” ‘That’s for you to say, of course,’ said Holroyd.
” ‘Then I say no. Must look again. Must be something better than that, eh?’
” ‘Won’t you see him do a few tricks?’
” ‘Need I? Surely the appearance is everything, mph?’
” ‘Not everything. Guvnor. The tricks are pretty important. At least the way you’ve laid it out makes the tricks very important. And the tightrope, too. He’d look quite different dressed up.’
” ‘Of course. But I don’t think he’ll do. Look again, eh, like a good chap?’
” ‘Whatever you say. Guvnor. But I’d have bet money on this one. Let him flash a trick or two, just to see.’
“The little man wasn’t anxious to waste time on me, but I didn’t mean to waste time either. I threw a couple of decks in the air, made them do a fancy twirl, and let them slip back into my hands. Then I twirled on my toes, and made the decks do it again, in a spiral, which looks harder than it is. There was clapping from a corner — the kind of soft clapping women produce by clapping in gloves they don’t want to split I bowed toward the corner, and that was the first time I saw Milady.
“It was a time when women’s clothes were plain; the line of the silhouette was supposed to be simple. There was nothing plain or simple about Milady’s clothes. Drapes and swags and swishes, and scraps of fur everywhere, and the colours and fabrics were more like upholstery than garments. She had a hat like a witch’s, but with more style to it, and some soft stuff wrapped around the crown dangled over the brim to one shoulder. She was heavily made up — really she wore an extraordinary amount of make-up — in colours that were too emphatic for daylight. But neither she nor the little man seemed to be meant for daylight; I didn’t realize it at the time, but they always looked as if they were ready to step on the stage. Their clothes, and manner and demeanour all spoke of the stage.”
“The Crummies touch,” said Ingestree. “They were about the last to have it.”
“I don’t know who Crummies was,” said Magnus. “Ramsay will tell me later. But I must make it clear that these two didn’t look in the least funny to me. Odd, certainly, and unlike anything I had ever seen, but not funny. In fact, ten years later I still didn’t think them funny, though I know lots of people laughed. But those people didn’t know them as I did. And as I’ve told you I first saw Milady when she was applauding my tricks with the cards, so she looked very good to me.
” ‘Let him show what he can do. Jack,’ she said. And then to me, with great politeness, ‘You do juggling, don’t you? Let us see you juggle.’
“I had nothing to juggle with, but I didn’t mean to be beaten. And I wanted to prove to the lady that I was worth her kindness. So with speed and I hope a reasonable amount of politeness I took her umbrella, and the little man’s wonderful hat, and Holroyd’s hat and the soft cap I was wearing myself, and balanced the brolly on my nose and juggled the three hats in an arch over it. Not easy, let me tell you, for all the hats were of different sizes and weights, and Holroyd’s hefted like iron. But I did it, and the lady clapped again. Then she whispered to the little man she called Jack.
” ‘I see what you mean. Nan,’ he said, ‘but there must be some sort of resemblance. I hope I’m not vain, but I can’t persuade myself we can manage a resemblance, mphm?’
“I put on a little more steam. I did some clown juggling, pretending every time the circle went round that I was about to drop Holroyd’s hat, and recovering it with a swoop, and at last keeping that one in the air with my right foot. That made the little man laugh, and I knew I had had a lucky inspiration. Obviously Holroyd’s hat was rather a joke among them. ‘Come here, m’boy,’ said the boss. ‘Stand back to back with me.’ So I did, and we were exactly of a height. ‘Extraordinary,’ said the boss; ‘I’d have sworn he was shorter.’
” ‘He’s a little shorter. Guvnor,’ said Holroyd, ‘but we can put him in lifts.’
” ‘Aha, but what will you do about the face?’ said the boss. ‘Can you get away with the face?’
” ‘I’ll show him what to do about the face,’ said the lady. ‘Give him his chance. Jack. I’m sure he’s lucky for us and I’m never wrong. After all, where did Holroyd find him?’
“So I got the job, though I hadn’t any idea what the job was, and nobody thought to tell me. But the boss said I was to come to rehearsal the following Monday, which was five days away. In the meantime, he said, I was to give up my present job, and keep out of sight. I would have accepted that, but again the lady interfered.
” ‘You can’t ask him to do that. Jack,’ she said. ‘What’s he to live on in the meantime?’
” ‘Holroyd will attend to it,’ said the little man. Then he offered the lady his arm, and put his hat back on his head (after Holroyd had dusted it, quite needlessly) and they swept out of that grubby assembly room in the Crown and Two Chairmen as if it were a palace.
“I said to Holroyd, ‘What’s this about lifts? I’m as tall as he is; perhaps a bit taller.’
” ‘If you want this job, m’boy, you’ll be shorter and stay shorter,’ said Holroyd. Then he gave me thirty shillings, explaining that it was an advance on salary. He also asked for a pledge in return, just so that I wouldn’t make off with the thirty shillings; I gave him my old silver watch. I respected Holroyd for that; he belonged to my world. It was clear that it was time for me to go, but I still didn’t know what the job was, or what I was letting myself in for. That was obviously the style around there. Nobody explained anything. You were supposed to know.
“So, not being a fool, I set to work to find out. I discovered downstairs in the bar that Sir John Tresize and his company were rehearsing above, which left me not much wiser, except that it was some sort of theatricals. But when I went back to the buskers and told them I was quitting, and why, they were impressed, but not pleased.
” ‘You gone legit on us,’ said the boss of the group, who was an escape-man, like the one we saw this morning. ‘You and your Sir John-bloody-Tresize. Amiet and Oh Thello and the like of them. If you want my opinion, you’ve got above yourself, and when they find out, don’t come whinin’ back to me, that’s all. Don’t come whinin’ bloody back here.’ Then he kicked me pretty hard in the backside, and that was the end of my engagement as an open-air entertainer.
“I didn’t bother to resent the kick. I had a feeling something important had happened to me, and I celebrated by taking a vacation. Living for five days on thirty shillings was luxury to me at that time. I thought of augmenting my money by doing a bit of pocket-picking, but I rejected the idea for a reason that will show you what had happened to me; I thought such behaviour would be unsuitable to one who had been given a job because of the interference of a richly-dressed lady with an eye for talent.
“The image of the woman called Nan by Sir John Tresize dominated my mind. Her umbrella, as I balanced it on my nose, gave forth an expensive smell of perfume, and I could recall it even in the petrol stink of London streets. I was like a boy who is in love for the first time. But I wasn’t a boy; it was 1930, so I must have been twenty-two, and I was a thorough young tough side-show performer, vaudeville rat, pick-pocket, dope-pusher, a forger in a modest way, and for a good many years the despised utensil of an arse-bandit. Women, to me, were members of a race who were either old and tougher than the men who work in carnivals, or the flabby, pallid strumpets I had occasionally seen in Charlie’s room when I went to rouse him to come to the aid of Willard. But so far as any sexual association with a woman went, I was a virgin. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was a hoor from the back and a virgin from the front, and so far as romance was concerned I was as pure as the lily in the dell. And there I was, over my ears in love with Lady Tresize, professionally known as Miss Annette de la Borderie, who cannot have been far off sixty and was, as Ingestree is eager to tell you, not a beauty. But she had been kind to me and said she would show me what to do about my face — whatever that