Chapter I

He had gone to bed before the Creams returned from their round of the music-halls, but in the morning, when Lizzie had removed the remnants of his breakfast, John heard a tap on the door of the sitting-room, and on opening it, found a small, wistful-looking man, with a smiling face, standing outside.

"Good-morning," said the stranger, holding his hand out. "I'm Cream from the ground-floor!"

"Oh, yes," John answered, shaking hands with him. "Come in, won't you!"

"Well, I was going to suggest you should come down and be introduced to the wife. She'd like to meet you!" Mr. Cream said, entering the sitting-room as he spoke.

John had a sensation of self-consciousness when he heard the word "wife."

"Settling down comfortably?" Mr. Cream continued.

"Oh, yes, thank you," said John. "I went out all day yesterday and had my first look at London!"

"And what do you think of it? Great place, eh?"

John confessed that he had been disappointed in London, and in a few moments he began to recite a list of the things that had disappointed him.

"Wait 'til you've been here a few months," Mr. Cream interrupted. "You'll love this town. You'll hate loving it, but you won't be able to help yourself. I've been all over the world, the wife and me, and I've seen some of the loveliest places on earth, but London's got me. You'll be the same. You see!" He glanced about the room, casting his eyes critically at the books. "I hear you're a writer, too?" he said, less as an assertion than as a question.

"I've written one book," John replied, "but it hasn't been printed. I want to discuss it with Mr. Hinde, but I haven't had a chance to do that yet. He's been away ever since I arrived. He'll be home the day though!"

"So Lizzie told me. Queer bird, Lizzie, isn't she?"

"Very," said John.

"But she's a good soul. I'd trust Lizzie with every ha'penny I have, but I wouldn't trust that old cat of an aunt of hers with a brass farthing. She's too religious to be honest. That's my opinion of her. Come on down and see the wife!" He rose from his seat as he spoke. "I suppose you've never tried your hand at a play, have you?" he asked, leading the way to the door.

"No, not yet, but I had a notion of trying," John said, following him.

"I could give you a few tips if you needed advice," Mr. Cream continued, as they descended the stairs. "As a matter of fact, the wife and me are in need of a new piece for the halls, and it struck me this morning when I heard you were a writer, that mebbe you could do a piece for us. It would be practice for you!"

"What about Mr. Hinde?" John asked.

"I've tried him time after time, but it's no good asking. He's a journalist, and a journalist can only work when he's excited. Put him down to something that needs thought and care, and he's lost. And he always says he's writing a tragedy about St. Patrick and can't think of anything else!"

John smiled, without quite understanding why he was smiling, and followed Mr. Cream into the ground floor sitting-room where Mrs. Cream was lying on a sofa.

"This is the wife," Mr. Cream said. "Dolly, this is Mr.... Mr!..."

"MacDermott," John prompted.

"Oh, yes, of course. Mr. MacDermott. Lizzie did tell me, but I can never remember Irish names somehow!"

Mrs. Cream extended a limp hand to John. "You must excuse me for not getting up," she said, "but I'm always very tired in the morning!"

"You see, Mac," Mr. Cream explained, "Dolly is a very intense actress ... I think she's the most intense actress on the stage ... and she gets very worked up in emotional pieces. Don't you, Dolly?"

Dolly nodded her head, and then, as if the effort of doing so had been too great an exertion for her, she lay back on the sofa and closed her eyes.

"Perhaps I'd better go!..." John suggested.

"Oh, no, no! She's always like that. All right in the afternoon. Won't you, Dolly?"

Dolly waved her hand feebly.

"Her acting takes a lot out of her," Mr. Cream said. "Very exhausting all that emotional work. Bound to be ... _bound_ to be! Now, comic work's different. I can be as comic as you like, and all that happens is I'm nicely tired about bedtime, and I sleep like a top. In fact, I might say I sleep like two tops, for the wife's so unnerved, as you might say, by her own acting that it takes her half the night to settle down. Nerves, my boy. That's what it is! Nerves! I tell you, Mac, old chap, if you want to have a good night's rest, go in for comic work, but if you want to lie awake and think, tragedy's your trade. Nerves all on edge. Overwrought. Terrible thing, tragedy! Isn't it, Dolly?"

Mrs. Cream moaned slightly and twisted about on the sofa. "Too much talk!" she murmured.

"All right, my dear, all right. Suppose we just go up to your room again, Mac, and talk until she's quieted down? Eh?"

"Very well," said John who was feeling exceedingly uncomfortable.

They left the room together, John walking on tiptoe, for he felt that the situation made such a solemnity necessary.

"Temperament is a peculiar thing," Mr. Cream said as they ascended the stairs.

"Evidently," John answered.

"I may as well warn you that Dolly'll make love to you when she's recovered herself, but you needn't let it worry you. She can't help it, poor dear, and I often think it's the only real relaxation she has ... with her temperament. Just humour her, old chap, if she does. I'll know you don't mean anything by it. It's temperament, that's all it is. Dolly wouldn't do anything ... not for the world ... but it gives her a lot of satisfaction to pretend she's doing something. Lot of women like that, Mac. Not nice women, really ... except Dolly, of course ... and you can excuse her because of her temperament!"

They entered the sitting-room and sat down at the table.

"And I may as well tell you," Cream continued, "that Dolly and me aren't married. I'd like to be regular myself, but Dolly says she'd feel respectable if she was married ... and she thinks you can't be tragic if you're respectable. She always says that she's at her best when she feels that I've ruined her life. I daresay she's right, old chap, only I'd like to be regular myself. As I tell her, if it's hard to be tragic when you're respectable, it's damn hard to be comic when you're not. I expect Lizzie told you about me and Dolly?"

John nodded his head.

"I thought as much. Lizzie always tells people. I don't know what the hell she'd do for gossip if we were to get married. I can't think how she found out ... unless Dolly told her ... but you can be certain of this, Mac, if there's a skeleton in your cupboard, Lizzie'll discover it. Dolly's the skeleton in my cupboard. Of course, old chap, I don't want it talked about. I wouldn't have told you anything about it, only I guessed that Lizzie'd told you. Not that I mind _you_ or Hinde knowing ... you're writers ... but music-hall people are so particular about things of that sort. You wouldn't believe how narrow-minded and old-fashioned they are about marriage ... not like actors. That's really why I mentioned the matter. I don't want you to think I'm bragging about it or anything!"

"Oh, no, no," said John. "No, of course not. I wouldn't dream of saying a word to anybody!"

"Thanks, Mac, old chap!" Cream extended his hand to John, and John, wondering why it was offered to him, shook it. "Now about this idea of mine for a play!"

"Play?"

"Yes, for me and Dolly. Why shouldn't you do one for us? The minute I heard you were a writer, I turned to Dolly and I said, 'Dolly, darling, let's get him to do a play for us!' And she agreed at once. She said, 'Do what you like, darling, but don't worry me about it!' You see, Mac, we're getting a bit tired of this piece we're doing now ... we've been doing it twice-nightly for four years ... _The Girl Gets Left_, we call it ... and we want new stuff. See? We'd like a good dramatic piece ... a little bit of high-class in it ... for Dolly ... if you like, only not too much. Classy stuff wants living up to it, and I haven't got it in me, and people aren't always in the mood for it either. In the music-halls, anyway. See?"

"But!..."

"Dramatic stuff ... that's what we want. Go! Snap! Plenty of ginger! Raise hell's delight and then haul down the curtain quick before the audience has had time to pull itself together. See? We'd treat the author very handsome if we could get hold of a good piece with a big emotional part for the wife ... and although I'm her husband ... in the sight of God, anyway ... I will say this for her, Mac, there's not another woman on the stage ... Ellen Terry, Mrs. Pat or Sarah Bernhardt herself ... can hold a candle to Dolly for emotional parts. Of course, there'd have to be a comic part for me, too, but you needn't worry much about that. I always make up my own part to a certain extent. Just give me the bare outline: I'll do the rest. You see, I understand the public ... it's a knack, of course ... and I can always improve the author's stuff easy. What do you say?"

"I don't know," said John.

"You needn't put your name to it, if you don't want to. Use a nom de plume or leave the name out altogether. _Our_ audience doesn't pay any attention to authors, so that won't matter. And it'll be a start for you, Mac!"

"Oh, yes!"

"Any little bit of success, even if you're half ashamed of it, bucks you wonderful, Mac ... I say, you don't mind me calling you Mac, do you?..."

"No," John replied.

"Somehow it's homely when you can call a chap Mac, somehow! Now, if you was to do a play for us, and it went well, it'd put heart into you for something better. If you can find your way to the heart of a music-hall audience, Mac, my boy, you can find your way anywhere. Now, what about it, eh! Will you try to do a piece for us?"

"I'll try, but!..."

"That's all right," said Cream, again extending his hand to John. "Dolly'll be very pleased to hear we've settled it!"

"But I've never seen a music-hall play!" John exclaimed, "and you haven't said how much you'll pay me for it!"

"Never been in a music-hall!... Where was you brought up, Mac!"

"In Ballyards," John replied seriously.

"Where's that?"

"Have you never heard of Ballyards, Mr. Cream?"

"No," the comedian replied.

"Well, where were you brought up then?"

Cream regarded him closely for a few moments. Then he burst into laughter and again shook John fervently by the hand.

"That's one up for you, Mac!" he said genially. "Quite a repartee. Well, come with us to-night and see _The Girl Gets Left_. That'll give you a notion of the sort of stuff we want. See?"

"How much will you pay me for it?"

"Well, we gave the chap that wrote _The Girl Gets Left_ ... poor chap, he died of drink about six weeks ago ... couldn't keep away from it ... signed the pledge ... ate sweets ... did everything ... no good ... always thought out his best jokes when he was drunk ... well, we gave him thirty bob a week for _The Girl Gets Left_ ... and mind you he was an experienced chap, too ... but Dolly and me, we've decided you have to pay a bit extra for classy stuff, and we'll give you two quid a week for the piece if it suits us. Two quid a week as long as the play runs, Mac. _The Girl Gets Left_ has been played for four years ... four years, Mac ... all over the civilised globe. If your piece was to run that long, you'd get Four Hundred and Sixteen Quid. Four Hundred and Sixteen shiny Jimmy o' Goblins, Mac! Think of it! And all for a couple of afternoons' work!..."

"And how much will you get out of it?" John asked.

"Oh, I dunno. Enough to pay the rent anyhow. You know, Mac, these high-class chaps like Barrie and Bernard Shaw, they've never had a play run for four years anywhere, and yet old Hookings, that nobody never knew nothing about and died of drink, his play was performed all over the civilised world for four years. That's something to be proud of, that is. Four solid years! But there was nothing in the papers about him, when he died ... nothing ... not a word. And if Barrie was to die, or Bernard Shaw ... columns, pages! Barrie ... well, he's all right, of course ... not bad ... but compare him with Hookings. Why, he doesn't know the outside of the human heart, not the outside of it he doesn't, and Hookings knew what the inside of it's like. You take that play of Barrie's, _The Twelve Pound Look_. Not bad...not a bad play, at all ... but where's the feeling heart in it? Play that piece in front of an audience of coalminers and what 'ud you get? The bird, my boy! That sort of stuff is all right for the West End ... but the people, Mac, want something that hits 'em straight between the eyes and gives 'em a kick in the stomach as well. The best way to make a man sit up and take a bit of notice is to hit him a punch on the jaw, and the best way to make the public feel sympathetic is to hit it a punch in the heart!..."

The little man broke off suddenly and glanced towards the door. "I must toddle down to Dolly now. She gets fretful if I'm out of her sight for long. I'll see you later on ... seven o 'clock, old chap!"

"Very good," John answered.

"Aw reservoir, then!" said Cream, as he left the room and hurried downstairs.