Mr Pilkington blushed and stumbled over his feet.
“Ah, yes — yes,” he murmured vaguely. “Yes!”
“Well, there are thirteen here. Count ’em for yourself.” He whipped round on Jill. “What’s your name? Who engaged you?”
A croaking sound from the neighborhood of the ceiling indicated the clearing of Mr Pilkington’s throat.
“I—er—I engaged Miss Mariner, Mr Goble.”
“Oh, you engaged her?”
He stared again at Jill. The inspection was long and lingering, and affected Jill with a sense of being inadequately clothed. She returned the gaze as defiantly as she could, but her heart was beating fast. She had never yet beer frightened of any man, but there was something reptilian about this fat, yellow-haired individual which disquieted her; much as cockroaches had done in her childhood. A momentary thought flashed through her mind that it would be horrible to be touched by him. He looked soft and glutinous.
“All right,” said Mr Goble at last, after what seemed to Jill many minutes. He nodded to Mr Saltzburg. “Get on with it! And try working a little this time! I don’t hire you to give musical entertainments.”
“Yes, Mr Goble, yes. I mean no, Mr Goble!”
“You can have the Gotham stage this afternoon,” said Mr Goble. “Call the rehearsal for two sharp.”
Outside the door, he turned to Mr Pilkington.
“That was a fool trick of yours, hiring that girl. Thirteen! I’d as soon walk under a ladder on a Friday as open in New York with a chorus of thirteen. Well, it don’t matter. We can fire one of ’em after we’ve opened on the road.” He mused for a moment. “Darned pretty girl, that!” he went on meditatively. “Where did you get her?”
“She—ah—came into the office, when you were out. She struck me as being essentially the type we required for our ensemble, so I—er—engaged her. She—” Mr Pilkington gulped. “She is a charming, refined girl!”
“She’s darned pretty,” admitted Mr Goble, and went on his way wrapped in thought, Mr Pilkington following timorously. It was episodes like the one that had just concluded which made Otis Pilkington wish that he possessed a little more assertion. He regretted wistfully that he was not one of those men who can put their hat on the side of their heads and shoot out their chins and say to the world “Well, what about it!” He was bearing the financial burden of this production. If it should be a failure, his would be the loss. Yet somehow this coarse, rough person in front of him never seemed to allow him a word in the executive policy of the piece. He treated him as a child. He domineered and he shouted, and behaved as if he were in sole command. Mr Pilkington sighed. He rather wished he had never gone into this undertaking.
Inside the room, Mr Saltzburg wiped his forehead, spectacles, and his hands. He had the aspect of one wakes from a dreadful dream.
“Childrun!” he whispered brokenly. “Childrun! If yoll please, once more. Act One, Opening Chorus. Come! La-la-la!”
“La-la-la!” chanted the subdued members of the ensemble.
2.
By the time the two halves of the company, ensemble and principals, melted into one complete whole, the novelty of her new surroundings had worn off, and Jill was feeling that there had never been a time when she had not been one of a theatrical troupe, rehearsing. The pleasant social gatherings round Mr Saltzburg’s piano gave way after a few days to something far less agreeable and infinitely more strenuous, the breaking-in of the dances under the supervision of the famous Johnson Miller. Johnson Miller was a little man with snow-white hair and the india-rubber physique of a juvenile acrobat. Nobody knew actually how old he was, but he certainly looked much too advanced in years to be capable of the feats of endurance which he performed daily. He had the untiring enthusiasm of a fox-terrier, and had bullied and scolded more companies along the rocky road that leads to success than any half-dozen dance-directors in the country, in spite of his handicap in being almost completely deaf. He had an almost miraculous gift of picking up the melodies for which it was his business to design dances, without apparently hearing them. He seemed to absorb them through the pores. He had a blunt and arbitrary manner, and invariably spoke his mind frankly and honestly—a habit which made him strangely popular in a profession where the language of equivoque is cultivated almost as sedulously as in the circles of international diplomacy. What Johnson Miller said to your face was official, not subject to revision as soon as your back was turned: and people appreciated this.