FullReads

“What!” he said. “Why, hang it, this is a play, ready-made. It’s the old ‘Tiny Hand’ business. Always safe stuff. Parted lovers. Lisping child. Reconciliation over the little cradle. It’s big. Child, centre. Girl L.C.; Freddie, up stage, by the piano. Can Freddie play the piano?”

“He can play a little of ‘The Rosary’ with one finger.”

Jimmy shook his head.

“No; we shall have to cut out the soft music. But the rest’s all right. Look here.” He squatted in the sand. “This stone is the girl. This bit of seaweed’s the child. This nutshell is Freddie. Dialogue leading up to child’s line. Child speaks like, ‘Boofer lady, does ‘oo love dadda?’ Business of outstretched hands. Hold picture for a moment. Freddie crosses L., takes girl’s hand. Business of swallowing lump in throat. Then big speech. ‘Ah, Marie,’ or whatever her name is–Jane–Agnes–Angela? Very well. ‘Ah, Angela, has not this gone on too long? A little child rebukes us! Angela!’ And so on. Freddie must work up his own part. I’m just giving you the general outline. And we must get a good line for the child. ‘Boofer lady, does ‘oo love dadda?’ isn’t definite enough. We want something more–ah! ‘Kiss Freddie,’ that’s it. Short, crisp, and has the punch.”

“But, Jimmy, old top,” I said, “the only objection is, don’t you know, that there’s no way of getting the girl to the cottage. She cuts Freddie. She wouldn’t come within a mile of him.”

Jimmy frowned.

“That’s awkward,” he said. “Well, we shall have to make it an exterior set instead of an interior. We can easily corner her on the beach somewhere, when we’re ready. Meanwhile, we must get the kid letter-perfect. First rehearsal for lines and business eleven sharp to-morrow.”

Poor old Freddie was in such a gloomy state of mind that we decided not to tell him the idea till we had finished coaching the kid. He wasn’t in the mood to have a thing like that hanging over him. So we concentrated on Tootles. And pretty early in the proceedings we saw that the only way to get Tootles worked up to the spirit of the thing was to introduce sweets of some sort as a sub-motive, so to speak.

“The chief difficulty,” said Jimmy Pinkerton at the end of the first rehearsal, “is to establish a connection in the kid’s mind between his line and the sweets. Once he has grasped the basic fact that those two words, clearly spoken, result automatically in acid-drops, we have got a success.”

I’ve often thought, don’t you know, how interesting it must be to be one of those animal-trainer Johnnies: to stimulate the dawning intelligence, and that sort of thing. Well, this was every bit as exciting. Some days success seemed to be staring us in the eye, and the kid got the line out as if he’d been an old professional. And then he’d go all to pieces again. And time was flying.

“We must hurry up, Jimmy,” I said. “The kid’s uncle may arrive any day now and take him away.”

“And we haven’t an understudy,” said Jimmy. “There’s something in that. We must work! My goodness, that kid’s a bad study. I’ve known deaf-mutes who would have learned the part quicker.”

I will say this for the kid, though: he was a trier. Failure didn’t discourage him. Whenever there was any kind of sweet near he had a dash at his line, and kept on saying something till he got what he was after. His only fault was his uncertainty. Personally, I would have been prepared to risk it, and start the performance at the first opportunity, but Jimmy said no.

“We’re not nearly ready,” said Jimmy. “To-day, for instance, he said ‘Kick Freddie.’ That’s not going to win any girl’s heart. And she might do it, too. No; we must postpone production awhile yet.”

But, by George, we didn’t. The curtain went up the very next afternoon.