The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England Part 8

"Then send him," said the editor.

Grand Duke Vodkakoff's turn at the Magnum Palace of Varieties started every evening at ten sharp. He topped the bill. Clarence, having been detained by a review of the Scouts, did not reach the hall till five minutes to the hour. He got to the dressing-room as the general was going on to the stage.

The Grand Duke dressed in the large room with the other male turns. There were no private dressing-rooms at the Magnum. Clarence sat down on a basket-trunk belonging to the Premier Troupe of Bounding Zouaves of the Desert, and waited. The four athletic young gentlemen who composed the troupe were dressing after their turn. They took no notice of Clarence.

Presently one Zouave spoke.

"Bit off to-night, Bill. Cold house."

"Not 'arf," replied his colleague. "Gave me the shivers."

"Wonder how his nibs'll go."

Evidently he referred to the Grand Duke.

"Oh, 'e's all right. They eat his sort of sw.a.n.k. Seems to me the profession's going to the dogs, what with these bloomin' amytoors an' all. Got the 'airbrush, 'Arry?"

Harry, a tall, silent Zouave, handed over the hairbrush.

Bill continued.

"I'd like to see him go on of a Monday night at the old Mogul. They'd soon show him. It gives me the fair 'ump, it does, these toffs coming in and taking the bread out of our mouths. Why can't he give us chaps a chance? Fair makes me rasp, him and his bloomin' eight hundred and seventy-five o' goblins a week."

"Not so much of your eight hundred and seventy-five, young feller me lad," said the Zouave who had spoken first. "Ain't you seen the rag this week?"

"Naow. What's in it? How does our advert, look?"

"Ow, that's all right, never mind that. You look at 'What the Encore Would Like to Know.' That's what'll touch his nibs up."

He produced a copy of the paper from the pocket of his great-coat which hung from the door, and pa.s.sed it to his bounding brother.

"Read it out, old sort," he said.

The other took it to the light and began to read slowly and cautiously, as one who is no expert at the art.

"'What the Encore would like to know:-Whether Prince Otto of Saxe-Pfennig didn't go particularly big at the Lobelia last week? And Whether his success hasn't compelled Agent Quhayne to purchase a larger-sized hat? And Whether it isn't a fact that, though they are press-agented at the same figure, Prince Otto is getting fifty a week more than Grand Duke Vodkakoff? And If it is not so, why a little bird has a.s.sured us that the Prince is being paid five hundred a week and the Grand Duke only four hundred and fifty? And, In any case, whether the Prince isn't worth fifty a week more than his Russian friend?' Lumme!"

An awed silence fell upon the group. To Clarence, who had dictated the matter (though the style was the editor's), the paragraph did not come as a surprise. His only feeling was one of relief that the editor had served up his material so well. He felt that he had been justified in leaving the more delicate literary work to that master-hand.

"That'll be one in the eye," said the Zouave Harry. "'Ere, I'll stick it up opposite of him when he comes back to dress. Got a pin and a pencil, some of you?"

He marked the quarter column heavily, and pinned it up beside the looking-gla.s.s. Then he turned to his companions.

"'Ow about not waiting, chaps?" he suggested. "I shouldn't 'arf wonder, from the look of him, if he wasn't the 'aughty kind of a feller who'd cleave you to the bazooka for tuppence with his bloomin' falchion. I'm goin' to 'urry through with my dressing and wait till to-morrow night to see how he looks. No risks for Willie!"

The suggestion seemed thoughtful and good. The Bounding Zouaves, with one accord, bounded into their clothes and disappeared through the door just as a long-drawn chord from the invisible orchestra announced the conclusion of the Grand Duke's turn.

General Vodkakoff strutted into the room, listening complacently to the applause which was still going on. He had gone well. He felt pleased with himself.

It was not for a moment that he noticed Clarence.

"Ah," he said, "the interviewer, eh? You wish to-"

Clarence began to explain his mission. While he was doing so the Grand Duke strolled to the basin and began to remove his make-up. He favoured, when on the stage, a touch of the Raven Gipsy No. 3 grease-paint. It added a picturesque swarthiness to his appearance, and made him look more like what he felt to be the popular ideal of a Russian general.

The looking-gla.s.s hung just over the basin.

Clarence, watching him in the gla.s.s, saw him start as he read the first paragraph. A dark flush, almost rivalling the Raven Gipsy No. 3, spread over his face. He trembled with rage.

"Who put that paper there?" he roared, turning.

"With reference, then, to Mr. Hubert Wales's novel," said Clarence.

The Grand Duke cursed Mr. Hubert Wales, his novel, and Clarence in one sentence.

"You may possibly," continued Clarence, sticking to his point like a good interviewer, "have read the trenchant, but some say justifiable remarks of the Rev. Canon Edgar Sheppard, D.D., Sub-Dean of His Majesty's Chapels Royal, Deputy Clerk of the Closet, and Sub-Almoner to the King."

The Grand Duke swiftly added that eminent cleric to the list.

"Did you put that paper on this looking-gla.s.s?" he shouted.

"I did not put that paper on that looking-gla.s.s," replied Clarence precisely.

"Ah," said the Grand Duke, "if you had, I'd have come and wrung your neck like a chicken, and scattered you to the four corners of this dressing-room."

"I'm glad I didn't," said Clarence.

"Have you read this paper on the looking-gla.s.s?"

"I have not read that paper on the looking-gla.s.s," replied Clarence, whose chief fault as a conversationalist was that he was perhaps a shade too Ollendorfian. "But I know its contents."

"It's a lie!" roared the Grand Duke. "An infamous lie! I've a good mind to have him up for libel. I know very well he got them to put those paragraphs in, if he didn't write them himself."

"Professional jealousy," said Clarence, with a sigh, "is a very sad thing."

"I'll professional jealousy him!"

"I hear," said Clarence casually, "that he has been going very well at the Lobelia. A friend of mine who was there last night told me he took eleven calls."

For a moment the Russian General's face swelled apoplectically. Then he recovered himself with a tremendous effort.

"Wait!" he said, with awful calm. "Wait till to-morrow night! I'll show him! Went very well, did he? Ha! Took eleven calls, did he? Oh, ha, ha! And he'll take them to-morrow night, too! Only"-and here his voice took on a note of fiendish purpose so terrible that, hardened scout as he was, Clarence felt his flesh creep-"only this time they'll be catcalls!"

And, with a shout of almost maniac laughter, the jealous artiste flung himself into a chair, and began to pull off his boots.

Clarence silently withdrew. The hour was very near.