I
Alderman Machin had to stand at the back, and somewhat towards theside, of that part of the auditorium known as the Grand Circle at theEmpire Music Hall, Hanbridge. The attendants at the entrance, and inthe lounge, where the salutation "Welcome" shone in electricity over alarge cupid-surrounded mirror, had compassionately and yet exultinglytold him that there was not a seat left in the house. He had sharedtheir exultation. He had said to himself, full of honest pride in theFive Towns: "This music-hall, admitted by the press to be one of thefinest in the provinces, holds over two thousand five hundred people.And yet we can fill it to overflowing twice every night! And onlya few years ago there wasn't a decent music-hall in the entiredistrict!"
The word "Progress" flitted through his head.
It was not strictly true that the Empire was or could be filled tooverflowing twice every night, but it was true that at that particularmoment not a seat was unsold; and the aspect of a crowded auditoriumis apt to give an optimistic quality to broad generalizations.Alderman Machin began instinctively to calculate the amount of moneyin the house, and to wonder whether there would be a chance fora second music-hall in the dissipated town of Hanbridge. He alsowondered why the idea of a second music-hall in Hanbridge had neveroccurred to him before.
The Grand Circle was so called because it was grand. Its plushfauteuils cost a shilling, no mean price for a community where sevenpounds of potatoes can be bought for sixpence, and the view of thestage therefrom was perfect. But the Alderman's view was far fromperfect, since he had to peer as best he could between and above theshoulders of several men, each apparently, but not really, taller thanhimself. By constant slight movements, to comply with the movementsof the rampart of shoulders, he could discern fragments of variousadvertisements of soap, motor-cars, whisky, shirts, perfume, pills,bricks and tea--for the drop-curtain was down. And, curiously, hefelt obliged to keep his eyes on the drop-curtain and across the longintervening vista of hats and heads and smoke to explore its mostdifficult corners again and again, lest when it went up he might notbe in proper practice for seeing what was behind it.
Nevertheless, despite the marked inconveniences of his situation,he felt brighter, he felt almost happy in this dense atmosphere ofsuccess. He even found a certain peculiar and perverse satisfaction inthe fact that he had as yet been recognized by nobody. Once or twicethe owners of shoulders had turned and deliberately glared at theworrying fellow who had the impudence to be all the time peeping overthem and between them; they had not distinguished the fellow from anyordinary fellow. Could they have known that he was the famous AldermanEdward Henry Machin, founder and sole proprietor of the Thrift Club,into which their wives were probably paying so much a week, they wouldmost assuredly have glared to another tune, and they would have saidwith pride afterwards: "That chap Machin o'Bursley was standing behindme at the Empire to-night!" And though Machin is amongst the commonestnames in the Five Towns, all would have known that the great andadmired Denry was meant ... It was astonishing that a personage sonotorious should not have been instantly "spotted" in such a resortas the Empire. More proof that the Five Towns was a vast and seethingconcentration of cities, and no longer a mere district where everybodyknew everybody!
The curtain rose, and as it did so a thunderous, crashing applauseof greeting broke forth; applause that thrilled and impressed andinspired; applause that made every individual in the place feel rightglad that he was there. For the curtain had risen on the giganticattraction, which many members of the audience were about to see forthe fifth time that week; in fact, it was rumoured that certain menof fashion, whose habit was to refuse themselves nothing, had attendedevery performance of the gigantic attraction since the second house onMonday.
The scene represented a restaurant of quiet aspect, into which entereda waiter bearing a pile of plates some two feet high. The waiterbeing intoxicated the tower of plates leaned this way and that as hestaggered about, and the whole house really did hold its breath in thesimultaneous hope and fear of an enormous and resounding smash. Thenentered a second intoxicated waiter, also bearing a pile of platessome two feet high, and the risk of destruction was thus more thandoubled--it was quadrupled, for each waiter, in addition to therisks of his own inebriety, was now subject to the dreadful peril ofcolliding with the other. However, there was no catastrophe.
Then arrived two customers, one in a dress suit and an eyeglass, andthe other in a large violet hat, a diamond necklace and a yellowsatin skirt. The which customers, seemingly well used to the sight ofdrunken waiters tottering to and fro with towers of plates, sat downat a table and waited calmly for attention. The popular audience, withthat quick mental grasp for which popular audiences are so renowned,soon perceived that the table was in close proximity to a loftysideboard, and that on either hand of the sideboard were two chairs,upon which the two waiters were trying to climb in order to deposittheir plates on the topmost shelf of the sideboard. The waiterssuccessfully mounted the chairs and successfully lifted their towersof plates to within half an inch of the desired shelf, and then thechairs began to show signs of insecurity. By this time the audiencewas stimulated to an ecstasy of expectation, whose painfulness wasonly equalled by its extreme delectability. The sole unmovedpersons in the building were the customers awaiting attention at therestaurant table.
One tower was safely lodged on the shelf. But was it? It was not! Yes?No! It curved; it straightened; it curved again. The excitement was askeen as that of watching a drowning man attempt to reach the shore. Itwas simply excruciating. It could not be borne any longer, and when itcould not be borne any longer the tower sprawled irrevocably andseven dozen plates fell in a cascade on the violet hat, and so withan inconceivable clatter to the floor. Almost at the same moment thebeing in the dress-suit and the eyeglass, becoming aware of phenomenaslightly unusual even in a restaurant, dropped his eyeglass, turnedround to the sideboard and received the other waiter's seven dozenplates in the face and on the crown of his head.
No such effect had ever been seen in the Five Towns, and the felicityof the audience exceeded all previous felicities. The audience yelled,roared, shrieked, gasped, trembled, and punched itself in a furiouspassion of pleasure. They make plates in the Five Towns. They live bymaking plates. They understand plates. In the Five Towns a man willcarry not seven but twenty-seven dozen plates on a swaying plank foreight hours a day up steps and down steps, and in doorways and out ofdoorways, and not break one plate in seven years! Judge, therefore,the simple but terrific satisfaction of a Five Towns audience in thehugeness of the calamity. Moreover, every plate smashed means a demandfor a new plate and increased prosperity for the Five Towns. Thegrateful crowd in the auditorium of the Empire would have covered thestage with wreaths, if it had known that wreaths were used for otheroccasions than funerals; which it did not know.
Fresh complications instantly ensued, which cruelly cut short theagreeable exercise of uncontrolled laughter. It was obvious that oneof the waiters was about to fall. And in the enforced tranquillityof a new dread every dyspeptic person in the house was deliciouslyconscious of a sudden freedom from indigestion due to the agreeableexercise of uncontrolled laughter, and wished fervently that he couldlaugh like that after every meal. The waiter fell; he fell throughthe large violet hat and disappeared beneath the surface of a sea ofcrockery. The other waiter fell too, but the sea was not deep enoughto drown a couple of them. Then the customers, recovering themselves,decided that they must not be outclassed in this competition of havoc,and they overthrew the table and everything on it, and all the othertables and everything on all the other tables. The audience was nowa field of artillery which nothing could silence. The waiters arose,and, opening the sideboard, disclosed many hundreds of unsuspectedplates of all kinds, ripe for smashing. Niagaras of plates surged onto the stage. All four performers revelled and wallowed in smashedplates. New supplies of plates were constantly being produced fromstrange concealments, and finally the tables and chairs were broken topieces, and each obje
ct on the walls was torn down and flung in bitson to the gorgeous general debris, to the top of which clambered theviolet hat, necklace and yellow petticoat, brandishing one singlelittle plate, whose life had been miraculously spared. Shrieks ofjoy in that little plate played over the din like lightning in athunderstorm. And the curtain fell.
It was rung up fifteen times, and fifteen times the quartette ofartists, breathless, bowed in acknowledgment of the frenzied andboisterous testimony to their unique talents. No singer, no tragedian,no comedian, no wit could have had such a triumph, could have givensuch intense pleasure. And yet none of the four had spoken a word.Such is genius.
At the end of the fifteenth call the stage-manager came before thecurtain and guaranteed that two thousand four hundred plates had beenbroken.
The lights went up. Strong men were seen to be wiping tears from theireyes. Complete strangers were seen addressing each other in the mannerof old friends. Such is art.
"Well, that was worth a bob, that was!" muttered Edward Henry tohimself. And it was. Edward Henry had not escaped the general fate.Nobody, being present, could have escaped it. He was enchanted. He hadutterly forgotten every care.
"Good evening, Mr. Machin," said a voice at his side. Not only heturned but nearly everyone in the vicinity turned. The voice was thevoice of the stout and splendid managing director of the Empire, andit sounded with the ring of authority above the rising tinkle of thebar behind the Grand Circle.
"Oh! How d'ye do, Mr. Dakins?" Edward Henry held out a cordial hand,for even the greatest men are pleased to be greeted in a place ofentertainment by the managing director thereof. Further, his identitywas now recognized.
"Haven't you seen those gentlemen in that box beckoning to you?" saidMr. Dakins, proudly deprecating complimentary remarks on the show.
"Which box?"
Mr. Dakins' hand indicated a stage-box. And Henry, looking, saw threemen, one unknown to him, the second, Robert Brindley, the architect,of Bursley, and the third, Dr. Stirling.
Instantly his conscience leapt up within him. He thought of rabies.Yes, sobered in the fraction of a second, he thought of rabies.Supposing that, after all, in spite of Mr. Long's Muzzling Order, ascited by his infant son, an odd case of rabies should have lingered inthe British Isles, and supposing that Carlo had been infected ...!Not impossible ...! Was it providential that Dr. Stirling was in theauditorium?
"You know two of them?" said Mr. Dakins.
"Yes."
"Well, the third's a Mr. Bryany. He's manager to Mr. Seven Sachs." Mr.Dakins' tone was respectful.
"And who's Mr. Seven Sachs?" asked Edward Henry, absently. It was astupid question.
He was impressively informed that Mr. Seven Sachs was the arch-famousAmerican actor-playwright, now nearing the end of a provincial tour,which had surpassed all records of provincial tours, and that hewould be at the Theatre Royal, Hanbridge, next week. Edward Henry thenremembered that the hoardings had been full of Mr. Seven Sachs forsome time past.
"They keep on making signs to you," said Mr. Dakins, referring to theoccupants of the stage-box.
Edward Henry waved a reply to the box.
"Here! I'll take you there the shortest way," said Mr. Dakins.