” ‘But — Sir John can’t do anything,’ I said. ‘He can’t juggle and he can’t walk rope. Otherwise why would he want me?’
” ‘No, no; you haven’t understood. Sir John can, and will, do something absolutely extraordinary: he will make the public — the great audiences of people who come to see him in everything — believe he is doing those splendid, skilful things. He can make them want to believe he can do anything. They will quite happily accept you as him, if you can get the right rhythm.’
” ‘But I still don’t understand. People aren’t as stupid as that. They’ll guess it’s a trick.’
” ‘A few, perhaps. But most of them will prefer to believe it’s a reality. That’s what the theatre’s about, you see. People want to believe that what they see is true, even if only for the time they’re in the playhouse. That’s what theatre is, don’t you understand? Showing people what they wish were true.’
“Then I began to get the idea. I had seen that look in the faces of the people who watched Abdullah, and who saw Willard swallow needles and thread and pull it out of his mouth with the needles all dangling from the thread. I nervously asked Milady if she would like another pink gin. She said she certainly would, and gave me a pound note to pay for it. When I demurred she said, ‘No, no; you must let me pay. I’ve got more money than you, and I won’t presume on your gallantry — though I value it, my dear, don’t imagine I don’t value it.’
“When the gins came, she continued: ‘Let us be very, very frank. Your marvellous cameo must be a great secret. If we tell everybody, we stifle some of their pleasure. You saw that young man who came this morning, and argued so tiresomely? He could juggle and he could walk the rope, quite as well as you, I expect, but he was no use whatever, because he had the spirit of a circus person; he wanted his name on the programme, and he wanted featured billing. Wanted his name to come at the bottom of the bills, you see, after all the cast had been listed, “AND Trebelli”. An absurd request. Everybody would want to know who Trebelli was and they would see at once that he was the juggler and rope-walker. And Romance would fly right up the chimney. Besides which I could see that he would never deceive anyone for an instant that he was Sir John. He had a brassy, horrid personality. Now you, my dear, have the splendid qualification of having very little personality. One hardly notices you. You are almost a tabula rasa.’
” ‘Excuse me, Milady, but I don’t know what that is.’
” ‘No? Well, it’s a — it’s a common expression. I’ve never really had to define it. It’s a sort of charming nothing; a dear, sweet little zero, in which one can paint any face one chooses. An invaluable possession, don’t you see? One says it of children when one’s going to teach them something perfectly splendid. They’re wide open for teaching.’
” ‘I want to be taught. What do you want me to learn?’
” ‘I knew you were quite extraordinarily intelligent. More than intelligent, really. Intelligent people are so often thoroughly horrid. You are truly sensitive. I want you to learn to be exactly like Sir John.’
” ‘Imitate him, you mean?’
” ‘Imitations are no good. There have been people on the music-halls who have imitated him. No; if the thing is to work as we all want it to work, you must quite simply be him.’
” ‘How, if I don’t imitate him?’
” ‘It’s a very deep thing. Of course you must imitate him, but be careful he doesn’t catch you at it, because he doesn’t like it. Nobody does, do they? What I mean is — oh, dear, it’s so dreadfully difficult to say what one really means — you must catch his walk, and his turn of the head, and his gestures and all of that, but the vital thing is that you must catch his rhythm.’
” ‘How would I start to do that?’
” ‘Model yourself on him. Make yourself like a marvellously sensitive telegraph wire that takes messages from him. Or perhaps like wireless, that picks up things out of the air. Do what he did with the Guvnor.’
” ‘I thought he was the Guvnor.’
” ‘He is now, of course. But when we both worked under the dear old Guvnor at the Lyceum Sir John absolutely adored him, and laid himself open to him like Danae to the shower of gold — you know about that, of course? — and became astonishingly like him in a lot of ways. Of course Sir John is not so tall as the Guvnor; but you’re not tall either, are you? It was the Guvnor’s romantic splendour he caught. Which is what you must do. So that when you dance out before the audience juggling those plates they don’t feel as if the electricity had suddenly been cut off. Another pink gin, if you please.’
“I didn’t greatly like pink gin. In those days I couldn’t afford to drink anything, and pink gin is a bad start. But I would have drunk hot fat to prolong this conversation. So we had another one each, and Milady dealt with hers much better than I did. A pink gin later — call it ten minutes — I was thoroughly confused, except that I wanted to please her, and must find out somehow what she was talking about.
“When she wanted to leave I rushed to call her a taxi, but Holroyd was ahead of me, and in much better condition. He must have been in the Public Bar. We both bowed her into the cab I seem to remember having one foot in the gutter and the other on the pavement and wondering what had happened to my legs — and when she drove off he took me by the arm and steered me back into the Public Bar, where we tucked into a corner with old Frank Moore.
” ‘She’s been giving him advice and pink gin,’ said Holroyd.
” ‘Better give him a good honest pint of half-and-half to straighten him out,’ said Frank, and signalled to the barman.
“They seemed to know what Milady had been up to, and were ready to put it in language that I could understand, which was kind of them. They made it seem very simple: I was to imitate Sir John, but I was to do it with more style than I had been showing. I was supposed to be imitating a great actor who was imitating an eighteenth-century gentleman who was imitating a Commedia dell’ Arte comedian — that’s how simple it was. And I was doing everything too bloody fast, and slick and cheap, so I was to drop that and catch Sir John’s rhythm.
” ‘But I don’t get it about all this rhythm,’ I said. ‘I guess I know about rhythm in juggling; it’s getting everything under control so you don’t have to worry about dropping things because the things are behaving properly. But what the hell’s all this human rhythm? You mean like dancing?’
” ‘Not like any dancing I suppose you know,’ said Holroyd. ‘But yes — a bit like dancing. Not like this Charleston and all that jerky stuff. More a fine kind of complicated — well, rhythm.’
” ‘I don’t get it at all,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to get Sir John’s rhythm. Sir John got his rhythm from somebody called the Guvnor. What Guvnor? Is the whole theatre full of Guvnors?’
” ‘Ah, now we’re getting to it,’ said old Frank. ‘Milady talked about the Guvnor, did she? The Guvnor was Irving, you muggins. You’ve heard of Irving?’
” ‘Never,’ I said.
“Old Frank looked wonderingly at Holroyd. ‘Never heard of Irving. He’s quite a case, isn’t he?’
” ‘Not such a case as you might think, Frank,’ said Holroyd. ‘These kids today have never heard of anybody. And I suppose we’ve got to remember that Irving’s been dead for twenty-five years. You remember him. You played with him. I just remember him. But what’s he got to do with a lad like this? — Well, now just hold on a minute. Milady thinks there’s a connection. You know how she goes on. Like a loony, sometimes. But just when you can’t stand it any more she proves to be right, and righter than any of us. You remember where I found you?’ he said to me.
” ‘In the street. I was doing a few passes with the cards.’
” ‘Yes, but don’t you remember where? I do. I saw you and I came back to rehearsal and said to Sir John, I think I’ve got what we want. Found him under the Guvnor’s statue, picking up a few pennies as a conjuror. And that was when Milady pricked up her ears. Oh Jack, she said, it’s a lucky sign; Let’s see him at once. And when Sir John wanted to ask perfectly reasonable questions about whether you would do for height, and whether a resemblance could be contrived between you and him, she kept nattering on about how you must be a lucky find because I saw you, as she put it, working the streets under Irving’s protection. You know how the Guvnor stood up for all the little people of the theatre. Jack, she said, I’m sure this boy is a lucky find. Do let’s have him. And she’s stood up for you ever since, though I don’t suppose you’ll be surprised to hear that Sir John wants to get rid of you.’