraid I am bringing your sins to your mind,” said Hawkesley. “Your good health.”

“People have no right to write letters, I’ll be hanged if they have,” said Aventayle. “Here it is—no it isn’t—that’s from a woman I never saw, giving me five sides of note-paper to prove why I ought to give her a box, and she’s as rich as creases, as old Poulter used to say; her husband’s a banker.”

“Send her the box, if she will bring him,” said Grayling. “I’m told bankers’ morals are queer, and the piece may do him good.”

“Let him pay for improvements,” said the manager. “I know I have to do so. I can’t see the letter.”

“Shall I look?” said Grayling, “or are you afraid of my seeing letters poisoning your mind against me.”

“I had rather you did, it might make you more careful and painstaking,” said Aventayle. “Do look, there’s a dear boy, while I refresh myself. A large sheet, a very neat hand, and the signature something Adair.”

And he turned away with a sigh, and nodded across his tumbler at Hawkesley.

“What do you want to see the letter for?” he said. “Childish curiosity?”

“No, but for a reason.”

“We must keep him in good humour just now,” said Aventayle, in a stage whisper, behind his hand, to Grayling, “Find it for him.”

“I am proceeding systematically,” said the actor. “Mind your brandy-and-water.”

The manager and the author chatted on for some minutes, and the actor went on with his search. Hawkesley, in answer to a renewed demand by his friend, assured him that the new play was really in hand, and that he liked it as it came on, whereat Aventayle professed himself consoled for his life and other misfortunes, and begged that the ladies’ characters might be made as strong as possible. This again Hawkesley promised, and was enlarging upon the extreme importance of keeping the women constantly upon the stage, when the fiend uttered a melodramatic “Ha!”