The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England Part 10

Triumphant! The Russian National Anthem. A paean of joy.

"The menials reappear. Those calm, pa.s.sionless menials. They remove the number fifteen. They insert the number sixteen. They are like Destiny-Pitiless, Unmoved, Purposeful, Silent. Those menials.

"A crash from the orchestra. Turn number sixteen has begun...."

Chapter 8

THE MEETING AT THE SCOTCH STORES

Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig stood in the wings, shaking in every limb. German oaths of indescribable vigour poured from his lips. In a group some feet away stood six muscular, short-sleeved stage-hands. It was they who had flung themselves on the general at the fall of the iron curtain and prevented him dashing round to attack the stalls with his sabre. At a sign from the stage-manager they were ready to do it again.

The stage-manager was endeavouring to administer balm.

"Bless you, your Highness," he was saying, "it's nothing. It's what happens to everyone some time. Ask any of the top-notch pros. Ask 'em whether they never got the bird when they were starting. Why, even now some of the biggest stars can't go to some towns because they always cop it there. Bless you, it--"

A stage-hand came up with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Young feller in spectacles and a rum sort o' suit give me this for your 'Ighness."

The Prince s.n.a.t.c.hed it from his hand.

The note was written in a round, boyish hand. It was signed, "A Friend." It ran:-"The men who booed you to-night were sent for that purpose by General Vodkakoff, who is jealous of you because of the paragraphs in the Encore this week."

Prince Otto became suddenly calm.

"Excuse me, your Highness," said the stage-manager anxiously, as he moved, "you can't go round to the front. Stand by, Bill."

"Right, sir!" said the stage-hands.

Prince Otto smiled pleasantly.

"There is no danger. I do not intend to go to the front. I am going to look in at the Scotch Stores for a moment."

"Oh, in that case, your Highness, good-night, your Highness! Better luck to-morrow, your Highness!"

It had been the custom of the two generals, since they had joined the music-hall profession, to go, after their turn, to the Scotch Stores, where they stood talking and blocking the gangway, as etiquette demands that a successful artiste shall.

The Prince had little doubt but that he would find Vodkakoff there to-night.

He was right. The Russian general was there, chatting affably across the counter about the weather.

He nodded at the Prince with a well-a.s.sumed carelessness.

"Go well to-night?" he inquired casually.

Prince Otto clenched his fists; but he had had a rigorously diplomatic up-bringing, and knew how to keep a hold on himself. When he spoke it was in the familiar language of diplomacy.

"The rain has stopped," he said, "but the pavements are still wet underfoot. Has your grace taken the precaution to come out in a good stout pair of boots?"

The shaft plainly went home, but the Grand Duke's manner, as he replied, was unruffled.

"Rain," he said, sipping his vermouth, "is always wet; but sometimes it is cold as well."

"But it never falls upwards," said the Prince, pointedly.

"Rarely, I understand. Your powers of observation are keen, my dear Prince."

There was a silence; then the Prince, momentarily baffled, returned to the attack.

"The quickest way to get from Charing Cross to Hammersmith Broadway," he said, "is to go by Underground."

"Men have died in Hammersmith Broadway," replied the Grand Duke suavely.

The Prince gritted his teeth. He was no match for his slippery adversary in a diplomatic dialogue, and he knew it.

"The sun rises in the East," he cried, half-choking, "but it sets-it sets!"

"So does a hen," was the cynical reply.

The last remnants of the Prince's self-control were slipping away. This elusive, diplomatic conversation is a terrible strain if one is not in the mood for it. Its proper setting is the gay, glittering ball-room at some frivolous court. To a man who has just got the bird at a music-hall, and who is trying to induce another man to confess that the thing was his doing, it is little short of maddening.

"Hen!" he echoed, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Have you studied the habits of hens?"

The truth seemed very near to him now, but the master-diplomat before him was used to extracting himself from awkward corners.

"Pullets with a southern exposure," he drawled, "have yellow legs and ripen quickest."

The Prince was nonplussed. He had no answer.

The girl behind the bar spoke.

"You do talk silly, you two!" she said.

It was enough. Trivial as the remark was, it was the last straw. The Prince brought his fist down with a crash on the counter.

"Yes," he shouted, "you are right. We do talk silly; but we shall do so no longer. I am tired of this verbal fencing. A plain answer to a plain question. Did you or did you not send your troops to give me the bird to-night?"

"My dear Prince!"

The Grand Duke raised his eyebrows.

"Did you or did you not?"

"The wise man," said the Russian, still determined on evasion, "never takes sides, unless they are sides of bacon."

The Prince smashed a gla.s.s.