The Man With Two Left Feet

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He seized her hand.

'Alice!'

'Sh-h!' hissed the stage-manager.

'Listen! I love you. I'm crazy about you. What does it matter whether
I'm on the stage or not? I love you.'

'Stop that row there!'

'Won't you marry me?'

She looked at him. It seemed to him that she hesitated.

'Cut it out!' bellowed the stage-manager, and Henry cut it out.

And at this moment, when his whole fate hung in the balance, there came
from the stage that devastating high note which is the sign that the
solo is over and that the chorus are now about to mobilize. As if drawn
by some magnetic power, she suddenly receded from him, and went on to
the stage.

A man in Henry's position and frame of mind is not responsible for his
actions. He saw nothing but her; he was blind to the fact that
important manoeuvres were in progress. All he understood was that she
was going from him, and that he must stop her and get this thing
settled.

He clutched at her. She was out of range, and getting farther away
every instant.

He sprang forward.

The advice that should be given to every young man starting life is--if
you happen to be behind the scenes at a theatre, never spring forward.
The whole architecture of the place is designed to undo those who so
spring. Hours before, the stage-carpenters have laid their traps, and
in the semi-darkness you cannot but fall into them.

The trap into which Henry fell was a raised board. It was not a very
highly-raised board. It was not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door, but 'twas enough--it served. Stubbing it squarely with his
toe, Henry shot forward, all arms and legs.

It is the instinct of Man, in such a situation, to grab at the nearest
support. Henry grabbed at the Hotel Superba, the pride of the
Esplanade. It was a thin wooden edifice, and it supported him for
perhaps a tenth of a second. Then he staggered with it into the
limelight, tripped over a Bulgarian officer who was inflating himself
for a deep note, and finally fell in a complicated heap as exactly in
the centre of the stage as if he had been a star of years' standing.

It went well; there was no question of that. Previous audiences had
always been rather cold towards this particular song, but this one got
on its feet and yelled for more. From all over the house came rapturous
demands that Henry should go back and do it again.

But Henry was giving no encores. He rose to his feet, a little stunned,
and automatically began to dust his clothes. The orchestra, unnerved by
this unrehearsed infusion of new business, had stopped playing.
Bulgarian officers and Japanese girls alike seemed unequal to the
situation. They stood about, waiting for the next thing to break loose.
From somewhere far away came faintly the voice of the stage-manager
inventing new words, new combinations of words, and new throat noises.

And then Henry, massaging a stricken elbow, was aware of Miss Weaver at
his side. Looking up, he caught Miss Weaver's eye.

A familiar stage-direction of melodrama reads, 'Exit cautious through
gap in hedge'. It was Henry's first appearance on any stage, but he did
it like a veteran.

'My dear fellow,' said Walter Jelliffe. The hour was midnight, and he
was sitting in Henry's bedroom at the hotel. Leaving the theatre, Henry
had gone to bed almost instinctively. Bed seemed the only haven for
him. 'My dear fellow, don't apologize. You have put me under lasting
obligations. In the first place, with your unerring sense of the stage,
you saw just the spot where the piece needed livening up, and you
livened it up. That was good; but far better was it that you also sent
our Miss Weaver into violent hysterics, from which she emerged to hand
in her notice. She leaves us tomorrow.'

Henry was appalled at the extent of the disaster for which he was
responsible.

'What will you do?'

'Do! Why, it's what we have all been praying for--a miracle which
should eject Miss Weaver. It needed a genius like you to come to bring
it off. Sidney Crane's wife can play the part without rehearsal. She
understudied it all last season in London. Crane has just been speaking
to her on the phone, and she is catching the night express.'

Henry sat up in bed.

'What!'

'What's the trouble now?'

'Sidney Crane's wife?'

'What about her?'

A bleakness fell upon Henry's soul.

'She was the woman who was employing me. Now I shall be taken off the
job and have to go back to London.'

'You don't mean that it was really Crane's wife?'

Jelliffe was regarding him with a kind of awe.

'Laddie,' he said, in a hushed voice, 'you almost scare me. There seems
to be no limit to your powers as a mascot. You fill the house every
night, you get rid of the Weaver woman, and now you tell me this. I
drew Crane in the sweep, and I would have taken twopence for my chance
of winning it.'

'I shall get a telegram from my boss tomorrow recalling me.'

'Don't go. Stick with me. Join the troupe.'

Henry stared.

'What do you mean? I can't sing or act.'

Jelliffe's voice thrilled with earnestness.

'My boy, I can go down the Strand and pick up a hundred fellows who can
sing and act. I don't want them. I turn them away. But a seventh son of
a seventh son like you, a human horseshoe like you, a king of mascots
like you--they don't make them nowadays. They've lost the pattern. If
you like to come with me I'll give you a contract for any number of
years you suggest. I need you in my business.' He rose. 'Think it over,
laddie, and let me know tomorrow. Look here upon this picture, and on
that. As a sleuth you are poor. You couldn't detect a bass-drum in a
telephone-booth. You have no future. You are merely among those
present. But as a mascot--my boy, you're the only thing in sight. You
can't help succeeding on the stage. You don't have to know how to act.
Look at the dozens of good actors who are out of jobs. Why? Unlucky. No
other reason. With your luck and a little experience you'll be a star
before you know you've begun. Think it over, and let me know in the
morning.'

Before Henry's eyes there rose a sudden vision of Alice: Alice no
longer unattainable; Alice walking on his arm down the aisle; Alice
mending his socks; Alice with her heavenly hands fingering his salary
envelope.

'Don't go,' he said. 'Don't go. I'll let you know now.'

* * * * *

The scene is the Strand, hard by Bedford Street; the time, that restful
hour of the afternoon when they of the gnarled faces and the bright
clothing gather together in groups to tell each other how good they
are.

Hark! A voice.

'Rather! Courtneidge and the Guv'nor keep on trying to get me, but I
turn them down every time. "No," I said to Malone only yesterday, "not
for me! I'm going with old Wally Jelliffe, the same as usual, and there
isn't the money in the Mint that'll get me away." Malone got all worked
up. He--'

It is the voice of Pifield Rice, actor.

EXTRICATING YOUNG GUSSIE

She sprang it on me before breakfast. There in seven words you have a
complete character sketch of my Aunt Agatha. I could go on indefinitely
about brutality and lack of consideration. I merely say that she routed
me out of bed to listen to her painful story somewhere in the small
hours. It can't have been half past eleven when Jeeves, my man, woke me
out of the dreamless and broke the news:

'Mrs Gregson to see you, sir.'

I thought she must be walking in her sleep, but I crawled out of bed
and got into a dressing-gown. I knew Aunt Agatha well enough to know
that, if she had come to see me, she was going to see me. That's the
sort of woman she is.

She was sitting bolt upright in a chair, staring into space. When I
came in she looked at me in that darn critical way that always makes me
feel as if I had gelatine where my spine ought to be. Aunt Agatha is
one of those strong-minded women. I should think Queen Elizabeth must
have been something like her. She bosses her husband, Spencer Gregson,
a battered little chappie on the Stock Exchange. She bosses my cousin,
Gussie Mannering-Phipps. She bosses her sister-in-law, Gussie's mother.
And, worst of all, she bosses me. She has an eye like a man-eating
fish, and she has got moral suasion down to a fine point.

I dare say there are fellows in the world--men of blood and iron, don't
you know, and all that sort of thing--whom she couldn't intimidate; but
if you're a chappie like me, fond of a quiet life, you simply curl into
a ball when you see her coming, and hope for the best. My experience is
that when Aunt Agatha wants you to do a thing you do it, or else you
find yourself wondering why those fellows in the olden days made such a
fuss when they had trouble with the Spanish Inquisition.

'Halloa, Aunt Agatha!' I said

'Bertie,' she said, 'you look a sight. You look perfectly dissipated.'

I was feeling like a badly wrapped brown-paper parcel. I'm never at my
best in the early morning. I said so.

'Early morning! I had breakfast three hours ago, and have been walking
in the park ever since, trying to compose my thoughts.'

If I ever breakfasted at half past eight I should walk on the
Embankment, trying to end it all in a watery grave.

'I am extremely worried, Bertie. That is why I have come to you.'

And then I saw she was going to start something, and I bleated weakly
to Jeeves to bring me tea. But she had begun before I could get it.

'What are your immediate plans, Bertie?'

'Well, I rather thought of tottering out for a bite of lunch later on,
and then possibly staggering round to the club, and after that, if I
felt strong enough, I might trickle off to Walton Heath for a round of
golf.'

I am not interested in your totterings and tricklings. I mean, have you
any important engagements in the next week or so?'

I scented danger.

'Rather,' I said. 'Heaps! Millions! Booked solid!'

'What are they?'

'I--er--well, I don't quite know.'

'I thought as much. You have no engagements. Very well, then, I want
you to start immediately for America.'

'America!'

Do not lose sight of the fact that all this was taking place on an
empty stomach, shortly after the rising of the lark.

'Yes, America. I suppose even you have heard of America?'

'But why America?'

'Because that is where your Cousin Gussie is. He is in New York, and I
can't get at him.'

'What's Gussie been doing?'

'Gussie is making a perfect idiot of himself.'

To one who knew young Gussie as well as I did, the words opened up a
wide field for speculation.

'In what way?'

'He has lost his head over a creature.'

On past performances this rang true. Ever since he arrived at man's
estate Gussie had been losing his head over creatures. He's that sort
of chap. But, as the creatures never seemed to lose their heads over
him, it had never amounted to much.

'I imagine you know perfectly well why Gussie went to America, Bertie.
You know how wickedly extravagant your Uncle Cuthbert was.'

She alluded to Gussie's governor, the late head of the family, and I am
bound to say she spoke the truth. Nobody was fonder of old Uncle
Cuthbert than I was, but everybody knows that, where money was
concerned, he was the most complete chump in the annals of the nation.
He had an expensive thirst. He never backed a horse that didn't get
housemaid's knee in the middle of the race. He had a system of beating
the bank at Monte Carlo which used to make the administration hang out
the bunting and ring the joy-bells when he was sighted in the offing.
Take him for all in all, dear old Uncle Cuthbert was as willing a
spender as ever called the family lawyer a bloodsucking vampire because
he wouldn't let Uncle Cuthbert cut down the timber to raise another
thousand.

'He left your Aunt Julia very little money for a woman in her
position. Beechwood requires a great deal of keeping up, and
poor dear Spencer, though he does his best to help, has not
unlimited resources. It was clearly understood why Gussie went
to America. He is not clever, but he is very good-looking, and,
though he has no title, the Mannering-Phippses are one of the best
and oldest families in England. He had some excellent letters of
introduction, and when he wrote home to say that he had met the
most charming and beautiful girl in the world I felt quite happy.
He continued to rave about her for several mails, and then this
morning a letter has come from him in which he says, quite casually
as a sort of afterthought, that he knows we are broadminded enough
not to think any the worse of her because she is on the vaudeville
stage.'

'Oh, I say!'

'It was like a thunderbolt. The girl's name, it seems, is Ray Denison,
and according to Gussie she does something which he describes as a
single on the big time. What this degraded performance may be I have
not the least notion. As a further recommendation he states that she
lifted them out of their seats at Mosenstein's last week. Who she may
be, and how or why, and who or what Mr Mosenstein may be, I cannot tell
you.'

'By jove,' I said, 'it's like a sort of thingummybob, isn't it? A sort
of fate, what?'

'I fail to understand you.'

'Well, Aunt Julia, you know, don't you know? Heredity, and so forth.
What's bred in the bone will come out in the wash, and all that kind of
thing, you know.'

'Don't be absurd, Bertie.'

That was all very well, but it was a coincidence for all that. Nobody
ever mentions it, and the family have been trying to forget it for
twenty-five years, but it's a known fact that my Aunt Julia, Gussie's
mother, was a vaudeville artist once, and a very good one, too, I'm
told. She was playing in pantomime at Drury Lane when Uncle Cuthbert
saw her first. It was before my time, of course, and long before I was
old enough to take notice the family had made the best of it, and Aunt
Agatha had pulled up her socks and put in a lot of educative work, and
with a microscope you couldn't tell Aunt Julia from a genuine
dyed-in-the-wool aristocrat. Women adapt themselves so quickly!

I have a pal who married Daisy Trimble of the Gaiety, and when I meet
her now I feel like walking out of her presence backwards. But there
the thing was, and you couldn't get away from it. Gussie had vaudeville
blood in him, and it looked as if he were reverting to type, or
whatever they call it.

'By Jove,' I said, for I am interested in this heredity stuff, 'perhaps
the thing is going to be a regular family tradition, like you read
about in books--a sort of Curse of the Mannering-Phippses, as it were.
Perhaps each head of the family's going to marry into vaudeville for
ever and ever. Unto the what-d'you-call-it generation, don't you know?'

'Please do not be quite idiotic, Bertie. There is one head of the
family who is certainly not going to do it, and that is Gussie. And you
are going to America to stop him.'

'Yes, but why me?'

'Why you? You are too vexing, Bertie. Have you no sort of feeling for
the family? You are too lazy to try to be a credit to yourself, but at
least you can exert yourself to prevent Gussie's disgracing us. You are
going to America because you are Gussie's cousin, because you have
always been his closest friend, because you are the only one of the
family who has absolutely nothing to occupy his time except golf and
night clubs.'

'I play a lot of auction.'

'And as you say, idiotic gambling in low dens. If you require another
reason, you are going because I ask you as a personal favour.'

What she meant was that, if I refused, she would exert the full bent of
her natural genius to make life a Hades for me. She held me with her
glittering eye. I have never met anyone who can give a better imitation
of the Ancient Mariner.

'So you will start at once, won't you, Bertie?'

I didn't hesitate.

'Rather!' I said. 'Of course I will'

Jeeves came in with the tea.

'Jeeves,' I said, 'we start for America on Saturday.'

'Very good, sir,' he said; 'which suit will you wear?'

New York is a large city conveniently situated on the edge of America,
so that you step off the liner right on to it without an effort. You
can't lose your way. You go out of a barn and down some stairs, and
there you are, right in among it. The only possible objection any
reasonable chappie could find to the place is that they loose you into
it from the boat at such an ungodly hour.

I left Jeeves to get my baggage safely past an aggregation of
suspicious-minded pirates who were digging for buried treasures among
my new shirts, and drove to Gussie's hotel, where I requested the squad
of gentlemanly clerks behind the desk to produce him.

That's where I got my first shock. He wasn't there. I pleaded with them
to think again, and they thought again, but it was no good. No Augustus
Mannering-Phipps on the premises.

I admit I was hard hit. There I was alone in a strange city and no
signs of Gussie. What was the next step? I am never one of the master
minds in the early morning; the old bean doesn't somehow seem to get
into its stride till pretty late in the p.m.s, and I couldn't think
what to do. However, some instinct took me through a door at the back
of the lobby, and I found myself in a large room with an enormous
picture stretching across the whole of one wall, and under the picture
a counter, and behind the counter divers chappies in white, serving
drinks. They have barmen, don't you know, in New York, not barmaids.
Rum idea!

I put myself unreservedly into the hands of one of the white chappies.
He was a friendly soul, and I told him the whole state of affairs. I
asked him what he thought would meet the case.

He said that in a situation of that sort he usually prescribed a
'lightning whizzer', an invention of his own. He said this was what
rabbits trained on when they were matched against grizzly bears, and
there was only one instance on record of the bear having lasted three
rounds. So I tried a couple, and, by Jove! the man was perfectly right.
As I drained the second a great load seemed to fall from my heart, and
I went out in quite a braced way to have a look at the city.

I was surprised to find the streets quite full. People were bustling
along as if it were some reasonable hour and not the grey dawn. In the
tramcars they were absolutely standing on each other's necks. Going to
business or something, I take it. Wonderful johnnies!

The odd part of it was that after the first shock of seeing all this
frightful energy the thing didn't seem so strange. I've spoken to
fellows since who have been to New York, and they tell me they found it
just the same. Apparently there's something in the air, either the
ozone or the phosphates or something, which makes you sit up and take
notice. A kind of zip, as it were. A sort of bally freedom, if you know
what I mean, that gets into your blood and bucks you up, and makes you
feel that--

_God's in His Heaven:
All's right with the world_,

and you don't care if you've got odd socks on. I can't express it
better than by saying that the thought uppermost in my mind, as I
walked about the place they call Times Square, was that there were
three thousand miles of deep water between me and my Aunt Agatha.

It's a funny thing about looking for things. If you hunt for a needle
in a haystack you don't find it. If you don't give a darn whether you
ever see the needle or not it runs into you the first time you lean
against the stack. By the time I had strolled up and down once or
twice, seeing the sights and letting the white chappie's corrective
permeate my system, I was feeling that I wouldn't care if Gussie and I
never met again, and I'm dashed if I didn't suddenly catch sight of the
old lad, as large as life, just turning in at a doorway down the
street.

I called after him, but he didn't hear me, so I legged it in pursuit
and caught him going into an office on the first floor. The name on the
door was Abe Riesbitter, Vaudeville Agent, and from the other side of
the door came the sound of many voices.

He turned and stared at me.

'Bertie! What on earth are you doing? Where have you sprung from? When
did you arrive?'

'Landed this morning. I went round to your hotel, but they said you
weren't there. They had never heard of you.'

'I've changed my name. I call myself George Wilson.'

'Why on earth?'

'Well, you try calling yourself Augustus Mannering-Phipps over here,
and see how it strikes you. You feel a perfect ass. I don't know what
it is about America, but the broad fact is that it's not a place where
you can call yourself Augustus Mannering-Phipps. And there's another
reason. I'll tell you later. Bertie, I've fallen in love with the
dearest girl in the world.'

The poor old nut looked at me in such a deuced cat-like way, standing
with his mouth open, waiting to be congratulated, that I simply hadn't
the heart to tell him that I knew all about that already, and had come
over to the country for the express purpose of laying him a stymie.

So I congratulated him.

'Thanks awfully, old man,' he said. 'It's a bit premature, but I fancy
it's going to be all right. Come along in here, and I'll tell you about
it.'

'What do you want in this place? It looks a rummy spot.'

'Oh, that's part of the story. I'll tell you the whole thing.'

We opened the door marked 'Waiting Room'. I never saw such a crowded
place in my life. The room was packed till the walls bulged.

Gussie explained.

'Pros,' he said, 'music-hall artistes, you know, waiting to see old Abe
Riesbitter. This is September the first, vaudeville's opening day. The
early fall,' said Gussie, who is a bit of a poet in his way, 'is
vaudeville's springtime. All over the country, as August wanes,
sparkling comediennes burst into bloom, the sap stirs in the veins of
tramp cyclists, and last year's contortionists, waking from their
summer sleep, tie themselves tentatively into knots. What I mean is,
this is the beginning of the new season, and everybody's out hunting
for bookings.'

'But what do you want here?'

'Oh, I've just got to see Abe about something. If you see a fat man
with about fifty-seven chins come out of that door there grab him, for
that'll be Abe. He's one of those fellows who advertise each step up
they take in the world by growing another chin. I'm told that way back
in the nineties he only had two. If you do grab Abe, remember that he
knows me as George Wilson.'

'You said that you were going to explain that George Wilson business to
me, Gussie, old man.'

'Well, it's this way--'

At this juncture dear old Gussie broke off short, rose from his seat,
and sprang with indescribable vim at an extraordinarily stout chappie
who had suddenly appeared. There was the deuce of a rush for him, but
Gussie had got away to a good start, and the rest of the singers,
dancers, jugglers, acrobats, and refined sketch teams seemed to
recognize that he had won the trick, for they ebbed back into their
places again, and Gussie and I went into the inner room.

Mr Riesbitter lit a cigar, and looked at us solemnly over his zareba of
chins.

'Now, let me tell ya something,' he said to Gussie. 'You lizzun t' me.'

Gussie registered respectful attention. Mr Riesbitter mused for a
moment and shelled the cuspidor with indirect fire over the edge of the
desk.

'Lizzun t' me,' he said again. 'I seen you rehearse, as I promised Miss
Denison I would. You ain't bad for an amateur. You gotta lot to learn,
but it's in you. What it comes to is that I can fix you up in the
four-a-day, if you'll take thirty-five per. I can't do better than
that, and I wouldn't have done that if the little lady hadn't of kep'
after me. Take it or leave it. What do you say?'

'I'll take it,' said Gussie, huskily. 'Thank you.'

In the passage outside, Gussie gurgled with joy and slapped me on the
back. 'Bertie, old man, it's all right. I'm the happiest man in New
York.'

'Now what?'

'Well, you see, as I was telling you when Abe came in, Ray's father
used to be in the profession. He was before our time, but I remember
hearing about him--Joe Danby. He used to be well known in London before
he came over to America. Well, he's a fine old boy, but as obstinate as
a mule, and he didn't like the idea of Ray marrying me because I wasn't
in the profession. Wouldn't hear of it. Well, you remember at Oxford I
could always sing a song pretty well; so Ray got hold of old Riesbitter
and made him promise to come and hear me rehearse and get me bookings
if he liked my work. She stands high with him. She coached me for
weeks, the darling. And now, as you heard him say, he's booked me in
the small time at thirty-five dollars a week.'

I steadied myself against the wall. The effects of the restoratives
supplied by my pal at the hotel bar were beginning to work off, and I
felt a little weak. Through a sort of mist I seemed to have a vision of
Aunt Agatha hearing that the head of the Mannering-Phippses was about
to appear on the vaudeville stage. Aunt Agatha's worship of the family
name amounts to an obsession. The Mannering-Phippses were an
old-established clan when William the Conqueror was a small boy going
round with bare legs and a catapult. For centuries they have called
kings by their first names and helped dukes with their weekly rent; and
there's practically nothing a Mannering-Phipps can do that doesn't blot
his escutcheon. So what Aunt Agatha would say--beyond saying that it
was all my fault--when she learned the horrid news, it was beyond me to
imagine.

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