The Little Warrior Part 53

"Cut the speech, Mr Goble?" queried the obsequious a.s.sistant stage-director.

"Yes. Cut it. It don't mean nothing!"

Down the aisle, springing from a seat at the back, s.h.i.+mmered Mr Pilkington, wounded to the quick.

"Mr Goble! Mr Goble!"

"Well?"

"That is the best epigram in the play."

"The best what?"

"Epigram. The best epigram in the play."

Mr. Goble knocked the ash off his cigar. "The public don't want epigrams. The public don't like epigrams. I've been in the show business fifteen years, and I'm telling you! Epigrams give them a pain under the vest. All right, get on."

Mr Pilkington fluttered agitatedly. This was his first experience of Mr Goble in the capacity of stage-director. It was the latter's custom to leave the early rehearsals of the pieces with which he was connected to a subordinate producer, who did what Mr Goble called the breaking-in. This accomplished, he would appear in person, undo most of the other's work, make cuts, tell the actors how to read their lines, and generally enjoy himself. Producing plays was Mr Goble's hobby. He imagined himself to have a genius in that direction, and it was useless to try to induce him to alter any decision to which he might have come. He regarded those who did not agree with him with the lofty contempt of an Eastern despot.

Of this Mr Pilkington was not yet aware.

"But, Mr Goble ... !"

The potentate swung irritably round on him.

"What is it? What is it? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"That epigram ..."

"It's out!"

"But ... !"

"It's out!"

"Surely," protested Mr Pilkington almost tearfully, "I have a voice ..."

"Sure you have a voice," retorted Mr Goble, "and you can use it any old place you want, except in my theatre. Have all the voice you like! Go round the corner and talk to yourself! Sing in your bath!

But don't come using it here, because I'm the little guy that does all the talking in this theatre! That fellow gets my goat," he added complainingly to Wally, as Mr Pilkington withdrew like a foiled python. "He don't know nothing about the show business, and he keeps b.u.t.ting in and making fool suggestions. He ought to be darned glad he's getting his first play produced and not trying to teach me how to direct it." He clapped his hands imperiously. The a.s.sistant stage-manager bent over the footlights. "What was that that guy said?

Lord Finchley's last speech. Take it again."

The gentleman who was playing the part of Lord Finchley, an English character actor who specialized in London "nuts," raised his eyebrows, annoyed. Like Mr Pilkington, he had never before come into contact with Mr Goble as stage-director, and, accustomed to the suaver methods of his native land, he was finding the experience trying. He had not yet recovered from the agony of having that water-melon line cut out of his part. It was the only good line, he considered, that he had. Any line that is cut out of an actor's part is always the only good line he has.

"The speech about Omar Khayyam?" he enquired with suppressed irritation.

"I thought that was the way you said it. All wrong! It's Omar _of_ Khayyam."

"I think you will find that Omar Khayyam is the--ah--generally accepted version of the poet's name," said the portrayer of Lord Finchley, adding beneath his breath. "You silly a.s.s!"

"You say Omar _of_ Khayyam," bellowed Mr Goble. "Who's running this show, anyway?"

"Just as you please."

Mr Goble turned to Wally.

"These actors ..." he began, when Mr Pilkington appeared again at his elbow.

"Mr Goble! Mr Goble!"

"What is it _now?_"

"Omar Khayyam was a Persian poet. His name was Khayyam."

"That wasn't the way _I_ heard it," said Mr Goble doggedly. "Did _you?_" he enquired of Wally. "I thought he was born at Khayyam."

"You're probably quite right," said Wally, "but, if so, everybody else has been wrong for a good many years. It's usually supposed that the gentleman's name was Omar Khayyam. Khayyam, Omar J. Born 1050 A.D., educated privately and at Bagdad University. Represented Persia in the Olympic Games of 1072, winning the sitting high-jump and the egg-and-spoon race. The Khayyams were quite a well-known family in Bagdad, and there was a lot of talk when Omar, who was Mrs Khayyam's pet son, took to drink writing poetry. They had had it all fixed for him to go into his father's date business."

Mr Goble was impressed. He had a respect for Wally's opinion, for Wally had written "Follow the Girl" and look what a knock-out that had been. He stopped the rehearsal again.

"Go back to that Khayyam speech!" he said, interrupting Lord Finchley in mid-sentence.

The actor whispered a hearty English oath beneath his breath. He had been up late last night, and, in spite of the fair weather, he was feeling a trifle on edge.

"'In the words of Omar of Khayyam' ..."

Mr Goble clapped his hands.

"Cut that 'of,'" he said. "The show's too long, anyway."

And, having handled a delicate matter in masterly fas.h.i.+on, he leaned back in his chair and chewed the end off another cigar.

For some minutes after this the rehearsal proceeded smoothly. If Mr Goble did not enjoy the play, at least he made no criticisms except to Wally. To him he enlarged from time to time on the pain which "The Rose of America" caused him.

"How I ever came to put on junk like this beats me," confessed Mr Goble frankly.

"You probably saw that there was a good idea at the back of it,"

suggested Wally. "There is, you know. Properly handled, it's an idea that could be made into a success."

"What would you do with it?"

"Oh, a lot of things," said Wally warily. In his younger and callower days he had sometimes been rash enough to scatter views on the reconstruction of plays broadcast, to find them gratefully absorbed and acted upon and treated as a friendly gift. His affection for Mr Goble was not so overpowering as to cause him to give him ideas for nothing now. "Any time you want me to fix it for you, I'll come along. About one and a half per cent of the gross would meet the case, I think."

Mr Goble faced him, registering the utmost astonishment and horror.

"One and a half per cent for fixing a show like this? Why, darn it, there's hardly anything to do to it! It's--it's--in!"

"You called it junk just now."