Edgar Wallace

“ He hailed the first taxi-cab that came into view and ordered the driver to take him to Huggins.
Everybody knows Huggins—even a cab-driver knew Huggins. Huggins has an estate agency—none of your "Flats-from-£50-to-£120" agents. He deals in real estates, thinks in shootings, and lets lakes. If you want a theatre or a park or a mountain, you go to Huggins. People who, in the innocence of their hearts, go to him for £80 Bayswater maisonnettes are never seen again, or, if they are, are so broken in spirit and humbled in mien that you may be excused if you overlook them. ”

“ I have taken the New Time Theatre. I have taken it because I believe there is room in London for the stupendous art of Frac. Herr Wilhelm Emile Frac is a young Bavarian. His works are unknown; his artistry is the precious possession of the few. His extraordinary lighting schemes, unique and bizarre, have been perfected in the obscurity of his little village. Yet Herr W. E. Frac, shrinking modestly from publicity, has gained fame amongst those select connoisseurs who can best appreciate his art. ”

“ The gates lower down, which bar the progress of lesser men, will obligingly open to let him slip through, and it is well if he misses the altogether miserable muddy pool on the edge of which all endeavours begin and in the cold depths of which every failure ends. ”

“ No man climbs wholly by his own endeavour. He is hauled or pushed by fellow-climbers, and honourable members of the excelsior brigade sniff at the malodorous figure of failure, and refuse the help of their dainty hands to the grimy and undesirable scarecrow who has taken a course of financial mud-baths. ”

“ Carfew learnt a lesson which all successful men must learn, namely, that Fate fixes an iron grating across the path of fortune. It may be fixed at the thousand-pound stage, or at the ten-thousand, or even the hundred-thousand-pound stage in the rock road. For many of us, alas, it is fixed away down in the foothills of the hundreds. ”

“ He wanted somebody to approve of him.
"I am making no headway, Parker," he said.
"You're making a steady income," said Parker, "and a steady income is the most progressive movement in the City."
"A steady income is stagnation," said Carfew loudly. "A steady income means too fat at forty. A steady income——"
"We'll cut out the speech," said Parker, "and get to the bright, brisk business." ”

“ Usually he did not "clear out" of a business except with profit to himself. He had cleared out of a certain Tobbins, Limited, a fairly rich man.
An idea struck him just as he was entering the theatre with the scene-painter. This Tobbins enterprise had brought him into touch with a singular girl. She had been his co-director in the great undertaking, and had acquitted herself well—for a girl. He vent into the dusty box-office and wrote a note. This he despatched by taxi-cab to Dulwich, with instructions to wait for a reply.
His inspection of the lighting arrangements cheered him up. ”

“ Well acted as it is, with the extraordinary lighting effects by M. Frac, it brings home to the spectator something of the conditions of life in the foreign quarters of London—something of the conditions in which the underworld live.
"It was a bold attempt on the part of Mr. Carfew to rename the theatre 'The Slum,' bolder still to portray the life of the very street in which the theatre is situated. It gave, and gives, fashionable London an opportunity of slumming without the discomforts and risks attendant upon that one-time fashionable practice. ”

“ Dry up, Lu! You are always trying to make mischief.
[Enter Mary with tray.] Put it down, Mary; don't fuss around. Get out, wench!
Mary: Yes, ma'am. The butcher's called. Will you have chop or sausages?
Lucretia (aside) : My chance! (Aloud) Methinks I would like to see those sausages, dear Beat, for are not the sausages of Milan famous all over the world? Prithee, girl, bring them. [Exit Mary.]
Beatrice: You take an interest in my affairs, Lu?
Lucretia (carelessly) : Oh, yes, I am considered quite a connoisseur of sausages.
[Re-enter Mary with sausages on a golden tray.] Ah, yes! ”

“ Try as a man may, with all the prestige and the influence and the good luck which is inseparable to success, he cannot turn that gate upon its hinges till the appointed time. Here he must sit among the ninety-nine, patiently, hopefully, uncomplainingly. ”

“ He saw them in the New Time Theatre.
He struck a bargain with Huggins—a bargain that took away the other's breath when he came to realise how bad a bargain it was for the owner.
Carfew called in an electrical engineer.
"Get some sort of an installation in for the stage," he said. "No fancy work—County Council requirements and nothing else—a good big splash of light in the roof of the auditorium, plugs for the projectors in every part of the house. I'm going to introduce a new art into the theatre. I'm the greatest reformer that ever happened." ”

“ A THOUSAND pounds is a lot of money, but a thousand times a thousand is an unthinkable sum, unless you are a financier, a Chancellor of the Exchequer, or an exceedingly dishonest person.
The easiest way to visualise a million pounds is to reduce it to hundredweights and pounds. ”

“ Mr. Huggins, the original Mr. Huggins, is dead. The present Mr. Huggins is the fashionable Huggins, the pomaded Mr. Huggins. His trousers are creased, his hair is parted in the middle, and he lives in a boudoir into which dukes who want to sell or rent their estates are admitted one by one. ”

“ The scene between Pepita and Lorenzo and the waif is the best thing in the play. But undoubtedly what appeals, and will appeal, to the playgoer is the novelty of the production—the programme girls in picturesque tatters, the pallid green lights over the entrance. ... ”