Barrie, J M - Half Hours Read online

  PANTALOON

  ever they give him. And then he puts out his tongue at them ! The artist in him makes him put out his tongue at them. For he is a great artist, Joey. He is a greater artist than I am. I know it and I admit it. He has a touch that is beyond me. (Imploringly) Did you say you would marry him, my love ? (She does not raise her head, and he c ontinues with a new break in his voice.) It is not his caning me I am so afraid of, but but I 'm oldish now, Fairy, even for an old 'un, and there is something I must tell you. I have tried to keep it from my self, but I know. It is this: I am afraid, my sweet, I am not so funny as I used to be. (She encircles his knees in dissent.) Yes, it 's true, and Joey knows it. On Monday I had to fall into the barrel three times before I got the laugh. Joey saw ! If Joey were to dismiss me I could never get another shop. I would be like a dog without a master. He has been my

  PANTALOON 23

  master so long. I have put by nearly enough to keep me, but oh, Fairy, the awfulness of not being famous any longer. Living on without seeing my kind friends in front. To think of my just being one of the public, of my being pointed at in the streets as the old 'un that was fired out of the company because he missed his laughs. And that 's what Joey will bring to pass if you don't marry him, my girl. (It is an appeal for mercy, and COLUMBINE is his loving daughter. Her face is wan, but she tries to smile. She hugs the ring to her breast, and then gives it back to HARLEQUIN. They try to dance a last embrace, but their legs are leaden. He kisses her cheeks and her foot and goes away broken-hearted. The brave girl puts her arm round her father's neck and hides her wet face. He could not look at it though it were exposed, for he has more to tell.) I haven't told you the worst yet, my love. I didn't dare tell you the worst

  24 PANTALOON

  till Boy bad gone. Fairy, the marriage is to be to-day ! Joey has arranged it all. It 's his humour, and we dare not thwart him. He is coming here to take you to the wedding. (In a tremble she draws away from him.) I haven't been a bad father to you, have I, my girl? When we were waiting for you before you were born, your mother and I, we used to wonder what you would be like, and I it was natural, for I was always an ambitious man I hoped you would be a clown. But that wasn't to be, and when the doctor came to me I was walk ing up and down this room in a tremble, for my darling was always delicate when the doctor came to me and said, 'I con gratulate you, sir, on being the father of a fine little columbine,' I never uttered one word of reproach to him or to you or to her. (There is a certain grandeur about the old man as he calls attention to the nobility of his conduct, but it falls from

  PANTALOON 25

  him on the approach of the CLOWN. We hear Joey before we see him: he is singing a snatch of one of his triumphant ditties, less for his own pleasure perhaps than to warn the policeman to be on the alert. He has probably driven to the end of the street^ and then walked. A tremor runs through COLUMBINE at sound of him, but PANTALOON smiles, a foolish, ecstatic smile. Joey has always been his hero.) Be ready to laugh, my girl. Joey will be angry if he doesn't get the laugh.

  (The CLOWN struts in, as confident of welcome as if he were the announce ment of dinner. He wears his motley like an order. A silk hat and an eye-glass indicate his superior social position. A sausage protruding from a pocket shows that he can unbend at times. A masterful man when you don't applaud enough, he is at present in uproarious spirits, as if he had just looked in a mirror. At first he

  36 PANTALOON

  affects not to see his host, to PANTA* LOON'S great entertainment.) CLOWN. Miaw, miaw ! PANTALOON (bent with merriment). He is at his funniest, quite at his funniest !

  (CLOWN kicks him hard but good- naturedly, and PANTALOON falls to the ground.) CLOWN. Miaw!

  PANTALOON (reverently). What an artist! CLOWN (pretends to see COLUMBINE for the first time in his life. In a masterpiece of funniness he starts back, like one dazzled by a naked light). Oh, Jiminy Crinkles! Oh, I say, what a beauty ! PANTALOON. There 's nobody like him ! CLOWN. It 's Fairy. It 's my little Fairy.

  (Strange, but all her admiration for this man has gone. He represents nothing to her now but wealth and social rank. He ogles her, and she shrinks from him as if he were some thing nauseous.)

  PANTALOON 27

  PANTALOON (warningly). Fairy!

  CLOWN (showing sharp teeth). Hey, what's

  this, old 'un? Don't she admire me? PANTALOON. Not admire you, Joey ? That 's

  a good 'un. Joey 's at his best to-day. CLOWN. Ain't she ready to come to her

  wedding ?

  PANTALOON. She 's ready, Joey. CLOWN (producing a cane, and lowering}.

  Have you told her what will happen to

  you if she ain't ready ? PANTALOON (backing). I 've told her, Joey

  (supplicating). Get your hat, Fairy. CLOWN. Why ain't she dancing wi' joy and

  pride ? PANTALOON. She is, Joey, she is.

  (COLUMBINE attempts to dance with joy

  and pride, and the CLOWN has been

  so long used to adulation that he is

  deceived.)

  CLOWN (amiable again). Parson 's waiting.

  Oh, what a lark. PANTALOON (with a feeling that lark is not

  28 PANTALOON

  perhaps the happiest word for the occasion). Get your things, Fairy.

  CLOWN (riding on a chair). Give me some thing first, my lovey-dovey. I shuts my eyes and opens my mouth, and waits for what *s my doo. (She knows what he means, and it is sacrilege to her. But her father's arms are extended beseechingly. She gives the now abhorred countenance a kiss, and runs from the room. The CLOWN plays with the kiss as if it were a sausage, a sight abhorrent to HARLEQUIN, who has stolen in by the window. Fain would he strike, but though he is wearing his mask, which is a sign that he is invisible, he fears to do so. As if conscious of the unseen presence, the CLOWN'S brow darkens.} Joey, when I came in I saw Boy hanging around outside.

  PANTALOON (ill at ease). Boy? What can he be wanting ?

  CLOWN. I know what he is wanting, and I know what he will get. (He brandishes

  PANTALOON 29

  the cane threateningly. At the same moment the wedding bells begin to peal.)

  PANTALOON. Hark!

  CLOWN (with grotesque accompaniment}. My wedding bells. Fairy's wedding bells. There they go again, here we are again, there they go again, here we are again. (COLUMBINE returns. She has tried to hide the tears on her cheeks behind a muslin veil. There is a melancholy bouquet in her hand. She passionately desires to be like the respectable public on her marriage day. HARLEQUIN raises his mask for a moment that she may see him, and they look long at each other, those two, who are never to have anything lovely to look at again. 'Won't he save her yet? 9 says her face, but 'I am afraid 9 says his. Still the bells are jangling.)

  PANTALOON. My girl.

  CLOWN. Mine. (He kisses her, but it is the sausage look that is in his eyes. PANTA LOON, bleeding for his girl, raises his staff

  30 PANTALOON

  to strike him, but COLUMBINE will not have the sacrifice. She gives her arm to the CLOWN.) To the wedding. To the wedding. Old 'un, lead on, and we will follow thee. Oh, what a lark !

  (They are going toward the door, but in this supreme moment love turns timid Boy into a man. He waves his mysterious wand over them, so that all three are suddenly bereft of movement. They are like frozen figures. He removes his mask and smiles at them with a terrible face. Fondly and leisurely he gathers COL UMBINE in his arms and carries her out by the window. The CLOWN and PANTALOON remain there, as if struck in the act of taking a step forward. The wedding bells are still pealing.)

  The curtain falls for a moment only. It rises on the same room several years later.

  PANTALOON 31

  Tlte same room, as one may say of a suit of clothes, out of which the whilom tenant has long departed, that they are tJie same man. A room cold to the touch, dilapidated, fragments of the ceiling fallen and left where they fell, wall-paper peel ing damply, portraits of PANTA LOON taken down to sell, unsaleable, an
d never rehung. Once such a clean room that its ghost to-day might be COLUMBINE chasing a speck of dust, it is now untended. Even the windows are grimy, which tells a tale of PANTALOON'S final capitula tion; while any heart was left him we may be sure he kept the windows clean so that the policeman might spy upon him. Perhaps the police man has gone from the street, bored, nothing doing there now.

  It is evening and winter time, and the ancient man is moving listlessly

  32 PANTALOON

  about his room, mechanically blowing life into his hands as if he had for gotten that there is no real reason why there should be life in them. The clothes COLUMBINE used to brush with such care are slovenly, the hair she so often smoothed with all her love is unkempt. He is smaller, a man who has shrunk into himself in shame, not so much shame that he is uncared for as that he is forgotten.

  He is sitting forlorn by the fire when

  the door opens to admit his first

  visitor for years. It is the CLOWN,

  just sufficiently stouter to look more

  resplendent. The drum, so to say, is

  larger. He gloats over the bowed

  PANTALOON like a spiteful boy.

  CLOWN (poking PANTALOON with his cane).

  Who can this miserable ancient man be?

  (Visited at last by some one who knows him, PANTALOON rises in a surge of joy.)

  PANTALOON 33

  PANTALOON. You have come back, Joey,

  after all these years ! CLOWN. Hands off. I came here, my good

  fellow, to inquire for a Mr. Joseph. PANTALOON (shuddering). Yes, that's me;

  that 's all that 's left of me; Mr. Joseph !

  Me that used to be Joey. CLOWN. I t hink I knew you once, Mr.

  Joseph ? PANTALOON. Joey, you 're hard on me. It

  wasn't my fault that Boy tricked us and

  ran off wi' her. CLOWN. May I ask, Mr. Joseph, were you

  ever on the boards ? PANTALOON. This to me as was your right

  hand ! CLOWN. I seem to call to mind something

  like you as used to play the swell. PANTALOON (fiercely) . It 's a lie ! I was

  born a Pantaloon, and a Pantaloon I '11 die. CLOWN. Yes, I heard you was dead, Mr.

  Joseph. Everybody knows it except

  yourself. (He gnaws a sausage.)

  34 PANTALOON

  PANTALOON (greedily). Gie me a bite, Joey. CLOWN (relentless). I only bites with the

  profession. I never bites with the

  public. PANTALOON. What brought you here? Just

  to rub it in ? CLOWN. Let 's say I came to make inquiries

  after the happy pair. PANTALOON. It's years and years, Joey,

  since they ran away, and I 've never seen

  them since.

  CLOWN. Heard of them ? PANTALOON. Yes, I* ve heard. They 're in

  distant parts.

  CLOWN. Answer their letters ? PANTALOON (darkening). No. CLOWN. They will be doing well, Mr. Joseph,

  without me ? PANTALOON (boastfully). At first they did

  badly, but when the managers heard

  Fairy was my daughter they said the

  daughter o' such a famous old 'un was

  sure to draw by reason of her father's

  PANTALOON 35

  name. And they print the name of her

  father in big letters. CLOWN (rapping it out). It 's you that lie

  now. I know about them. They go

  starving like vagabonds from town to

  town. PANTALOON. Ay, it 's true. They write that

  they 're starving. CLOWN. And they 've got a kid to add to

  their misery. All vagabonds, father,

  mother, and kid. PANTALOON. Rub it in, Joey. CLOWN. You looks as if you would soon be

  starving too. PANTALOON (not without dignity). I 'm

  pinched. CLOWN. Well, well, I 'm a kindly soul, and

  what brought me here was to make you

  an offer.

  PANTALOON (glistening). A shop? CLOWN. For old times' sake. PANTALOON (with indecent eagerness). To be

  old 'un again ?

  36 PANTALOON

  CLOWN. No, you crock, but to carry a sand wich-board in the street wi' my new old 'un's name on it.

  (Pantaloon raises his withered arm, but he lets it fall.)

  PANTALOON. May you be forgiven for that, Joey.

  CLOWN. Miaw!

  PANTALOON (who is near his end). Joey, there stands humbled before you an old artist.

  CLOWN. Never an artist.

  PANTALOON (firmly). An artist at present disengaged.

  CLOWN. Forgotten clean forgotten.

  PANTALOON (bowing his head) . Yes, that 's it forgotten. Once famous now forgotten. Joey, they don't know me even at the sausage - shop. I am just one of the public. My worst time is when we should be going on the stage, and I think I hear the gallery boys calling for the old 'un * Bravo, old 'un'! Then I sort of break

  PANTALOON 37

  up. I sleep bad o' nights. I think sleep would come to me if I could rub my back on the scenery again. (He shudders.) But the days are longer than the nights. I allus see how I am to get through to-day, but I sit thinking and thinking how I am to get through to-morrow. CLOWN. Poor old crock. Well, so long. PANTALOON (offering him the poker). Joey, gie me one rub before you go for old times' sake. CLOWN. You '11 never be rubbed by a clown

  again, Mr. Joseph.

  PANTALOON. Call me Joey once say 'Good bye, old 'un' for old times' sake. CLOWN. You will never be called Joey or old 'un by a clown again, Mr. Joseph.

  (With a noble gesture PANTALOON bids him begone and the CLOWN miaws and goes, twisting a sausage in his mouth as if it were a cigar. So he passes from our sight, funny to the last, or never funny, an equally tragic figure.

  38 PANTALOON

  PANTALOON rummages in the wicker basket among his gods and strokes them lovingly, a painted goose, his famous staff, a bladder on a stick. He does not know that he is hugging the bladder to his cold breast as he again crouches by the fire.

  The door opens, and COLUMBINE and HARLEQUIN peep in, prepared to re ceive a blow for welcome. Their faces are hollow and their clothes in rags, and, saddest of all, they cannot dance in. They walk in like the weary public. COLUMBINE looks as if she could walk as far as her father's feet, but never any farther. With them is the child. This is the great surprise: HE is A CLOWN. They sign to the child to intercede for them, but though only a baby, he is a clown, and he must do it in his own way. He pats his nose, grins delidously with the wrong parts of his face, and dives beneath

  PANTALOON 39

  the table. PANTALOON looks round and sees his daughter on her knees before him.)

  PANTALOON. You! Fairy! Come back! (For a moment he is to draw her to him 9 then he remembers.) No, I '11 have none of you. It was you as brought me to this. Begone, I say begone. (They are backing meekly to the door.) Stop a minute. Little Fairy, is it true is it true my Fairy has a kid? (She nods, with glistening eyes that say 'Can you put me out now? 9 The baby peers from under the table, and rubs PANTALOON'S legs with the poker. Poor little baby, he is the last of the downs, and knows not what is in store for him. PANTALOON trembles, it is so long since he has been rubbed. He dare not look down.) Fairy, is it the kid ? (She nods again; the moment has come.) My Fairy's kid! (Somehow he has always taken for granted that his grand child is merely a columbine. If the child

  40 PANTALOON

  had been something greater they would all have got a shop again and served under him.) Oh, Fairy, if only he had been a clown !

  (Now you see how it is going. The

  babe emerges, and he is a clown. Just for a moment PANTALOON cries. Then the babe is tantalising him with a sausage. PANTALOON revolves round him like a happy teetotum. Who so gay now as COLUMBINE and HARLEQUIN, dancing merrily as if it were again the morning? Oh 'what a lark is life. Ring down the cur tain quickly, Mr. Prompter, before we see them all swept into the dust- heap).

  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK
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  THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  IF quite convenient (as they say about cheques) you are to conceive that the scene is laid in your own house, and that HARRY SIMS is you. Perhaps the ornamentation of the house is a trifle ostentatious, but if you cavil at that we are willing to re-decorate: you don't get out of being HARRY SIMS on a mere matter of plush and dados. It pleases us to make him a city man, but (rather than lose you) he can be turned with a scrape of the pen into a K.C., fashionable doctor, Secretary of State, or what you will. We conceive him of a pleasant rotundity with a thick red neck, but we shall waive that point if you know him to be thin.

  It is that day in your career when everything went wrong just when everything seemed to bf superlatively right.

  43

  44 THE TWELVE-POUND LOOK

  In HARRY'S case it was a woman who did the mischief. She came to him in his great hour and told him she did not admire him. Of course he turned her out of the house and was soon himself again, but it spoilt the morn ing for him. This is the subject of the play, and quite enough too.

  HARRY is to receive the honour of knight hood in a few days, and we discover him in the sumptuous 'snuggery* of his home in Kensington (or is it Westminster?), rehearsing the ceremony with his wife. They have been at it all the morning, a pleasing occupation. MRS. SIMS (as we may call her for the last time, as it were, and strictly as a good-natured joke) is wearing her presentation gown, and per sonates the august one who is about to dub her HARRY knight. She is seated regally. Her jewelled shoulders proclaim aloud her husband's generosity. She must be an extraordinarily proud and happy woman, yet she has a drawn face and shrinking ways as if there were somt one near her of whom she is afraid. She