The Little Warrior by P. G. Wodehouse

“You’d better not let him hear you talking like that!”

“An contraire, as we say in the Gay City, I’m going to make a point of letting him hear me talk like that! Adjust the impression that I fear any Goble in shining armor, because I don’t. I propose to speak my mind to him. I would beard him in his lair, if he had a beard. Well, I’ll clean-shave him in his lair. That will be just as good. But hist! whom have we here? Tell me, do you see the same thing I see?”

Like the vanguard of a defeated army, Mr Saltzburg was coming dejectedly across the stage.

“Well?” said the stage-director.

“They would not listen to me,” said Mr Saltzburg brokenly. “The more I talked, the more they did not listen!” He winced at a painful memory. “Miss Trevor stole my baton, and then they all lined up and sang the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’!”

“Not the words?” cried Wally incredulously. “Don’t tell me they knew the words!”

“Mr Miller is still up there, arguing with them. But it will be of no use. 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.

“Well?”

Wally came briskly to the point.

“You’ll have to give in,” he said, “or else go and make a speech to the audience, the burden of which will be that they can have their money back by applying at the box-office. These Joans of Arc have got you by the short hairs!”

“I won’t give in!”

“Then give out!” said Wally. “Or pay out, if you prefer it. Trot along and tell the audience that the four dollars fifty in the house will be refunded.”

Mr Goble gnawed his cigar.

“I’ve been in the show business fifteen years —”

“I know. And this sort of thing has never happened to you before. One gets new experiences.”

Mr Goble cocked his cigar at a fierce angle, and glared at Wally. Something told him that Wally’s sympathies were not wholly with him.

“They can’t do this sort of thing to me,” he growled.

“Well, they are doing it to someone, aren’t they,” said Wally, “and, if it’s not you, who is it?”

“I’ve a damned good mind to fire them all!”

“A corking idea! I can’t see a single thing wrong with it except that it would hang up the production for another five weeks and lose you your bookings and cost you a week’s rent of this theatre for nothing and mean having all the dresses made over and lead to all your principals going off and getting other jobs. These trifling things apart, we may call the suggestion a bright one.”

“You talk too damn much!” said Mr Goble, eyeing him with distaste.

“Well, go on, you say something. Something sensible.”

“It is a very serious situation —” began the stage director.

“Oh, shut up!” said Mr Goble.

The stage director subsided into his collar.

“I cannot play the overture again,” protested Mr Saltzburg. “I cannot!”

At this point Mr Miller appeared. He was glad to see Mr Goble. He had been looking for him, for he had news to impart.

“The girls,” said Mr Miller, “have struck! They won’t go on!”

Mr Goble, with the despairing gesture of one who realizes the impotence of words, dashed off for his favorite walk up stage. Wally took out his watch.

“Six seconds and a bit,” he said approvingly, as the manager returned. “A very good performance. I should like to time you over the course in running-kit.”

The interval for reflection, brief as it had been, had apparently enabled Mr Goble to come to a decision.

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