FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112  
113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>   >|  
a school round the corner.' "'Well,' I said, 'you might give me a card of introduction, Mr. Florance.' "He gave me the card. I didn't take it to the school. I went straight back to the theatre with it, and had it sent up to Wunch. It just said, 'Introducing Mr. Sachs, a young man anxious to get on.' Wunch took it for a positive order to find me a place. The company was full, so he threw out one poor devil of a super to make room for me. Curious thing--old Wunchy got it into his head that I was a _protege_ of Archibald's, and he always looked after me. What d'ye think about that?" "Brilliant!" said Edward Henry. And it was! The simplicity of the thing was what impressed him. Since winning a scholarship at school by altering the number of marks opposite his name on a paper lying on the master's desk, Edward Henry had never achieved advancement by a device so simple. And he thought: "I am nothing! The Five Towns is nothing! All that one hears about Americans and the United States is true. As far as getting on goes, they can make rings round us. Still, I shall tell him about the Countess and the mule--" "Yes," continued Mr. Seven Sachs, "Wunch was very kind to me. But he was pretty well down and out, and he left, and Archibald got a new stage-manager, and I was promoted to do a bit of assistant stage-managing. But I got no increase of salary. There were two women stars in the play Archibald was doing then--'The Forty-Niners.' Romantic drama, you know! Melodrama you'd call it over here. He never did any other sort of play. Well, these two women stars were about equal, and when the curtain fell on the first act they'd both make a bee line for Archibald to see who'd get to him first and engage him in talk. They were jealous enough of each other to kill. Anybody could see that Archibald was frightfully bored, but he couldn't escape. They got him on both sides, you see, and he just _had_ to talk to 'em, both at once. I used to be fussing around fixing the properties for the next act. Well, one night he comes up to me, Archibald does, and he says: "'Mr.--what's your name?' "'Sachs, sir,' I says. "'You notice when those two ladies come up to me after the first act. Well, when you see them talking to me, I want you to come right along and interrupt,' he says. "'What shall I say, sir?' "'Tap me on the shoulder and say I'm wanted about something very urgent. You see?' "So the next night when those women got
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112  
113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Archibald
 

school

 

Edward

 

assistant

 

curtain

 
managing
 
increase
 

Romantic

 
Niners
 

Melodrama


salary

 

couldn

 
notice
 

ladies

 
talking
 

fixing

 
properties
 
wanted
 

urgent

 

shoulder


interrupt

 

fussing

 

Anybody

 

jealous

 

engage

 

frightfully

 

promoted

 

escape

 

Americans

 

Curious


company

 
Wunchy
 

Brilliant

 

simplicity

 

impressed

 
looked
 

protege

 
straight
 

Florance

 
corner

introduction
 

theatre

 
anxious
 
positive
 

Introducing

 

winning

 
Countess
 

pretty

 
continued
 

States