The Little Warrior by P. G. Wodehouse (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

had heard a coupla the critics roastin’ the show to beat the band … by doing all these things, it might still be possible to depress Mr Pilkington’s young enthusiasm and induce him to sell his share at a sacrifice price to a great-hearted friend who didn’t think the thing would run a week but was willing to buy as a sporting speculation, because he thought Mr Pilkington a good kid and after all these shows that flop in New York sometimes have a chance on the road.

Such were the meditations of Mr Goble, and, on the final fall of the curtain amid unrestrained enthusiasm on the part of the audience, he had despatched messengers in all directions with instructions to find Mr Pilkington and conduct him to the presence. Meanwhile, he waited impatiently on the empty stage.

The sudden advent of Wally Mason, who appeared at this moment, upset Mr Goble terribly. Wally was a factor in the situation which he had not considered. An infernal, tactless fellow, always trying to make mischief and upset honest merchants, Wally, if present at the interview with Otis Pilkington, would probably try to act in restraint of trade and would blurt out some untimely truth about the prospects of the piece. Not for the first time, Mr Goble wished Wally a sudden stroke of apoplexy.

“Went well, eh?” said Wally amiably. He did not like Mr Goble, but on the first night of a successful piece personal antipathies may be sunk. Such was his effervescent good-humor at the moment that he was prepared to treat Mr Goble as a man and a brother.

“H’m!” replied Mr Goble doubtfully, paving the way.

“What are you h’ming about?” demanded Wally, astonished. “The thing’s a riot.”

“You never know,” responded Mr Goble in the minor key.

“Well!” Wally stared. “I don’t know what more you want. The audience sat up on its hind legs and squealed, didn’t they?”

“I’ve an idea,” said Mr Goble, raising his voice as the long form of Mr Pilkington crossed the stage towards them, “that the critics will roast it. If you ask me,” he went on loudly, “it’s just the sort of show the critics will pan the life out of. I’ve been fifteen years in the …”

“Critics!” cried Wally. “Well, I’ve just been talking to Alexander of the Times, and he said it was the best musical piece he had ever seen and that all the other men he had talked to thought the same.”

Mr Goble turned a distorted face to Mr Pilkington. He wished that Wally would go. But Wally, he reflected bitterly, was one of those men who never go. He faced Mr Pilkington and did the best he could.

“Of course it’s got a chance,” he said gloomily. “Any show has got a chance! But I don’t know … I don’t know …”

Mr Pilkington was not interested in the future prospects of “The Rose of America.” He had a favor to ask, and he wanted to ask it, have it refused if possible, and get away. It occurred to him that, by substituting for the asking of a favor a peremptory demand, he might save himself a thousand dollars.

“I want the stage after the performance tomorrow night, for a supper to the company,” he said brusquely.

He was shocked to find Mr Goble immediately complaisant.

“Why, sure,” said Mr Goble readily. “Go as far as you like!” He took Mr Pilkington by the elbow and drew him up-stage, lowering his voice to a confidential undertone. “And now, listen,” he said, “I’ve something I want to talk to you about. Between you and I and the lamp-post, I don’t think this show will last a month in New York. It don’t add up right! There’s something all wrong about it.”

Mr Pilkington assented with an emphasis which amazed the manager. “I quite agree with you! If you had kept it the way it was originally …”

“Too late for that!” sighed Mr Goble, realizing that his star was in the ascendant. He had forgotten for the moment that Mr Pilkington was an author. “We must make the best of a bad job! Now, you’re a good kid and I wouldn’t like you to go around town saying that I had let you in. It isn’t business, maybe, but, just because I don’t want you to have any kick coming, I’m ready to buy your share of the thing and call it a deal. After all, it may get money on the road. It ain’t likely, but there’s a chance, and I’m willing to take it. Well, listen, I’m probably robbing myself, but I’ll give you fifteen thousand, if you want to sell.”

A hated voice spoke at his elbow.

“I’ll make you a better offer than that,” said Wally. “Give me your share of the show for three dollars in cash and I’ll throw in a pair of sock-suspenders and an Ingersoll. Is it a go?”

Mr Goble regarded him balefully.

“Who told you to butt in?” he enquired sourly.

“Conscience!” replied Wally. “Old Henry W. Conscience! I refuse to stand by and see the slaughter of the innocents. Why don’t you wait till he’s dead before you skin him!” He turned to Mr Pilkington. “Don’t you be a fool!” he said earnestly. “Can’t you see the thing is the biggest hit in years? Do you think Jesse James here would be offering you a cent for your share if he didn’t know there was a fortune in it? Do you imagine … ?”

“It is immaterial to me,” interrupted Otis Pilkington loftily, “what Mr Goble offers. I have already sold my interest!”

“What!” cried Mr Goble.

“When?” cried Wally.

“I sold it half way through the road-tour,” said Mr Pilkington, “to a lawyer, acting on behalf of a client whose name I did not learn.”

In the silence which followed this revelation, another voice spoke.

“I should like to speak to you for a moment, Mr Goble, if I may.” It was Jill, who had joined the group unperceived.

Mr Goble glowered at Jill, who met his gaze composedly.

“I’m busy!” snapped Mr Goble. “See me tomorrow!”

“I would prefer to see you now.”

“You would prefer!” Mr Goble waved his hands despairingly, as if calling on heaven to witness the persecution of a good man.

Jill exhibited a piece of paper stamped with the letter-heading of the management.

“It’s about this,” she said. “I found it in the box as I was going out.”

“What’s that?”

“It seems to be a fortnight’s notice.”

“And that,” said Mr Goble, “is what it is!”

Wally uttered an exclamation.

“Do you mean to say … ?”

“Yes, I do!” said the manager, turning on him. He felt that he had out-maneuvred Wally. “I agreed to let her open in New York, and she’s done it, hasn’t she? Now she can get out. I don’t want her. I wouldn’t have her if you paid me. She’s a nuisance in the company, always making trouble, and she can go.”

“But I would prefer not to go,” said Jill.

“You would prefer!” The phrase infuriated Mr Goble. “And what has what you would prefer got to do with it?”

“Well, you see,” said Jill, “I forgot to tell you before, but I own the piece!”

§ 3.

Mr Goble’s jaw fell. He had been waving his hands in another spacious gesture, and he remained frozen with out-stretched arms, like a semaphore. This evening had been a series of shocks for him, but this was the worst shock of all.

“You—what!” he stammered.

“I own the piece,” repeated Jill. “Surely that gives me authority to say what I want done and what I don’t want done.”

There was a silence. Mr Goble, who was having difficulty with his vocal chords, swallowed once or twice. Wally and Mr Pilkington stared dumbly. At the back of the stage, a belated scene-shifter, homeward bound, was whistling as much as he could remember of the refrain of a popular song.

“What do you mean you own the piece?” Mr Goble at length gurgled.

“I bought it.”

“You bought it!”

“I bought Mr Pilkington’s share through a lawyer for ten thousand dollars.”

“Ten thousand dollars! Where did you get ten thousand dollars?” Light broke upon Mr Goble. The thing became clear to him. “Damn it!” he cried. “I might have known you had some man behind you! You’d never have been so darned fresh if you hadn’t had some John in the background, paying the bills! Well, of all the …”

He broke off abruptly, not because he had said all that he wished to say, for he had only touched the fringe of his subject, but because at this point Wally’s elbow smote him in the parts about the third button of his waistcoat and jarred all the breath out of him.

“Be quiet!” said Wally dangerously. He turned to Jill. “Jill, you don’t mind telling me how you got ten thousand dollars, do you?”

“Of course not, Wally. Uncle Chris sent it to me. Do you remember giving me a letter from him at Rochester? The check was in that.”

Wally stared.

“Your uncle! But he hasn’t any money!”

“He must have made it somehow.”

“But he couldn’t! How could he?”

Otis Pilkington suddenly gave tongue. He broke in on them with a loud noise that was half a snort and half a yell. Stunned by the information that it was Jill who had bought his share in the piece, Mr Pilkington’s mind had recovered slowly and then had begun to work with a quite unusual rapidity. During the preceding conversation he had been doing some tense thinking, and now he saw all.

“It’s a swindle! It’s a deliberate swindle!” shrilled Mr Pilkington. The tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles flashed sparks. “I’ve been made a fool of! I’ve been swindled! I’ve been robbed!”

Jill regarded him with wide eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean!”

“I certainly do not! You were perfectly willing to sell the piece.”

“I’m not talking about that! You know what I mean! I’ve been robbed!”

Wally snatched at his arm as it gyrated past him in a gesture of anguish which rivalled the late efforts in that direction of Mr Goble, who was now leaning against the safety-curtain trying to get his breath back.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Wally curtly. “Talk sense! You know perfectly well that Miss Mariner wouldn’t swindle you.”

“She may not have been in it,” conceded Mr Pilkington. “I don’t know whether she was or not. But that uncle of her swindled me out of ten thousand dollars! The smooth old crook!”

“Don’t talk like that about Uncle Chris!” said Jill, her eyes flashing. “Tell me what you mean.”

“Yes, come on, Pilkington,” said Wally grimly. “You’ve been scattering some pretty serious charges about. Let’s hear what you base them on. Be coherent for a couple of seconds.”

Mr Goble filled his depleted lungs.

“If you ask me …” he began.

“We don’t,” said Wally curtly. “This has nothing to do with you. Well,” he went on, “we’re waiting to hear what this is all about.”

Mr Pilkington gulped. Like most men of weak intellect who are preyed on by the wolves of the world, he had ever a strong distaste for admitting that he had been deceived. He liked to regard himself as a shrewd young man who knew his way about and could take care of himself.

“Major Selby,” he said, adjusting his spectacles, which emotion had caused to slip down his nose, “came to me a few weeks ago with a proposition. He suggested the formation of a company to start Miss Mariner in the motion-pictures.”

“What!” cried Jill.

“In the motion-pictures,” repeated Mr Pilkington. “He wished to know if I cared to advance any capital towards the venture. I thought it over carefully and decided that I was favorably disposed towards the scheme. I …” Mr Pilkington gulped again. “I gave him a check for ten thousand dollars!”

“Of all the fools!” said Mr Goble with a sharp laugh. He caught Wally’s eye and subsided once more.

Mr Pilkington’s fingers strayed agitatedly to his spectacles.

“I may have been a fool,” he cried shrilly, “though I was perfectly willing to risk the money, had it been applied to the object for which I gave it. But when it comes to giving ten thousand dollars just to have it paid back to me in exchange for a very valuable piece, of theatrical property … my own money … handed back to me … !”

Words failed Mr Pilkington.

“I’ve been deliberately swindled!” he added after a moment, harking back to the main motive.

Jill’s heart was like lead. She could not doubt for an instant the truth of what the victim had said. Woven into every inch of the fabric, plainly hall-marked on its surface, she could perceive the signature of Uncle Chris. If he had come and confessed to her himself, she could not have been more certain that he had acted precisely as Mr Pilkington had charged. There was that same impishness, that same bland unscrupulousness, that same pathetic desire to