“At all events, you got your bed for nothing,” I retorted—rather callously, it is true, but I was exasperated at his wretched insinuation that I had deliberately led him to the lock-up.
“Wrong again, Bugleface,” he replied, with another sneer; “for that bed cost me ten shillings, or twenty-four hours, when they brought me before the magistrate this this morning. I’d have been in gaol now if I had not thought of giving you as security for the fine. You’ll have to pay, or do the time yourself. But I’ve done with you, and you’ll get none of my assistance to help you out of a hole. Good-bye and good riddance, Bugleface!”
I willingly paid the fine when a policeman called for it, and reckoned the Merry Marauders cheaply rid of this terrible old man at the price. I subsequently learned that he got a job with a district poultry farmer postdating market eggs, in accordance with the beneficent provision of the New Zealand Government, which insists that all eggs sold in the Dominion must be stamped with the date of birth.
I regret to record that our season at Te Orumu was only moderately successful, owing to the foolishness of the architect in letting in a large sheet of glass above the door of the Mechanics’ hall to afford a good light to the daylight deliberations of the Te Orumu Town Council, who meet in the building once a fortnight to enact legislation for the benefit of this progressive district. This would not have mattered to us if the architect had not committed the additional foolishness of building the hall in front of a steep hill, from the crest of which the rabble of the town were able to see through the aforesaid glass and command a perfect view of the stage for nothing. Our first intimation of the presence of these free spectators was on the opening night when—the performance being a little late in starting—we heard from the hill-side roars of “Loafers!” “Up with the rag!” “What are we here for?” and sundry other bucolic witticisms and protests of a like nature. Barney complained bitterly that this was a shade over the longest odds ever wanted by brazen cheek from merit, but I quoted him the old philosopher—Seneca, was it, or Marcus Aurelius?—who said that the true secret of a man’s greatness was his love of getting something for nothing. But I am thankful to say that in spite of our big involuntary free-list we more than paid our expenses.
Yours ever,
VAL.
IX
PIATIKI,
BAY OF PLENTY,
NORTH ISLAND, N.Z.
16th March, 1913.
MY DEAR DICK:
When we got here from Te Orumu we found this growing centre in a state of great excitement owing to the fact that a leading member of the New Zealand Government had just arrived in the town with his party in order to support the candidature of the Government nominee in the by-election. On hearing this I immediately sent half-a-dozen tickets for our opening performance to the Minister’s hotel, accompanied by a polite note asking his acceptance of them. Barney and I agreed that his acceptance of them would amply warrant the additional expense of special ’under the patronage’ bills. I rather regretted that we had chosen to open in Current Cash at Piatiki, as the title of that play seemed to suggest thoughts of the recent adverse criticism that had been levelled at the Government’s borrowing policy, but as the town had been billed two days before our arrival by Mr. Baker, it was inadvisable to make a change at that late hour, so Current Cash was permitted to flaunt itself in posters of many colours from every hoarding and blank wall in the town.
As I loitered about the smoking room of my hotel, awaiting a reply to my note, I heard a voice in the lobby asking to be directed to the room occupied by the Merry Marauders Dramatic Company. I looked in the direction of the voice, and found its owner to be a short, thickest man with mutton-chop whiskers and sandy hair—the latter carefully damped down over a red, mottled face. My visitor wore a black claw-hammer coat of rustic cut, a pair of pepper-and-salt trousers, sufficiently short in their terminations to display a pair of red socks, and he carried a shaggy round hat under one arm and a roll of paper under the other. I revealed myself and led the way into the smoking room, where I waited for him to disclose his business. This he had much difficulty in doing, but while he was coughing and stammering in a desperate effort to bring the subject matter to the surface, Barney came in and greeted him as an old friend. He appeared much relieved to see our comedian, and grinned modestly as Barney told me that I was entertaining the leading butcher of Piatiki and the most generous supporter of the drama in the North Island. I invited this influential patron to give it a name, and after a second helping from the same bottle his nervousness dropped from him like a discarded garment.
“If I ’ad known you was with this company, Mr. King, I should have come forward with this little proposal of mine right away,” he said, lolling back in his chair and picking his teeth with a safety match. “But the last time you was up this way you said you was going to London to ‘help Sir ’Enery Irving’s son prodooce Shakespeare.”
“Oh—ah—yes!” replied Barney, hastily; “but the fact is, Tiddle, old boy, I altered my plans at the last moment in consequence of a requisition from some of my New Zealand admirers, who asked me to stay in this country. It was just at the time when the newspapers were full of letters denouncing the unpatriotic exodus of talented New Zealanders to the old country, instead of bestowing their gifts on the land that had given them birth, so I bowed to the popular will and stayed. I really should have written and let you know, after the way you worked for that farewell benefit the people of this town gave me. I meant to do so, but it slipped my mind.”
“Oh, that didn’t matter—I’m only too glad to see you back this way again,” rejoined the generous Mr. Tiddle. “But however, gents, let me get on to the matter that brought me along now. This here (he carefully unwrapped his paper roll) is a kind of little play which I’ve written in my spare time, andil want your company to prodooce it at Piatiki.”
Although I was surprised both at the proposal and the fact of a country butcher spending his leisure moments in writing for the stage, I courteously thanked him for the honour he had done the Merry Marauders in offering us the first-fruits of his genius, and I said I much regretted having to decline it owing to the previous publication of the Piatiki arrangements for the season. An additional reason was that the Merry Marauders, although wonderfully quick in studying new parts, were not quite equal to the task of becoming letter-perfect in a new play within twenty-four hours.
“Oh, this is only what you call a curtain-raiser,” eagerly explained Mr. Tiddle. “It doesn’t take more than a quarter of an hour to play, so it would be easily learnt. Of course, I would pay for the production, and I believe my name on the bills would bring a lot of people out of curiosity.”
Barney emphatically signalled to me that this put a different complexion on the proposition. I asked Mr. Tiddle what he called his little play.
“The Comfort of Cash and the Curse of Credit,” promptly replied the butcher, indicating the title on the script—which smelt strongly of mutton-fat.
“The title makes it impossible,” I replied decisively.
“We are producing a play called Current Cash, and it is possible to have too much cash—in the title of a play, at any rate.”
“The title can be altered—I ain’t nowise particular about that,” replied the accommodating butcher.
“What is it all about?”
Mr. Tiddle entered into an explanation. It seemed that he had suffered acutely from what he called Piatiki longwindedness, which, I gathered, was a marked disinclination on the part of many of his customers to pay for meat supplied, so he had hit on the novel idea of castigating their iniquity in a short play. After hearing this explanation I was not at all anxious to produce the thing, for the New Zealand law of libel is the strictest in the world, and I had no intention of figuring as defendant in a sheaf of slander actions brought about by ‘guying’ Piatiki citizens on the stage. I explained something of this to Mr. Tiddle, who assured me he had been most careful not to libel anybody, as he also had a live
ly dread of the same drastic law, which had once denuded him of a substantial portion of his bank balance because he had publicly denounced a recalcitrant debtor as a bad egg. At his request I read his play, and found it so obscure and guarded in its allusions to his non-paying customers as to be comparatively innocuous. The substance of the plot, if the main incident in The Comfort of Cash could be dignified with that title, consisted of the oil painting of a gentleman (to be made up to represent the only ‘good mark’ on Mr. Tiddle’s books) becoming suddenly imbued with life during the progress of a feast in a room where the picture hung, and stepping out of the canvas to ask the startled company (Mr. Tiddle’s numerous creditors) why they didn’t pay their butcher’s bill.
I consented to stage this crude production on condition that we were allowed to give it a more dramatic climax (while preserving the portrait business, which is always an effective stage trick), and to substitute for the portrait’s blunt remark a more dignified exhortation on the virtue of paying debts and the wickedness of feasting on unpaid meats. Mr. Tiddle willingly consented, and said he was prepared to pay £20 for the production of his dramatic effort. He said it was worth all that to him to shake up the biggest collection of ‘bad eggs’ he had ever come across.
“What about a new title?” I asked, when these negotiations had been satisfactorily concluded.
“How about The Bilked Butcher, or A Bit on Account?” asked Barney, with unbecoming levity.
Mr. Tiddle, who took the suggestion seriously, said the first title was too personal, but he thought A Bit on Account would bring the moral home to the listeners. We therefore decided on that title, and Mr. Tiddle took his leave with the understanding that our posters were to be supplemented at his expense by smaller bills announcing his little play.
A few minutes afterwards a porter from the other hotel arrived with a note from the Minister accepting the tickets I had sent him. By nightfall we had the following small bills pasted all over the town, alongside the large ones:
MERRY MARAUDERS DRAMATIC COMPANY.
GRAND DOUBLE BILL
(Under Parliamentary Patronage).
ANNOUNCEMENT EXTRAORDINARY!
THE RT. HON. THE MINISTER OF LANDS AND SUITE
have signified their intention of being present
at the Company’s
OPENING PERFORMANCE
In the Piatiki Town Hall, on Wednesday Evening,
when the Company will produce, on a scale of
unprecedented magnificence, the thrilling drama:
CURRENT CASH!
To be followed by the sparkling comedietta, entitled
A BIT ON ACCOUNT!!
(For the first time on any stage).
Written specially for the Merry Marauders by
MR. ALFRED TIDDLE, of this town.
In consequence of the Enormous Demand for Seats
the management have reserved four extra rows
of front chairs, which may now be booked
at Flook’s, tobacconist.
Watch for our Next Great Production on Friday Night:
TEN NIGHTS IN A BAR-ROOM!
VAL. VALENTINE, MANAGER.
The prospect of seeing the Minister at close quarters, and witnessing a play by a fellow townsman for the one price of admission, drew the biggest crowd of Piatikians to the town hall on Wednesday evening that had ever been squeezed into the building. When the Minister and his party were escorted up the body of the hall to their reserved chairs by me, while our pianist and the Piatiki string orchestra (specially engaged for the auspicious occasion) played the National Anthem, the loyal audience rose to their feet and sang the words, and finished with three cheers for the Minister, from whom they wished to get a grant of public money to build a pound. Then they filled in the time till the curtain rose by staring alternately at the Minister, and Mr. Tiddle, who sat suffused in blushes at finding himself famous.
The evening went off with great spirit, and the company were impartially yet generously applauded by the large audience. The Parliamentary party seemed much interested, and although they did not stay to witness Mr. Tiddle’s after-piece, I do not think their departure was hastened by one of the utility men hissing to the prompter, in a whisper that was audible all over the building, “I’ve said that, you d——d fool, what’s next?”—for I saw the Minister smile at the incident. Still, I do not intend to put up with any more nonsense from these least valuable members of our company, who have become so swollen with arrogance at receiving their money regularly as to imagine themselves indispensable. They give themselves the airs of Shakespearian stars, but they are really not even efficient scene-shifters, and their acting is distinctly naughty—using that word in its professional meaning of utter worthlessness. There is the greatest professional jealousy between our two damaged utility men, Beaumont Browning and Shakespeare Hardy, who acted at Piatiki, and it was not the fault of Browning that he did not completely wreck the effect of Mr. Tiddle’s little piece by his determination to get a ‘round’ from such a crowded house. He was cast for the part of the man who steps out of the picture to rebuke the revellers. This large piece of ‘fat,’ followed by a quick curtain, would have satisfied the most exacting star, but Browning tried to squeeze more out of the part in order to add to the mortification of his rival Hardy, who was bitterly annoyed that Browning should have such a large share of the limelight in one night. In an unwarrantable effort to raise a laugh from the vulgar by appealing to their taste for buffoonery he forestalled the climax by reaching his arm from the picture to snatch a glass from one of the guests, which he drained with a wink at the audience. I was much annoyed at Browning’s conduct, and his subsequent explanation that his gagging was responsible for the only bit of genuine comedy in the after-piece, did not lessen my resentment. However, as the unthinking portion of the audience laughed loudly—and none louder than the author of the piece, who seemed to see nothing incongruous in the tomfoolery—I permitted the matter to pass with a reprimand.
A Bit on Account acted even worse than it read, but it was so far from offending the susceptibilities of Mr. Tiddle’s debtors that there were loud calls for the author at the conclusion. Mr. Tiddle’s resentment as a tradesman was completely swallowed up in his gratified vanity as an author at this reception, and he promised his fellow Piatikians a further proof of his dramatic powers at no distant date. He then sought me out behind the scenes and fairly overwhelmed me with the profusion of his gratitude for having produced his little effort so successfully. He insisted on entertaining the male members of the company at supper, and after he had drunk the health of the Merry Marauders till his own appeared in danger of apoplexy, he invited us to be his guests at a fishing excursion the following day.
“I’ll show you some real sport,” he declared. “Hapuku fishing. I’m president of the Deep Sinkers’ Fishing Club, and to-morrow’s one of our quarterly deep-sea excursions. We leave here in a couple of hours’ time to make the fishing ground off White Island by daybreak, fish till mid-day, and land you back safe and sound in time for the evening’s performance. Come, gents, I’ll take no refusal.”
We all accepted his hospitality, with the exception of Barney, who had to touch up some of the scenery for Ten Nights in a Bar Room, and Mr. Morrissey, who declared that even a painted ocean in a nautical drama made him sea-sick. As it was not worth while going to bed for a couple of hours, the rest of us spent the time in smoking and conversation. Mr. Tiddle detached me from the others in order to talk to me about his future as a dramatist, and under the roseate influence of the landlord’s district-grown crusted port, expressed his firm conviction that after such a splendid initial success he was not far behind Shakespeare, or any other of those old dead fellows, although they had such a long start of him.
Shortly after two o’clock we set out, under the rather unsteady guidance of Mr. Tiddle, for the little pier, where we found a steamer of some two hundred tons rolling uneasily at her moorings as the tail of a vicious Bay of Plenty
sea caught her. I was amazed at the magnitude of this craft for a fishing excursion, and smilingly asked our host if Gargantua was going with us. He warmly assured me that the Deep Sinkers didn’t number a Dago in their ranks. I explained more clearly what I meant, and he told me that the hapuku was a deep-water fish of great size only to be caught a considerable distance off the coast—hence the steamer.
We went on board, and found the Deep Sinkers making merry above and below. They greeted their president familiarly and his guests politely. The steamer cast off, and put out to sea. It was a rough night, and she pitched frightfully. The merriment ceased—rather suddenly, I thought. I entered into conversation with one of the Deep Sinkers who was sitting on the hatch greasing a coil of rope that might have held the sea-serpent, but he told me, in response to my polite enquiry, that it was an ordinary hapuku fishing line. He added that he had caught hapuku eight feet long with that line, and I didn’t doubt the possibility if the fish were to be found that size.
“What are the two great stones at the end of your line for?” I asked.
“Everybody has their own idea of catching ’arpooker,” he replied. “That’s mine. Some fishes with a sinker, but I haven’t studied the ’abits of the ’arpooker for nothing. He’s like a man—he’s always keen on a thing he think’s he’s going to lose. See them two rocks? Well, they’re just held by a running slip-knot. In between them is the frozen mullet bait the ’arpooker loves; nice and high, for he’s a real epicure. When we gets among a school I throws the line overboard, and as soon as it reaches the bottom I gives a jerk. The stones fall out, and up comes the bait on the line. The ’arpooker, thinking he’s going to lose it, darts after it and wolfs it, and up he comes, too. I shall catch six that way—no more and no less. That’s enough for me and my family.”
The Merry Marauders Page 10