Miss Ida Nelson caught the doctor’s stealthy sign.
Carefully, in slow twos, she fed them down to him.
The Moor of Venice (Mr. George Graves), turned his broad back upon their jibes, and lurched down with sullen-sheepish grin, unable to conceal the massive embarrassment of his calves.
“Tell him who you are, Villa,” said Doc Hines.
“You look like Jack Johnson.”
The town, in its first white shirting of Spring, sat on the turfy banks, and looked down gravely upon the bosky little comedy of errors; the encircling mountains, and the gods thereon, looked down upon the slightly larger theatre of the town; and, figuratively, from mountains that looked down on mountains, the last stronghold of philosophy, the author of this chronicle looked down on everything.
“Here we go, Hal,” said Doc Hines, nudging Eugene.
“Give ’em hell, son,” said Julius Arthur.
“You’re dressed for the part.”
“He looks it, you mean,” said Ralph Rolls.
“Boy, you’ll knock ’em dead,” he added with an indecent laugh.
They descended into the hollow, accompanied by a low but growing titter of amazement from the audience.
Before them, the doctor had just disposed of Desdemona, who parted with a graceful obeisance.
He was now engaged on Othello, who stood, bullish and shy, till his ordeal should finish.
In a moment, he strode away, and the doctor turned to Falstaff, reading the man by his padded belly, briskly, with relief:
“Now, Tragedy, begone, and to our dell
Bring antic Jollity with cap and bells:
Falstaff, thou prince of jesters, lewd old man
Who surfeited a royal prince with mirth,
And swayed a kingdom with his wanton quips —”
Embarrassed by the growing undertone of laughter, Doc Hines squinted around with a tough grin, gave a comical hitch to his padded figure, and whispered a hoarse aside to Eugene:
“Hear that, Hal?
I’m hell on wheels, ain’t I?”
Eugene saw him depart in a green blur, and presently became aware that an unnatural silence had descended upon Doctor George B. Rockham.
The Voice of History was, for the moment, mute.
Its long jaw, in fact, had fallen ajar.
Dr. George B.
Rockham looked wildly about him for succor.
He rolled his eyes entreatingly upwards at Miss Ida Nelson.
She turned her head away.
“Who are you?” he said hoarsely, holding a hairy hand carefully beside his mouth.
“Prince Hal,” said Eugene, likewise hoarsely and behind his hand.
Dr. George B.
Rockham staggered a little.
Their speech had reached the stalls.
But firmly, before the tethered chafing laughter, he began:
“Friend to the weak and comrade of the wild,
By folly sired to wisdom, dauntless Hal —”
Laughter, laughter unleashed and turbulent, laughter that rose flood by flood upon itself, laughter wild, earth-shaking, thunder-cuffing, drowned Dr. George B.
Rockham and all he had to say.
Laughter!
Laughter!
Laughter!
Helen was married in the month of June — a month sacred, it is said, to Hymen, but used so often for nuptials that the god’s blessing is probably not infallible.
She had returned to Altamont in May, from her last singing engagement.
She had been in Atlanta for the week of opera, and had come back by way of Henderson, where she had visited Daisy and Mrs. Selborne.
There she had found her mate.
He was not a stranger to her.
She had known him years before in Altamont, where he had lived for a short time as district agent for the great and humane corporation that employed him — the Federal Cash Register Company.
Since that time he had gone to various parts of the country at his master’s bidding, carrying with him his great message of prosperity and thrift.