NGATI SPRINGS,
NORTH ISLAND, N.Z.
18th January, 1913.
MY DEAR DICK:
Do you remember the story of the kind-hearted lady who went to condole with her Jewish neighbour because she interpreted a vague rumour to mean that a devastating fire had burnt down his business premises and destroyed his stock of ready-made clothing—his little all? “I am so sorry to hear of your great loss, Mr. Isaacstein,” she exclaimed impulsively. “Vot loss vos that?” asked the aged vendor of second-hand bags, stopping in his amused perusal of a volume of the ‘Useful Hint Series: What to do Before the Fire Brigade Comes’—to glance at her in some surprise. “I mean your fire,” she replied. “Hush, hush, ma tear,” responded the retailer of misfits in a shocked whisper: “postponed till next Vednesday!” I am reminded of the story because I have just received pleasing proof that the Chosen race have not a monopoly of everything in the world, although a judiciously-timed fire has laid the foundation of many a Jewish fortune, for at the present moment the fire fiend is the patron saint of the Merry Marauders Dramatic Company.
I finished my last letter by describing to you how the Merry Marauders had to set forth on their extended tour of the New Zealand ‘smalls’ in a hearse lent us by the kind-hearted hotelkeeper at Pukerunui in order to help us out of a town where our scoundrel manager had gambled away all our money and stranded us. In this mournful vehicle we were fortunately able to make the gum-digging settlement of Tekonga, seventeen miles away, in time to give the performance which had been previously billed. Our entry in the gathering twilight caused some sensation, and we were rather embarrassed by the mayor of the town turning out the municipal brass band to precede us to the cemetery with the Dead March from Saul, under the inebriated impression—as we subsequently learnt—that he was extending a proper municipal courtesy and the honours of the town to a funeral conducted by the mayor of a neighbouring municipality; for it appears that Mr. Kelly, who lent us the hearse, in addition to being the hotelkeeper, butcher, and undertaker of Pukerunui, presides at the monthly meeting of the Pukerunui Council, and is the sole arbiter of justice at the Pukerunui Court, where he has the inestimable privilege of tempering justice with mercy to those alcoholic extremists who patronised his hotel the night before.
When this little mistake had been set right and the populace discovered what we really were, they gave us an enthusiastic reception, and eagerly pounced on the playbills I scattered among them from the top of the hearse. It was apparent to me that the warmth of our welcome was due to the novel method of our entry into the town, so I got Irving Morrissey to drive the hearse slowly up and down the one straggling street of the town to arouse interest in our forthcoming performance, before proceeding to the Mechanics’ Hall, where the performance was to be given. When we finally arrived at the hall I had the hearse drawn up outside the door, and our large rainbow-coloured posters pasted over the glass sides, with several kerosene lamps inside the hearse so that the people might readily read the bills. I also had more posters hung from the plumes on top of the hearse. This novel and attractive spectacle brought almost the whole population of the settlement round the hearse, and the subsequent performance in the hall drew a crowded and curious house. I am convinced that there is a small fortune to be garnered by the theatrical manager who exploits the hearse idea for all it is worth as a theatrical novelty. It seems to me that the hearse, properly used, would prove a powerful magnet to extract coin from the pockets of luke-warm supporters of the drama in the country, and so rapidly have my managerial instincts developed that I have in my mind the skeleton of a scheme for touring New Zealand in a hearse with a theatrical company. Some such catchy headline for the bills as ‘High Life in a Hearse,’ or ‘The Graveside Merrymakers,’ would heighten the effect of the advertisement.
That, however, is a dream for the future, when I am more at home in my new profession. To return to the reality of the present, I am glad to say that our three-nights’ season at Tekonga was such a financial success that we were able, after sending back the hearse to Mr. Kelly with the amount of our indebtedness to him, to take the coach back from Tekonga to Mokura on the Main Trunk at the southern border of the King Country—from where we branched off to go across country to Pukerunui—with the intention of playing on agricultural show dates back along the railway route as far as Longton Loopline. From that point, if fortune smiles on us, we intend to go across to Rotorua, and after a week’s season in that wonderland of hot springs and geysers, to make for the Bay of Plenty district and tour the little settlements of the East Coast, which are rarely worked by travelling theatrical companies, and should therefore yield a rich harvest. But, as I said before, the fulfilment of these ambitious plans will depend upon public appreciation of the Merry Marauders en route.
However that may be, we had more than sufficient, after playing one night at Mokura, for railway fares to the next town and our expenses there. When I got to the railway station after settling up the accounts, I found the members of the company added to by the presence of an elderly man, whose blue-shaven face and bohemian jauntiness of demeanour unmistakably proclaimed a long association with the provincial stage. A bluish nose, which matched his shaven chin, and a drooping eyelid, which conveyed the impression of a perpetual wink, did not add to his outward charm, but Barney King, who introduced him as Mr. Dan Baker, the father of the New Zealand stage, assured me in a stage whisper that he was the best fellow that ever lived. After Mr. Baker had returned my salutations with stately grace, Barney led me hurriedly aside.
“This is a rare bit of luck picking up old Dan,” he said. “He’s going to join the company and come along with us.”
“Oh, is he?” I exclaimed, in great surprise.
“He is. The others are all agreeable to his having a cut in, so hurry up and get his ticket. It must have been a special act of Providence that sent him to this miserable hole. He was travelling through to the North, showing a two-headed stuffed monkey as he went, when the small minded Wellington authorities, who have no appreciation of the marvels of nature, sent along a wire to the police here ordering them to seize the exhibit. Dan was just on his way back to Wellington to fight the case when I ran across him and invited him to throw in his lot with the Merry Marauders. He’ll be invaluable to us, for he knows the game from A to Z!”
“But,” I demurred, “the company is quite large enough already. I do not think we can stand the extra expense.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” rejoined Barney easily. “I forgot to tell you that Oscar Grayson has just been down to say he’s thrown up his job and sold his railway ticket. Says he’s going to settle in Mokura and start an estate agency. We’ll want somebody else to play the old men parts, so nip along and buy old Dan’s ticket before he changes his mind!”
“What can he do?” I asked coldly, for, to tell the truth, I thought Barney had taken too much upon himself, and I was rather nettled at his dictatorial tone.
“What can he do? What can Dan Baker do? Bless my soul, he can do everything! Old Dan Baker is the only man in the profession to whom Barney King takes off his hat. You can send him out in advance to bill a town, and he’ll work like a nigger with bucket and paste all day, and play ‘King Lear’ for you in the night with the energy of a man who’d stayed in bed all day resting for the evening’s performance!”
Mr. Baker’s experience as an advance agent appealed to me more than his Shakespearian ability. Shakespearian actors could be found at any time, but reliable advance men were hard to secure. So far we had sent the pianist in advance only once—to Mokura and Ngati—but the system had worked very badly. Quite apart from the fact that my musical qualifications were deficient when called upon to supply the music of a whole orchestra, I found that the substitution of Oscar Grayson for myself as ticket-seller at the Mokura performance had a most depressing effect on the night’s receipts. Still, if Mr. Grayson’s estate agency succeeds, none of the Merry Marauders will grudge him the little money that was required to start him in a business which will make the autumn of his life comfortable. I raised no further objection to Mr. Baker’s joining the company, but went and bought his ticket. Before long I had reason to be glad I had done so.
“And how’s your wife, Barney?” asked Mr. Baker, as the three of us took our seats in a smoking compartment, after seeing that the truck containing our scenery had been safely attached to the train. The question came as a surprise to me, for up to that moment I had never looked upon our comedian as a married man, nor had he given to me the faintest indication that somebody was waiting for him somewhere. Barney didn’t seem too sure of his state himself, for he informed Mr. Baker that he thought Mrs. King was in Australia.
“She was playing ingénue parts with the Warne Excelsior Company about six months ago when she wrote last—somewhere in New South Wales, or Queensland,” he added, vaguely.
“Barney started out on his matrimonial career as that rarest of theatrical birds—a devoted husband,” explained Mr. Baker, winking his sound eye at me.
“I don’t think you’re much of a judge,” interposed Barney—rather surlily, it seemed to me.
“I will say for Barney that his devotion didn’t last for more than a month or so,” continued Mr. Baker; “but while it did last it was a bright light in a dark world. Such a pair of billers and cooers I have never seen in all my experience of happy marriages!”
“That’s saying something,” said Barney, shortly.
“I went down to see them in their little domestic nest at Remuera a few days after they had been joined in holy matrimony,” went on Mr. Baker, addressing himself exclusively to me. “Barney asked me, and then hadn’t the moral courage to tell the little wife that he had done so. I dropped in just as they were sitting down to tea. Of course they had to ask me to join them, but my experienced eye told me in two minutes that the lady could have spared me off the earth. No young wife has any use for her husband’s dear old friend, but Barney’s little lady seemed to have less use than most She made things so cold for me that I determined to withdraw as soon as I had partaken of tea, which was much too good to leave because of a little womanly pique—cold roast pork, done to a turn, and a delightful salad. When I did rise to go, without being pressed to remain, I could not, in justice to my life-long principle of always speaking the truth, thank Barney’s little lady for her hospitality, so I said: ‘I know I was not welcome, ma’am, but I enjoyed my meal.’ With this tactful remark I noiselessly withdrew, leaving Barney and his little wife feeding one another from each other’s plates.”
Barney left the compartment with the intention, he said, of seeing how the girls were getting on, and did not return. I found Mr. Baker a very entertaining companion for a railway journey, and the time passed quickly for me listening to the apparently endless stock of strange experiences that had befallen him in his varied career. He was just in the middle of telling me how a meddlesome barber had robbed him of the anticipated fruits of many weeks of patient toil by surreptitiously rubbing a hair restorer into the hide of a horse, which Mr. Baker had laboriously plucked bare of hair in order to exhibit the animal through the country as a hairless horse, when the train whistled loudly, slowed down, and stopped.
“There’s no station here,” said Mr. Baker, pausing in his narration to look out of the window. “I wonder what she’s stopping for? Phew! What a strong smell of burning. Perhaps there’s a bush fire—”
He was interrupted by the impetuous entry of Barney King with dismay depicted on his countenance. “Our scenery’s on fire!” he exclaimed. “The whole lot is burning like tinder!”
We turned out hurriedly, and found the information only too true. A spark from the engine must have set the flimsy inflammable canvas alight, and the truck-load was burning fiercely. With the strenuous assistance of the guard and some of the male passengers we managed to drag out one piece, but the remainder was consumed to ashes.
“Heavens! What a blow!” said Barney, as he eyed the smoking ruin. “What rotten luck we have!”
My own feelings were too anguished for words. I stood by Barney’s side watching the last of our property smoulder away till I was aroused from my bitter reflection by Mr. Baker whispering in my ear that he wished to speak to me. Barney and I walked with him a few paces apart from the gaping passengers.
“Here’s a bit of luck!” he said. “Jones, the traffic manager, is on board this train.”
“I don’t see much luck about that,” I replied irritably. “He cannot give us back our scenery.”
“I didn’t say he could, but he can simplify the payment of compensation for you. I got my scenery burnt up this way once, and I had to take a special trip to Wellington and wait there for weeks getting my compensation claim through. Now, if you go and interview the traffic manager at once, you ought to be able to fix up the matter right away. Don’t be afraid to open your mouth pretty wide, for in this country the Government own the railways.”
I blush for my managerial ability as I record that the thought of compensation had not occurred to me till Mr. Baker spoke of it. His suggestion seemed an excellent one, for we were clearly entitled to some compensation. The only question was, how much? I knew nothing of the value of such things. The destroyed scenery, which had been Hivson’s, who had left it to us for what it was worth in lieu of the salaries he owed us, was old and knocked about, and shabby, but Barney assured me that to replace it in its entirety with new stuff would cost every penny of £75, unless we painted it ourselves.
“Then let it be £75 and not a penny less,” said Mr. Baker, firmly. “Barney and I can easily paint a new set for the expenditure of a tenner for materials and paints, and the railway department is compromising cheaply if it gets the services of two such distinguished scenic artists for £32 10s. each. Of course, you can come down gracefully if you have to, but try and fix up the thing on the spot rather than have the bother of a trip to Wellington. There’s the traffic manager standing by the truck now—that little fat man smoking a cigar. Tackle him while the iron’s hot.”
I followed the advice by walking over to where the traffic manager was standing. He received me courteously when I told him who I was, and listened attentively to my recital of the great inconvenience and loss the Merry Maurauders Dramatic Company would sustain through the destruction of their scenery, although he raised his eyebrows slightly when he heard the value we placed on it. I hastened to add that we were asking nothing for our prospective loss of public patronage. When I had finished he beckoned the guard into the conference, and after a careful examination of that worried functionary’s waybill, briefly intimated that he, on behalf of his department, was prepared to offer the sum of £60 in full payment of the claim.
I said I would accept the offer provided the amount was forwarded to me as soon as the traffic manager returned to Wellington, so that we could replace our scenery at once without my having to go to Wellington about the matter. Mr. Jones agreed to do this on my signing an indemnity form protecting the railway department from any further claim. The business having been thus satisfactorily concluded, I shook hands with Mr. Jones, accepted one of his cigars, and rejoined Barney and Mr. Baker to acquaint them with the result of the negotiations.
When the train resumed its journey Mr. Baker produced a large flask out of his pocket and pledged my health in a deep draught. As he handed the flask round he declared that I had brought to a successful issue a delicate mission that would have taxed even his powers of diplomacy, and he prophesied a successful future for me in the theatrical world. He expressed the opinion that it was the duty of every honest citizen to get—when he could—a bit out of the Government, which he looked upon as a parasitical institution that battened on the people, wringing the life blood out of them in the form of taxation.
Mr. Baker added that he had not been idle himself while I was engaged with the traffic manager, and if it had not been for his efforts our last surviving piece of scenery would have been left behind in the bush.
“Of all the infernal Philistines in the world commend me to Government railway employés,” continued Mr. Baker, refreshing himself with another draught from the flask. “They have no regard for works of art—not one of them. That confounded guard argued the point with me for ten solid minutes before he would consent to put that piece of scenery on the truck again. Had the impudence to tell me that as the department had paid for our old lumber he didn’t see why he should burden the train with a piece that wasn’t worth carrying, any way. Finding threats of no avail, I had recourse to tact, and invited him to adulterate his milk of human kindness with whiskey. That did the trick.”
I confess I did not see what use the one bit of scenery was going to be to us, and I said so. Mr. Baker, with a pitying smile, explained that the solitary survivor of the flames would be a very hard-worked little piece of scenery for some nights to come, as it would have to do the work of the destroyed stock till Barney and he could paint some more. I had anticipated finding sufficient stock scenery in the Ngati hall to do us as a make-shift while our own was being painted, but Mr. Baker told me that the hall of our next show-place didn’t contain enough scenery to stage a snake scene in Iceland—in fact, had none at all. He endeavoured to allay my anxiety on hearing this by insisting that any shortcomings in the way of scenery would be entirely lost sight of in the brilliance of the acting. He also intimated that if Shakespeare was able to play to a London audience without scenery, the Merry Marauders ought surely to be able to tackle a New Zealand audience with one piece.
I cannot say I was entirely convinced by this argument, but as talking was not likely to increase our stock of scenery I said no more, and shortly afterwards the train reached Ngati.
Higgins, our pianist, who had gone in advance to make things ready, was waiting on the station for us. His face was beaming with delight, due, as he immediately explained, to his having secured a guaranteed house for that night’s performance, from the Ngati Agricultural Society, whose annual show was then in progress in the town. The Merry Marauders were to receive £30 for the performance irrespective of the state of the house, and if the receipts exceeded that amount the balance was to be divided between the Society and ourselves.
Mr. Baker, Barney, and myself smiled in unison as we heard the good news. “I will go and mellow the guard’s milk of human kindness again before he lifts off that priceless survivor of the choice collection of scenic art which an envious and malicious fire destroyed,” exclaimed Mr. Baker, hurrying down to the truck where our one piece of scenery reposed. “Ah, there it is! the flower of the flock, our one ewe lamb, our Little Billee! Guard! On your careful handling of that frail painted piece of canvas—picturesque presentment of a ruined castle—depends, in part, the night’s sustenance of twelve people. So have another whiskey—and milk—if I may so express myself—to strengthen your nerve before you essay the task of lifting it down. Now, guard, let me help you. There—that’s the way—gently now. ‘Take it up tenderly, lift it with care, fashioned so slenderly, young, and so fair.’ More gently still—that’s it. Now, guard, let’s carry Little Billee into the luggage-room before we have another whiskey—and milk.”
When I saw the guard again as he got into his van to whistle off the express at the expiration of the twenty minutes allowed on the time-table for refreshments, he somehow or other reminded me of Wordsworth’s (or was it Tom Hood’s? I never can remember these literary fellows) beautiful poem of the shipwrecked cow to which was apportioned a daily share of the whiskey that the poor castaways had brought with them from the sinking ship, and which afterwards gratefully earned a modest competence for her rescuers all through England by giving whiskey and milk. His—the guard’s—face seemed literally to exude whiskey (and milk), and he gave the engine-driver the signal to depart into the dry prohibition depths of the King Country, where whiskey is not, with a stentorian “Right-o-hic-away, Bill!” that reverberated back from the hill-tops in thundering echoes, and brought the people of Ngati running to their doors under the alarmed impression that Mount Ngauruhoe was in eruption again.
Yours ever,
VAL.