The gay life

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NOVELS

Forked Lightning Merry Andrew Love and a Cottage The God in the Garden Love in June The Smiths oe Surbiton The Whip Hand The Bachelor Girls The Girl Who Couldn’t Lie Miss Charity

Preface

A large section of the public, which derives its opinion of theatrical life from novels written by sex-specialists on the one hand or professional purveyors of inexpensive pornography on the other, has come to believe that Stageland is an unspeakably awful place wherein wondrously beautiful but shockingly ill-paid girls are forever being hounded to their doom by fleshy, callous men, generally of the Hebrew race.

We all know these novels. I, for one, am more than a little tired of them. Stageland is far wider, far cleaner, far healthier than such writers would have us believe. There is the repertory theatre, for example, where brains are of greater importance than fine clothes or physical beauty; there are the Halls, where the cultivation of the domestic virtues would rather astonish easy-going Mayfair; and there is the West End, where the Victorian yearning after simple grandeur for its own sake dies hard.

Finally, there is the good, honest, fighting, struggling, exulting, despairing, philosophical rough-and-tumble of the provinces, where many a fine actor and actress lives and works, utterly 7

PREFACE unknown to the London public. But they do live ! And they do love! And they do laugh!

Something of these neglected aspects of the profession of my heart I have tried to mirror in the following humble story.

Keble Howard.

“As You Like It,”

Merstham, Surrey.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Butting in . . . . # .13

II. Cold Ham and Cartwheels ... 39

Chapter I I

The panel-doctor drummed his fingers on the counter of Mr. Nipchin’s dingy little shop. Mr. Nipchin was out on business. Mrs. Nipchin stood on the other side of the counter, backed by green and yellow cardboard boxes of cheap cigarettes, and listened to the doctor. Jilly peeped round the door that led from the shop to the dark little living-room. The doctor did not notice Jilly. Although turned sixteen, she was not much bigger than Orris, who was only twelve.

“He doesn’t get any better,” said the doctor, who could not afford to beat about the bush with panel-patients, “and I don’t think he will unless you can get him out of this. The boy wants air — sea air, for choice. Can you give him a few weeks at the sea?”

Mrs. Nipchin, who was a feeble person at the best of times, shook her head. Jilly felt that she would like to take her mother by the shoulders and shake the rest of her. Jilly often felt like that.

“It ain’t possible,” said Mrs. Nipchin, gazing vacantly through the open doorway into the dingy street. “Yer see, the Waterloo Theaytre, where me ’usband works of a night, ’as bin shut this last two munfs, an’ as fer the shop, I always tells ’im as we loses a bit on it ’stead o’ makin’ a bit, so w’y keep it open, I says, fer the benefit o’ others? Becos, mind yer, they don’t thank yer! Much more likely ter grumble when there’s a ”

“Well,” cut in the doctor, “I must be off. But bear in mind what I say: get the boy to the sea by hook or by crook; I’m afraid it’s his only chance.”

He hurried out, and Mrs. Nipchin, by way of mending matters, sat down behind the counter to cry. This was too much for Jilly. She bounced at her mother, and pulled the apron from her face without ceremony. It was a clean apron. Most feeble people are dirty, but Mrs. Nipchin could not follow a consistent line, even in that.

“Come, mother,” said Jilly, “there’s no sort of sense in crying! It’s salt air as Orris wants — not salt tears! And he’s going to have it, what’s more, or my name ain’t Jilly Nipchin!”

Mrs. Nipchin fumbled feebly for the apron, but i5

not finding it — for Jilly held on firmly — she let eight large tears roll down her nose, four on each side, and then went to put the potatoes on for dinner. Jilly followed her.

“Look here, mother,” she continued, “am I sixteen or am I not?”

“I think you are,” replied Mrs. Nipchin.

“You know vbry well I am. If not, there’s the Family Bible to bear me out. And now another thing — do girls of sixteen turn out and earn their own livings or do they not?”

“/ didn’t,” said Mrs. Nipchin, stooping to spear a potato which she had dropped, and dropping five more in the process.

“Perhaps it would have been better,” observed Jilly, “if you had. You might have known how many things there are in the world worth crying about, and just what amount of good crying does.”

“Go on at me,” said Mrs. Nipchin. “Don’t spare me. Go on at me, by all means. It’s all I’m fit for. I know that well enough.”

Having at last collected all the potatoes from various corners of the parlour, and coaxed them into the saucepan, and set them on the fire, she collapsed into the old arm-chair and again took up her apron.

“Now, mother,” Jilly warned her, “if you start that waterspout business all over again, as sure as eggs is eggs I won’t tell you my plan!”

1 6

“Plan?” repeated Mrs. Nipchin, eyeing her daughter in amazement, as though the word, being Hebrew or Sanskrit, had then been introduced for the first time to her notice. “Plan?”

“Yes,” said Jilly. “Plan. There are such things, you know, and I’ve got one. I’ve had it a long time. It’s bin simmering at the back of me head. Put that apron down, mother, and I’ll tell you. Keep it up, and not a word shall you hear. So now!”

Mrs. Nipchin let fall the apron, folded her hands, and waited. Jilly had always been a strange child. From very early days, Mrs. Nipchin had marvelled that this creature could be her own offspring. For Jilly said things that she could never have heard at home, and did things that she had never been taught to do at home. She could dance to a street-organ, for example, in the lightest and cleverest way; Mrs. Nipchin had never taught her that. She could make her voice sound as though it came from next door or up the chimney or out in the street; Mrs. Nipchin had never taught her that. When her father secured a couple of orders for the pit at the Waterloo Theatre, Jilly could come home and “take off” all the actors and actresses “to the life”; Mrs. Nipchin had never taught her that. With these antics, moreover, she could make her father laugh as though his pockets were lined with gold; Mrs. Nipchin, most certainly, had never taught her i7

that. Indeed, when she came to think of it, she had never taught her anything, not even to cry.

“I’m going on the stage,” said Jilly.

“On the stage?” repeated Mrs. Nipchin, feeling for the apron again.

“That’s what I said, and if you dare to touch that apron, mother, I won’t say good-bye to you before I go, neither.”

“What ever will yer father say?” asked the poor lady, baulked of her favourite refuge.

“I can’t help what father says. He’s out of work himself, for the time being, and you say the shop don’t pay, and the doctor says as Orris must go to the seaside. Well, I’m going to get the money to send him there, and if father kicks up a row you must nobble ’im, mother.”

“Nobble ’im?” gasped Mrs. Nipchin.

“That’s what I said.”

“Me? Nobble ’im? Nobble yer father?”

“Yes, mother. You don’t want Orris to die, do yer?”

Up came the apron, and this time Mrs. Nipchin would not be denied. Jilly went round to the back of the old arm-chair, and put her arms round her mother’s neck.

“Chuck it, old dear,” she murmured, in her silky, caressing little way. “We all loves Orris, don’t we? And the money must be got, mustn’t it? And I’m the one to get it. Don’t you be afraid, mother. I know folks. I’m not a kid.

i8

Nor yet a fool. I know my way about, thanks muchly. Jest you trust yer Jill. She’ll pull the chestnuts out o’ the fire. Fat lot father knows about gels, or anything else for that matter, ’cept shovin’ flats about and muddlin’ the shop accounts. I know father. ’E’s a good sort, bless ’im, but ’e’s N. G. For getting on, I mean. Jest a couple o’ kids tergether — that’s what you and father are. Guess I’m what they call a throwback. You’ll see. I’ve watched them rotten actresses at the ’Loo, and I can knock their silly heads off! Jest you wait a bit. Orris shall go to the sea, and you shall have a new dress, and father can muddle along in the old way, bless ’im, and lose a bit over the shop till ’e’s ninety!”

Jilly concluded this remarkable harangue by doing the “splits.” She then went upstairs making noises like a taxi-cab, kissed Orris, told him he was going to the seaside — which at once brought colour to his cheeks and a new light to his eyes — made a grimace at a passing stoker who had dared to blow her a kiss, gave the yellow-hammer some fresh bath-water and a few grains of seed, clapped on her mother’s best hat, and was out in York Lane in less than five minutes, all told.

“If I disappoint the kid,” she muttered, “God may forgive me but I’ll never forgive meself ! So buck into it, Jilly Nipchin, and yer’ll live ter play ’Feelia an’ Lady Macbeth at the ’Ippodrome yet!

Ilott’s Theatrical Agency, for which Jilly was bound, is not the smartest of its kind. It is situated in a narrow street on the south side of the Strand, and the outer room, where the applicants assemble, is mercifully dark. An old and shiny coat will pass muster at Ilott’s that would never do for the light and airy waiting-room where the London artistes flaunt their finery. An old skirt is not so old, after all, at Ilott’s; boots that have tramped many a mile in search of work forget that burst at the seam or that hole in the sole; old hats that have been trimmed and retrimmed, brushed and rebrushed, as the case may be, take on quite a jaunty and juvenile air in the waiting-room at Ilott’s.

It is the same with the wearers. Once inside Mr. Ilott’s friendly door, and lines disappear from tired faces like magic; complexions are clear again, eyes are bright once more, hollows in the cheek are not so visible. It is always artificial light in the waiting-room at Ilott’s, and the mummer loves the light in which he lives.

Jilly had never been in that waiting-room before, but she had often passed the door, and had always felt that fame and fortune lay beyond the threshold. This morning, when she took the plunge, her heart was beating very fast indeed, but her sharp little face, with the shrewd, merry grey eyes set so well in the head, and the determined little mouth so firmly compressed, looked almost as calm as she hoped and imagined.

What a curious collection of types met her eye ! Here were old men in top-hats and mangy fur collars, rubbing elbows with pale youths in shabby tight suits and the latest style of collar. Here were women of all ages, from fat old ladies, who had played Juliet to the Romeo of every dead and gone celebrity you could name, to slim girls with wistful faces who had never played anything worth speaking about, and felt convinced that they never would.

What a collection! What hunger, and hope, and disappointment, and simulated self-confidence were here! Snatches of conversation fell on her ears:

“I told him straight, my boy! Ten pounds or nothing! Take it or leave it!”

“Anything more disgraceful I never saw as long as I’ve been in the profession! I wouldn’t have put a pig in such dressing-rooms! As for my throat before the week was out !”

“You don’t want to go up West for it. I’ll give you an Address, dear, where you can get just the same thing for ”

“As I told Irving when I was with him at the Lyceum, ‘Harry,’ I said, ‘as sure as ever you cast that man for ’Oratio yer askin’ fer a bloomer,’

I said. And Irving says to me, ‘Tom, old boy ’ ”

Most of them were standing up, tired as they looked. This puzzled Jilly, who, for all her swank, was glad to nestle down on a bench by the side of a very tall, very pale girl with dark hair and a voice almost as deep as a man’s.

“Tired, dear?” asked the tall girl, in the gloomiest, deepest tones that Jilly had ever heard.

“Not so much as all that comes to,” said Jilly, “but, seeing a spare pew, I thought I might as well occupy it. Hope you don’t object?”

“I?” said the tall girl, in the same cavernous, sepulchral manner. “Not in the least. But you don’t stand much chance of getting a shop if you sit down. Or, for that matter,” she added, touching an even deeper note yet, so that Jilly wondered if she were a “girl-baritone,” or something splendid of that sort, “if you stand up.”

Jilly did not wish to appear stupid. At the same time, she knew very well that the best way to get information quickly is to ask questions. Having duly pondered over the tall girl’s enigmatic remark, therefore, and discovered no solution, she observed:

“Sorry and all that, old thing, but I don’t get you.”

“You soon will,” reverberated the tall girl. “When Ilott comes in. If he can’t see you, you might as well have stayed at home — if you have a home.”

“Oh! Now I’m on! Then, if I may put the question, why don’t you stand up like all the rest?”

“Because Ilott knows I’m here. He sent for me.” To hear her, you would have thought that Ilott was the public hangman.

“Come,” said Jilly, in her cheery little way, “that means he’s got a shop for you, don’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” The tall girl sighed deeply. “More drama! More Wigans! Have you ever played at Wigan, dear?”

“I’ve never played anywhere,” confessed Jilly, lowering her voice.

“Then don’t,” boomed the tall girl.

“But I must! I need the money! It’s not fer meself ! It’s for my kiddy brother, who’s ill, and the doc. says he wants sea air or he’ll never get well! I say, when you see Ilott, put in a word for me, will yer? I’m a nippy little thing, and I don’t care what I do !”

“What’s your line?” asked the tall girl, very gloomily indeed.

“Anything! Dance, sing, hang by me teeth from the flys, if yer like !”

“Could you play a boy, d’you think?”

“Rather! I should just say I could!” Jilly placed two fingers in her mouth and blew a piercing blast. “How’s that?”

Like a field of corn suddenly smitten by a gale of wind, everybody in the room turned in their direction. But the tall girl regarded them with such mournful eyes, and Jilly looked so surprised and innocent, that they thought some cheeky street-urchin must have shoved his head in at the door and so inquired no further into the matter.

“Excellent,” said the tall girl, without enthusiasm. “I’ll mention you to Ilott. What’s your name? Have you a card?”

“Card?” returned Jilly. “Ho, yus! Here — ees — may — card.” She went through the motions of a very grand lady opening a card-case with gloved fingers. “Leedy — Jilly — Nipchin. Is — Lord — if ilott — at home?”

The tall girl, without relaxing a muscle of her face, wrote the name on an envelope.

“Very well. I’ll do what I can. But you won’t like it, I can promise you that. Cold and dirty dressing-rooms, dear; stuffy and dirty trains; stuffy and dirty lodgings. You won’t like it.”

“But what about when you get to town?” Jilly reminded her.

“You never do,” chanted the tall girl in her boots. “You go on hoping, perhaps, but you never do.”

'7 shall,” said Jilly confidently.

The tall girl slowly shook her head.

“No, dear. You never will.”

She was still shaking her head very mournfully when a door at the far end of the room suddenly opened. The shabby, eager crowd surged forward, and all the conversation stopped as though they had been stricken dumb.

“Miss Dinwiddy?” said a sharp, business-like voice. “Is Miss Eleanor Dinwiddy here?”

“Here,” replied the tall girl, rising majestically and moving forward.

The crowd opened, and the tall girl passed between the two rows of envious, hungry faces. Then the lane closed up again, and the conversation went on as before.

“What’s doing?” asked somebody.

“ ‘Stricken ’Ome,’ ” replied somebody else. “Braby and Mallett er sendin’ it out agen — Threes and Fit-Ups.”

“Jer mean to say they’re going to give Nell Dinwiddy Lady Di?” scoffed a big, bony woman with red hair that was grey at the roots.

“Looks like it. There’s nothing else in it for ’er.”

“Well I am blest! And me out! That’s torn it! I’m off!”

But she stayed, for all that, and watched the door of the agent’s private office with the eye of a hawk.

Ill

Braby and Mallett must have made up their minds very quickly, for in less than two minutes

Miss Eleanor Dinwiddy reappeared, her countenance blacker than ever.

“Shopped?” asked a little man with a nose that turned to heaven.

“Yes,” groaned Miss Dinwiddy.

“Good for you, Nell,” said the little man. “ ’Appen to know if they’ve cast ‘Ostler Jim’? I played it in Australia two year ago.”

“I think not. I told them you were here.” “Bless yer, Nell ! I’ll do as much for you some day!” He caught her hand as she passed, and gave it a hearty squeeze.

Miss Dinwiddy, her face in statuesque repose, pushed through the crowd and resumed her seat by Jilly.

“So glad!” said Jilly.

“Thank you, dear. But I knew it was my fate. I mentioned you. Ilott will call for you at any moment.”

“My golly good goodness!” exclaimed Jilly, and instantly straightened her mother’s best hat.

“If it gets as far as terms,” advised Miss Dinwiddy, “ask thirty-five. You won’t get it, but ask it. Being a boy, I expect they’ll find the clothes. I have to find my own, of course. I always do. Good-bye and good luck.”

“Thanks ever so much!” said Jilly, with just a suspicion of moisture in her bright little eyes.

Miss Dinwiddy smiled gloomily, patted her shoulder, and was gone.

2 6

Jilly waited an hour, two hours. It was now dinner-time, and the crowd thinned considerably, for the old hands knew that Ilott and his clients had slipped out to lunch by a private door. But Jilly was not an old hand. She was a very young one, and very eager, so she stuck to her seat, expecting every moment to hear her name called.

By three o’clock the room was full again. A mingled aroma of whisky, gin, beer, and cheap cigarettes filled the air — if one may so describe the atmosphere of Mr. Ilott’s waiting-room. The talk was a little louder. Salaries received in the “palmy days” of the Drama grew larger. The parts played were more magnificent. Successes were more tempestuous. Big names were bandied to and fro with careless ease. “Management” came in sight! One gentleman, in a coat decorated with the skin of some mysterious animal, even spoke, with contempt, of theatrical knighthoods. He did not add that he had met a prosperous and open-handed comedian on the North side of the Strand, and engaged him in earnest conversation at the mouth of Exeter Street.

At last the door of Mr. Ilott’s room opened. Silence as before.

“Miss Nipchin?” inquired Mr. Ilott, in a somewhat mellower voice. “Miss Jilly Nipchin?”

“ ’Oo in ’ell’s that?” muttered a tragedian.

Jilly sprang on to the seat of the bench.

“Here!” she replied, in the sepulchral tones of Miss Dinwiddy.

They all turned to stare at her, and when they saw how small she was, and what a merry little face she had for all the emptiness of her little interior, and being relieved, perhaps, because she was not likely to compete with anybody present, there was a general laugh.

“Will you come this way, please?” said Mr. 41ott, and he returned to his private office, leaving behind him the scent of a rather good cigar.

Mr. Braby, a large, dark gentleman, with a nose very like a rainbow in shape, and not wholly unlike a rainbow in colour, was sitting in a deep arm-chair with his back to the window. He did not move as Jilly entered, but merely scanned her from head to foot and back again. Jilly looked about for Mallett, but could not discover him. In this she was not alone. Nobody ever had discovered Mallett.

“Sit down, Miss Nipchin,” said Mr. Ilott, briskly but not at all unkindly. “This is Mr. Braby.”

“How do,” said Jilly, jerking her head at Mr. Braby.

Mr. Braby did not utter a word or move a muscle.

“Mr. Braby,” continued Ilott, “together with his partner, Mr. Mallett, is about to take out a tour of ‘The Stricken Home.’ Do you know the play, Miss Nipchin?”

“Seen pictures of it on the walls/’ said Jilly.

“No doubt you have. It’s a fine play and a sure draw. Well, now, there’s a very good boy’s part going, and Miss Dinwiddy, whom we engaged this morning, mentioned your name for it. Are you a good boy?”

Jilly was very frightened, especially of the silent and motionless Braby, but she decided to repeat her success of the morning. Placing two fingers in her mouth, she blew the loudest and shrillest whistle she could manage. Mr. Braby jumped a little, but even then he did not speak. As for Mr. Ilott, he put his fingers in his ears, and puckered up his face like one in pain.

“That’s all very well as far as it goes,” he observed, when the performance was over, “but it doesn’t tell us much about your capabilities as an actress. Mr. Braby is very particular about giving his patrons the best acting to be seen out of the West End. Indeed, many people think that his companies are better than West End companies. What experience have you had in boy parts, Miss Nipchin?”

It was not a very large office, but there was just room. Jilly rose, turned a cartwheel, and sat down. Mr. Braby had not stirred a limb or a feature.

“Excellent!” exclaimed Mr. Ilott. “I wish I could do that, don’t you, Braby?”

Mr. Braby did not reply. He did not even turn his head. He just stared at Jilly like a wooden idol.

“ ‘Whistle and cartwheel,’ ” wrote Mr. Ilott on a slip of paper. “Both useful things, Miss Nipchin, in the right part. Now tell me some of the characters you have played.”

“Haven’t played none,” Jilly blurted out.

“IVhat?” cried Mr. Ilott, gazing at her in astonishment over his spectacles. “Did you say you had never played a part?”

“That’s right,” said Jilly.

“But Miss Dinwiddy gave us to understand ”

“It wasn’t her fault,” broke in Jilly quickly. “You mustn’t blame it on her. She asked me if I could play a boy, and I said I could. And so I could! You just try me!”

Mr. Ilott glanced at Mr. Braby. Mr. Braby, still sphinx-like, gazed at Jilly. Mr. Ilott shook his head.

“I’m afraid you’ve been wasting our time, Miss Nipchin,” he observed.

Poor Jilly’s little heart went down into her shabby little boots. But then she thought of Orris, fading away, like the yellow-hammer, for want of air, and up it came again.

“Look here, gents! Everybody must make a beginning! W’y, even Marie Lloyd had to make a beginning! You just try me ! It’s all inside me, and I’ll soon get it out! I’d make a lovely boy, I would indeed! Do give me a chance, won’t yer?”

Mr. Ilott rose.

“Mr. Braby would be very glad to give you a chance, I’m sure, but times are bad, and managers can’t afford to take risks. This is an important part, and we must have an actress of experience for it. However, I’ll enter your name on my books, Miss Nipchin. Come in every day, and I may find you something more suited for a novice. Good afternoon.”

He moved to the door, but Jilly intercepted him.

“Just a minute!” she implored, catching him by the coat with two feverish little hands. “I’d come cheap, I would indeed! I don’t want no thirty-five shillings. Give me enough to live on, and I’ll live on half of it, and send the rest home for my little brother. He’s ill, sir, been ill a long time, and the doctor says he won’t never get better unless he gets to the seaside. That’s what I wants the money for, as God hears me ! I’ll work meself to the bone, I will indeed! Just try me! I’ll make the nippiest little kid you ever saw! Ask ’im to try me! Do, please, ask him to try me!”

The tears were running down her face, making a strange contrast with the jaunty hat on her head, but she never let go of Mr. Ilott’s coat. The agent, who was not at all a bad sort, looked at Mr. Braby once again. Mr. Braby moved not a twentieth part of an inch.

“I’m afraid it’s no go,” said Mr. Ilott. “I’m sorry to hear about your brother, and I hope he’ll soon be better, but you must see that we can’t afford to employ inexperienced people out of charity. Come, now ! Be a good girl, and don’t waste any more of our time. Come in every day, as I told you, and I’ll do my best.”

He laid his hand on the handle of the door, but Jilly pulled it off.

“All right,” she agreed, swallowing her sobs with a huge effort. “I’ll be good. Give me half a shake to polish up me dial. I don’t want all those folks to see me like this.”

She searched for a grubby handkerchief, found it, and attacked her nose with such vigour that it shone like the setting sun.

“I’ll let you out by the other door,” offered the agent.

“Thanks,” said Jilly, now quite herself again. She looked at Braby. “So long, old top!”

And out she went.

IV

Orris, lying in his bed and staring into the windows of the Pullman cars bound for the sea with their load of yawning, peevish passengers, suddenly heard Jilly’ s light feet on the stairs.

“Where you been?” he asked, his white face brightening when she burst into the room.

“Never mind where I been,” returned Jilly breathlessly. “I’ve got a plan. Something good. Something to do with you going to the seaside. But you must swear never to tell father!”

Orris wet his forefinger and drew it across his throat.

“I’m going to borrer yore clothes,” explained Jilly. “You mustn’t ask me why nor nothing about it.” Very rapidly she gathered them all into a bundle. “Is this the lot?”

“You ain’t got the braces,” said Orris. “W’y not ’ave the Sunday togs?”

“I don’t want the Sunday ones. These are just the ticket. So long. See you later. Not a word, mind, not to mother nor nobody.” And she bustled out of the room and into her own little attic.

Mr. Ilott and Mr. Braby, having engaged the small comedian with the upturned nose for Ostler Jim, and filled up all the other parts in “The Stricken Home,” with the exception of the boy, felt that they had done a good day’s work and deserved a good dinner. Mr. Ilott suggested oysters at Gow’s, with a porterhouse steak to follow, and Mr. Braby, coming to life at last, nodded assent. More than that, he actually lifted himself out of the arm-chair, stretched himself — as though to convince Mr. Ilott that he could do anything of that sort if he liked — put on his hat, and followed the agent down the private passage into the street.

“Piper, sir I Litest! Speshul! Piper, sir!”

A rather ragged urchin, dirty and barefooted, barred the way, thrusting a paper right under Mr. Ilott’ s nose.

Mr. Ilott found a halfpenny, bought the paper, and passed on. But the urchin was not done with them yet.

“Taxi, sir? ’Ave a taxi, capting?”

“No, thanks,” said Mr. Ilott. “Get out of the way, boy.”

“All right, capting! Good luck, Colonel! Good luck to ver ‘Stricken ’Ome,’ capting!”

The two men stopped, and stared at the boy. He flung his papers to the pavement, turned a cartwheel, and picked them up again, grinning.

“Come here, boy,” said the agent. “What do you know about ‘The Stricken Home, 1 eh?”

“Bless yer, sir, I knows pretty nigh heverythink, I does! I knows that pl’y back’ards! Pl’yed ver kid in it, I ’ave, scores o’ times !”

Mr. Ilott looked at Mr. Braby; Mr. Braby looked at the boy. The manager had suddenly turned to stone again.