Mr. Vholes

“ Who wouldn’t, treated same as us?”
“Best not talk on such high subjects, Will Blanchard, or you might get in trouble. A fortnight, mind. Gude marnin’ to ’e.”
The Duchy’s man rode off and Will stood angry and irresolute. Then, seeing Mr. Vogwell was still observing him, he ostentatiously turned to the cart and tipped up his load of earth. But when the representative of power had disappeared—his horse and himself apparently sinking into rather than behind a heather ridge—Will’s energy died and his mood changed. ”

“ Nobody, except perhaps the night-watchman, had ever seen this bench empty. At whatever hour of the day you happened to call, you would always find three wistful individuals seated side by side with their eyes on the tiny ante-room where sat the office-boy, the telephone-girl, and Mr Goble’s stenographer. Beyond this was the door marked “Private,” through which, as it opened to admit some careless, debonair, thousand-dollar-a-week comedian who sauntered in with a jaunty “Hello, Ike!” ”

“ There wasn't one woman in ten thousand that was what she seemed to be. But even men are not all alike," he continued, with something like a sneer, for when Hugh got upon his favorite hobby, "women and their weaknesses," he generally grew bitter and sarcastic. "Now, there's the one of whom you are continually thinking. I dare say you have contrasted him with me and thought how much more elegant he was in his appearance. Isn't it so?" and Hugh glanced at Adah, who, in a grieved tone, replied:
"No, Mr. Worthington, I have not compared you with him—I have only thought how good you were." ”

“ 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? ”

“ Goble wants all the chorus-gentlemen on the stage!"
There was a moment, when the seven male members of "The Rose of America" ensemble lined up self-consciously before his gleaming eyes, when Mr. Goble repented of his brave words. An uncomfortable feeling passed across his mind that Fate had called his bluff and that he would not be able to make good. All chorus-men are exactly alike, and they are like nothing else on earth. Even Mr. Goble, anxious as he was to overlook their deficiencies, could not persuade himself that in their ranks stood even an adequate Lord Finchley. ”

“ When Wally Mason arrived at a quarter past eleven and dropped into the seat beside him, the manager received him with a grunt and even omitted to offer him a cigar. And when a New York theatrical manager does that, it is a certain sign that his mood is of the worst.
One may find excuses for Mr Goble. “The Rose of America” would have tested the equanimity of a far more amiable man: and on Mr Goble what Otis Pilkington had called its delicate whimsicality jarred profoundly. ”

“ Fisher plunged in.
“Bradbury,” she cried, “are you mad? Of course Mr. Worple must go if Vosper says so. Don’t you realise that Vosper will leave us if we don’t humour him?”
“I should worry about him leaving!”
A strange, set look came into Mrs. Fisher’s face.
“Bradbury,” she said, “if Vosper leaves us, I shall die. And, what is more, just before dying I shall get a divorce. Yes, I will.”
“But, darling,” gasped Bradbury, “Rupert Worple! Old Rupie Worple! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, directly the curtain has fallen, Otie dear, pop right round and find Mr. Goble and tell him what you want."
II
It is not only twin-souls in this world who yearn to meet each other. Between Otis Pilkington and Mr. Goble there was little in common, yet, at the moment when Otis set out to find Mr. Goble, the thing which Mr. Goble desired most in the world was an interview with Otis. Since the end of the first act, the manager had been in a state of mental upheaval. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Resist the impulse! Why not let your spine stay where it is instead of having it kicked up through your hat? Keep to the main issue. Does Miss Mariner open in New York or does she not?"
There was a tense silence. Mr. Goble permitted himself a swift review of his position. He would have liked to do many things to Wally, beginning with ordering him out of the theatre, but prudence restrained him. He wanted Wally's work. He needed Wally in his business: and, in the theatre, business takes precedence of personal feelings. ”

“ You don’t seem able to turn without tumbling over each other like a lot of Keystone Kops! What’s the matter with you? You’re not doing the movements I showed you; you’re doing some you have invented yourselves, and they are rotten! I’ve no doubt you think you can arrange a number better than I can, but Mr Goble engaged me to be the director, so kindly do exactly as I tell you. Don’t try to use your own intelligence, because you haven’t any. ”

“ The grave danger that Mr Goble, a thick-necked man, would undergo some sort of a stroke was averted by the presence-of-mind of the stage-director, who, returning with the hat, presented it like a bouquet to his employer, and then his hands being now unoccupied, formed them into a funnel and through this flesh-and-blood megaphone endeavored to impart the bad news.
“The girls say they won’t go on!”
Mr Miller nodded.
“I said it was time they were on.”
“They’re on strike!”
“It’s not,” said Mr Miller austerely, “what they like, it’s what they’re paid for. They ought to be on stage. ”

“ I'm only acting under orders from up top."
"Whose orders?" enquired John.
"The gent who owns this joint."
"Who is he?"
Suspicion crept into the protruding eyes of the rent-collector.
"Say!" he demanded. "Who are you anyway, and what do you think you're doing here? That's what I'd like to know. What do you want with the name of the owner of this place? What business is it of yours?"
"I'm a newspaper man."
"I guessed you were," said Mr. Gooch with triumph. "You can't bluff me. Well, it's no good, sonny. I've nothing for you. You'd better chase off and try something else." ”

“ Jill, coming down-stage from the staircase that led to the dressing-room, interrupted his line of vision.
"Get out of the light!" bellowed Mr. Goble, always a man of direct speech, adding "Damn you!" for good measure.
"Please move to one side," interpreted the stage-director. "Mr. Goble is looking at the set."
The head carpenter, who completed the little group, said nothing. Stage carpenters always say nothing. ”

“ One and a half of course you really said.
"If you won't take half, you don't get the other."
"All right," said Wally. "There are lots of other managers in New York. Haven't you seen them popping about? Rich, enterprising men, and all of them love me like a son."
"Make it one per cent," said Mr. Goble, "and I'll see if I can fix it with Pilkington." ”

“ Damn the Duchy, as steals moor an’ common wheer it pleases an’ then grudges a man his toil.”
“That’s the spirit as’ll land ’e in the poorhouse, Will Blanchard,” said Mr. Vogwell calmly; “and that’s such a job as might send ’e to the County Asylum,” he added, pointing to the operations around him. “As to damning Duchy,” he continued, “you might as well damn the sun or moon. They’d care as little. Theer ’m some varmints so small that, though they bite ’e with all their might, you never knaw it; an’ so ’t is wi’ you an’ Duchy. Mind now, a fortnight. Thank ’e—so gude cider as ever I tasted ”

“ He is an artist before all. He said so himself, this very day. And no man loves disgrace, and such disgrace would kill love, if ever it existed!”
“What are you thinking of?” asked the other presently. “You look like the tragic muse, or Althea, before she put the burning brand back into the fire again. You have a very strong face, do you know? It is a pity Mr. Rivers isn’t a figure painter, then he could paint you.”
“I wish—somehow—you would not talk of Mr. Rivers.”
“Why not? I am always thinking of him.”
“That you are not.”
“You think me very frivolous?” Mrs. Elles sighed out. ”

“ Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy—that was what she was thinking, this was what she was doing—ladling out soup—she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly. The room (she looked round it) was very shabby. There was no beauty anywhere. She forebore to look at Mr. Tansley. Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate. And the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested on her. ”

“ George never asks her any questions. He is too proud, and of course he knows that she is too. She wouldn’t stand having her movements questioned, any more than he would. But he began to look ragged and grey, and to have indigestion. He lived chiefly in his study. He fenced a good deal, with Mr. Aix. He asked Mr. Aix to leave the button off his foil, but Mr. Aix would not. George’s other distraction is Father Mack, who comes to see him a good deal, and when George goes out now, which he seldom does, it is to see Father Mack. Father Mack is not oppressively stiff. ”

“ What shall we do?" asked Mr. Saltzburg helplessly. "We ought to have rung up half an hour ago. What shall we do-oo-oo?"
"We must go and talk to Goble," said Wally. "Something has got to be settled quick. When I left, the audience was getting so impatient that I thought he was going to walk out on us. He's one of those nasty, determined-looking men. So come along!"
Mr. Goble, intercepted as he was about to turn for another walk up-stage, eyed the deputation sourly and put the same question that the stage-director had put to Mr. Saltzburg. ”

“ It's nearly lock-up, MacArthur.'
'That's Plunkett's delicate way of telling you you're not wanted, Babe.'
'Well, I suppose I ought to be going,' said the Babe. 'So long.'
And he went, feeling grateful to Providence for not having made his father, like the fathers of Vaughan and Dallas, a casual acquaintance of Mr Ward.
The Mutual Friend really was a trial to Vaughan and Dallas. Only those whose fate it is or has been to share a study with an uncongenial companion can appreciate their feelings to the full. ”

“ From off in the darkness they heard the sound of Hollanden's oars splashing in the water. Sometimes there was squealing by the Worcester girls, and at other times loud arguments on points of navigation.
"Oh," said the girl suddenly, "Mr. Oglethorpe is coming to-morrow!"
"Mr. Oglethorpe?" said Hawker. "Is he?"
"Yes." She gazed off at the water. [Pg 47]
"He's an old friend of ours. He is always so good, and Roger and little Helen simply adore him. He was my brother's chum in college, and they were quite inseparable until Herbert's death. He always brings me violets. ”

“ And Mr Verloc, temperamentally identical with his associates, drew fine distinctions in his mind on the strength of insignificant differences. He drew them with a certain complacency, because the instinct of conventional respectability was strong within him, being only overcome by his dislike of all kinds of recognised labour—a temperamental defect which he shared with a large proportion of revolutionary reformers of a given social state. ”

“ For some moments after Wally had left, Mr. Goble sat hunched up in his orchestra-chair, smoking sullenly, his mood less sunny than ever. Living in a little world of sycophants, he was galled by the off-hand way in which Wally always treated him. There was something in the latter's manner which seemed to him sometimes almost contemptuous. He regretted the necessity of having to employ him. There was, of course, no real necessity why he should have employed Wally. New York was full of librettists who would have done the work equally well for half the money, but, like most managers, Mr. ”

“ If Aunt Gerty had been there with Mr. Bowser she would certainly have claimed George as a relation and said something awkward, but she was luckily toasting tea-cakes, and had perhaps not even seen them. I saw George just look at Mother, and I saw her smile a very little, and make him a sign that he was to go right past us, and not speak or seem to know us before. Of course Mr. Aix never spoils any one’s game, not even George’s. ”