“I’ve made a horse,” he proudly announced. “This fine animal now belongs to the Merry Marauders.”
“You’ve almost made him a hairless horse, haven’t you?” I said sharply.
“Bless you, I didn’t do that! That’s the thoroughbred strain in his blood. He’s by Thunderbolt from an unknown dam, and all the Thunderbolt strain are short in the matter of hair.”
“Then how did you come by it?”
“Thereby hangs a tale,” he replied, closing his sound eye. “I’ll tell you all about it after you’ve had something to eat. Now I’ll just canter along to the shanty they call an hotel here and tell them to get ready for you. Gee up, there!”
The animal responded to the tug on the reins with a convulsive jump that nearly precipitated Mr. Baker off its back and itself into the water, and went off at an awkward trot.
When we reached the hotel a fresh surprise awaited us. The same horse (I recognised it by its bareness) was attached to a cumbrous conveyance like none other I had ever seen—a cross in construction between a giant jinrikisha and an old-fashioned gig—and in it sat Mr. Baker, distributing our handbills to a wondering collection of white and brown children. When he saw us he waved a friendly hand, urged his horse into an erratic trot, and went off down the winding street, distributing hand-bills as he went.
As Barney and I walked down to the hall late that afternoon to make ready for the evening performance, we were struck by the magnitude and thoroughness with which our show had been advertised. Our big rainbow posters had been stuck everywhere—even on the water-worn rocks on the sea-shore. When we got to the hall, Mr. Baker’s horse was drawn up outside refreshing himself with a feed in a candle-box. Mr. Baker was standing at the door of the hall refreshing himself with a pipe.
“By Jove, Dan, you have given us a good billing,” remarked Barney.
Mr. Baker smiled enigmatically. “It was all part of the plan,” he said, as we walked inside,
“What plan?”
“When I got here the landlord of the hotel, whom I have known for years, expressed surprise that a man of my experience should pick a date that clashed with another show,” he said. “I asked him what he meant, and he told me that there was another advance agent staying in the hotel making ready for a picture-show.”
“A picture-show!” exclaimed Barney. “Why, how did they get through Piatiki and up here without us knowing anything about it?”
“Simply by not playing Piatiki and hurrying their advance man up here to get ahead of us for all the northern towns—which they would have done if it hadn’t been for me,” continued Mr. Baker. “Now, if there is one thing in this world that I detest, despise, and contemn, it is a picture-show. They have nearly ruined legitimate art: in New Zealand, and have reduced the drama to the level of exaggerated clowning in pictorial representations. This particular picture-show was of the unthinkably low level that perambulates the country showing in a tent to avoid hall rents, with a couple of so-called silvery soprano girls to sing illustrated songs. So much I gathered from the landlord, to whom the advance agent had spoken pretty freely. I knew their opposition was all the more to be dreaded on that account, for the small expenses of such a show enable them to go through and make money where an expensive company like ours would starve. I have had sufficient experience of the New Zealand ‘smalls’ to know that the degraded theatrical appetite of many country people actually prefers the preposterous caperings of tenth-rate French actors on the films, at sixpence and threepence admission, to the robust and healthy acting of flesh and blood at three, two, and one. Further, there is a sufficient marginal difference between the two tariffs to enable the men of the place to kill two birds with one stone—to gain a cheap reputation for generosity by taking their womenkind to the picture show and reserve enough money to soak their vulgar souls in whiskey afterwards. Thinking these things over, I came to the conclusion that quick billing and plenty of it was the only thing to give us a fair chance. Unfortunately my bills were not due to arrive till the evening’s steamer. But as against that, the picture-show man had not yet got out his bills. I took a long stroll round the town before dark to look, and there was not a sign of one anywhere.
“My bills came to hand by the steamer all right—plenty of them. I had a tremendous bucket of stiff paste made, and carried it and the bills into the commercial sample room at the hotel, in readiness for a bright and early start in the morning. It was late the same night before I came in contact with the other advance agent. I was in the bar talking to the landlord, who was recruiting a system exhausted by the day’s work of drinking indifferent beer at the cost of careful customers who wished to be considered generous, by taking a little fine old malt whiskey at his own expense, when he came in. The landlord introduced him to me as Mr. Thimm. He was a tall young man with a rather simple face, a shock of red hair, and a long nose terminating in the same colour as his hair—a new man at the game, for I had never seen him before. My professional dislike of him did not blind me to the sacred call of hospitality, and I courteously asked him if he had a mouth on him. We had a drink together, and after he had returned my invitation he expressed his regret that we should both be in the same town together at the same time—‘crueling each other’s pitch’—as he rather vulgarly put it.
“‘Still,’ he continued, ‘though we are rival advance agents let us not reflect managerial throat-cutting tactics in our own selves. Why should we do anything dirty or derogatory to our noble profession. Let it be a fair field and no favour, if you like, but an honourable rivalry on each side.’
“I was so much struck at finding such sentiments emanating from such an unexpected source that I gave him my hand. Yes; Dan Baker gave his hand to a mere picture-show representative—but I didn’t know then that the viper owned the picture-show lock, stock and barrel, and had himself hatched out the dastardly plot to get ahead of the Merry Marauders. He grasped my proferred hand warmly.
“I reciprocate your generosity,” I said, “and admire you for it. Let us by all means play the game fair. It is what I have always done during my forty years on the roads, and it is what I shall always do till the final curtain falls on me.”
“We had another drink to ratify our understanding—this time at the expense of the landlord, who said he had never seen human dignity more worthily upheld. ‘Here’s my respects to you both—you are gentlemen in every sense of the word,’ said the honest fellow, feelingly, as he drained his glass.
“I told him that I had been brought up from my earliest youth to do the right thing between man and man, and when I couldn’t make my living that way I should make my final bow and exit. Thimm expressed similar senti ments in different words, and we drank to the Golden Rule. Then Thimm frankly confided to me that he hadn’t got a single bill out yet.
“Neither have I,” I said, not to be outdone in frankness by a picture-show man.
“‘The man who gets his bills up first will have a big advantage of the other,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘When do you propose to get yours out?’
“Some time to-morrow,” I replied. “My bills only came to hand by to-night’s boat.”
“‘Then let us get our bills out together, side by side, so that neither will get ahead of the other, and both shows will start on level terms,’ he said. ‘That will be playing the game!’
“Right up to the handle,” I assented.
“‘Then here’s my hand on it!’ exclaimed Thimm. ‘Mr. Baker, I’ve often heard of you, and I’m proud to say that you are what your host of friends represent you to be—a perfect man. ‘And here’s a hand, my trusty fiere, And gie’s a hand of thine, And we’ll tak’ a right guid williewaught, For auld lang syne.’
“The landlord completed the circle, and, after we had finished that immortal song, we separated for our respective chambers, Thimm and I agreeing to meet at the breakfast table in the morning and make arrangements about the billing.
“I was awakened from a troubled doze half-an-hour later
by a reproachful conscience, that had taken advantage of my uneasy slumber to print a dreadful vision on my mental retina. The vision was a repetition of an incident that had deeply affected me at the time, but which I had totally forgotten—heaven forgive me—when I should have remembered it most. A few years ago, when picture-shows first came to New Zealand, a family with whom I was on terms of close intimacy were much worried by the illness of their mother—a gentle, fragile old lady whose health, never robust, had completely broken down under an accumulation of domestic and financial worry. Nervous trouble was the chief cause of anxiety, and the family doctor had ordered her plenty of light amusement—theatrical entertainments, concerts, anything to keep that poor clouded brain from feeding on itself. A picture-show came to the town, and the old lady’s daughters—simple unworldly girls who knew nothing of these things—thought it would be the very thing to amuse mother. They took her. The first film shown was the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, which was thrown on the screen with all the harrowing details dear to kinematograph film fakers. The old lady took it all in with staring eyes, right up to the last dread scene where the grim headsman swung the axe to sever the hapless Mary’s neck, when she was heard to murmur, ‘Well, if this is Dr. Thompson’s idea of light amusement, put me in my bed again.’ Her daughters got her out of the hall in time to prevent her seeing the murder of Nancy, by Bill Sykes, but the one shock had wrecked that sensitive organism, and she never rose from her bed again. As a matter of fact, she is there now. The only thing that has power to rouse her is the mention of a picture-show, and then it takes the whole family to hold her down.
“It was by a vision of this incident that my conscience aroused me, and directed me to go instantly forth to post the Merry Marauders bills, in order to avert the possibility of a similar calamity here. Probably there were several weak-minded old ladies in Matetanei who would insist on going to the picture-show if they saw its bills first—old ladies are so obstinate!—and there was no doubt whatever that the picture-show carried the usual collection of slaughter-yard films to harrow the feelings of the groundlings. It was true that I was under an implied agreement with Thimm to wait till the morning—though I had not pledged my word, as he did his—but that partial promise had been entirely absolved, so far as I was concerned, by the inward monitor—that impeccable guide which sits in every man’s breast and directs him along the narrow path. What was my poor spoken word against the decision of that awful inward tribunal? Who was I to dispute its august order? I bowed my head to its emphatic dictation, and rose from my bed.
“Here occurred another strange thing. When I got up I found myself fully dressed—armed cap-a-pie, as you might say, for the fight of righteousness—although I had a distinct recollection of having undressed as usual before seeking repose. But I left the Society of Psychical Research to unravel the possibility, or otherwise, of my conscience being able to dress me while I slept, and hurried noiselessly downstairs. I let myself out of the back door, got my bills and bucket of paste from the sample room, and set out on my mission.
“That was a good bill-posting! The Merry Marauders have never had a better, nor are they likely to get as good a one again. I tramped miles and miles by the feeble light of a watery late moon, just sufficient for my purpose, making a complete circuit of the district, pasting bills everywhere as I went. My conscience cheered the lonely way by pointing out to me that each bill I put up might be the finger-post to guide some weak-minded old lady to the delightful entertainment of the Merry Marauders, thus saving her from insanity—or even death. I completed my encircling course of the town in the main street, finally finishing up at the hoarding alongside the store next to the hotel. I was very tired, but happy, for a now commending conscience allowed me to whistle cheerily as I slapped the last few bills on the hoarding. As I did so, the sound of a slapping that did not come from my brush smote my ears. I looked along the hoarding. Alas for the duplicity and treachery of poor human nature! There, so completely absorbed in his occupation that he had not seen me, was that faithless scoundrel of the picture-show—Thimm—slapping up the bills of his own show!
“It boots not what I said to the perjurous liar who had forfeited the esteem of all honest men by his shameless violation of a sacred pledge, but I hope—nay, I believe—that I did justice to the occasion. He had not been impelled to three hours hard work by an accusing conscience, and was entirely without excuse. Let us draw a veil on this part of my story.
“We walked slowly back to the hotel together. On the way I gathered that he also had encircled the town with his bills, only he had started out in a southerly direction while I had gone northwards—both covering the same ground, unknown to each other, till we met at the final hoarding.
“As we turned into the back way of the hotel Thimm suddenly suggested that I should accompany him to his room to talk things over, in order to see if we couldn’t come to some arrangement which would prevent both shows being spoiled.
“Why, you ingrate,” I said in amazement; “you made an agreement with me and broke it. Why didn’t you keep it?”
“‘Oh, solder down the can,’ laughed the coarse wretch. ‘We were each a bit too cute for the other there, so we’ll let it go at that. But we’re up against a problem here that we’d better try to solve. If they muster every unit of the population here there’s only enough for one audience, and a small one at that. If we both show we’ll both lose money—I might clear expenses, but you certainly won’t with your large company to keep. The chances are that we’ll both be out of pocket over the wretched little place if we keep on. In the circumstances, one of us had better clear out and leave the field to the other.’
“The Merry Marauders will never clear out, as you put it,” I haughtily replied.
“‘Stop a minute, and hear what I propose. Let us stake our season on the hazard of the die! I mean, I’ve got a pack of cards in my room, and we’ll play a small game to decide which of us is to take down his bills and clear out of the town.’
“Strange how deeply the gambling spirit—the desire to get something for nothing—is imbued in every human breast. Here was I, the son of a Presbyterian father who discountenanced every form of gambling except that known as Predestination, and a Methodist mother who refused to allow me as a child to play ‘alleys’ for ‘keeps’ because she considered it a pernicious form of gambling too dearly paid for by the sacrifice of my infant soul—here was I, I say, who had had a horror of gambling driven into my soul in my boyhood and rivetted there with threats of hell, eagerly welcoming the suggestion to decide our difficulty by a carnal game of chance. But I had more excuse than the wretched picture-show man—firstly, in an active conscience that urged me to take retribution for Thimm’s violation of his pledge, and secondly, by the knowledge that in my early youth my paternal grandfather, a sadly degenerate old man, I am afraid, had secretly set my parents’ counsels at naught by teaching me all the strategy of cards which he had acquired during his godless sea career.
“Need I announce the result? I see you have already guessed it. Thimm quickly lost the stake he had proposed in one round of a vulgar seafaring game, called ‘Strip Jack Naked,’ which the unhappy young man proposed under the mistaken assumption that I would not know anything about it, whereas it was the only one of all the card games my grandfather taught me that I could play sufficiently well to beat the old gentleman, who was a past master.
“How many theatrical managers are held fast in the grip of the gambling octopus! In my experience I have known many a good man go under through cards, dice, or horse-racing. You thought, Valentine, you were hardly used by Hivson, but the Merry Marauders were not the first company he stranded—not by a long way. Once started, these unfortunate men cannot leave off. It was like that with Thimm. After scribbling off an assignment of the town of Matetanei to the Merry Marauders for show purposes, he hurriedly shuffled the cards afresh and exclaimed:
“‘I’ll play you a game of two-handed euchre for half-a-quid!�
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“In less than half an hour his little stock, fifteen golden sovereigns, the profits of an arduous season of the ‘smalls’ (for he admitted to me that the picture-show was his own property) lay at my right hand. I will say for him that he was a good sport. The loss of the money did not appear to worry him a bit, but he demanded his revenge. Of course, as a man of honour myself, I was bound to accede to his request. He borrowed five pounds of his money back, giving his horse outside as security for the loan, and went on playing. We changed the game, but the luck was still mine. In another hour the horse, vehicle, harness, and a saddle used by Thimm for riding the animal, were all mine! Then he grew reckless, and exclaimed:
“‘Look here, I’ll play you for the picture-show—machine, apparatus, and ten thousand feet of films. And if you don’t think it’s worth putting what you’ve already won against that, I’ll throw in the two silvery sopranos!’
“I agreed, and like two knights of old we battled for a stake infinitely more precious than silver, or gold, or picture-shows. I won.
“‘Well,’ he said, as he rose from the table at the conclusion of this disastrous main, ‘You’ve torn me to bits and left me absolutely ragged. You’d better pay my small account here and give me my fare back to Piatiki rather than have me here on your hands.’
“It was the moment of my triumph. I rose to my feet and remarked with that natural, if inherited, dignity that forty years battling in the New Zealand ‘smalls’ has not entirely taken away:
“Young man, I did not play to win your money, or your show either, but to teach you a much needed lesson. Take your money and your property back again, and remember for the future that Dan Baker always plays the game fair. Your debt of honour is cancelled. The only thing I shall keep is this written promise of yours to vacate this town this morning. So saying, I pushed his sovereigns towards him and walked out of the room.
The Merry Marauders Page 12