This was done, and Bertie and Eustace were billed all over the neighbourhood in large lettering. The fateful night arrived, and Sadie had a seat in the front row, and nearly twisted her head off looking back to count the audience, for the truth is, she was extremely anxious about her nest-egg.
Her fears were quickly laid to rest, for the hall filled up very pleasantly, and soon the curtain was raised, and there was Eustace bowing and smiling like a Svengali. Bertie also graciously responded to the applause. «What wonderful springs Eustace must have fixed in him!» thought Sadie. «I should think there is hardly anything he couldn't do. Certainly he is very much handsomer than Charlie McCarthy.»
Now the show began, and to Sadie's dismay a slight hitch soon became apparent Eustace took the figure on his knee, and addressed some old and corny gags to it, which he had found in the back pages of the book on ventriloquism. It at once became apparent that he had not studied the front pages sufficiently, for his voice had no more bounce in it than a lump of lead. Moreover, the springs in the figure's jaws obstinately refused to work, and all became aware that Eustace was a lousy ventriloquist
The audience began to hoot and jeer. Eustace, who had no idea of what was wrong, took this to be a sign that they found the performance altogether too good to be true, so he advanced smiling to the foot-lights and invited them to come up straight-away and stick pins in the dummy.
There are always some who find an invitation of this sort irresistible. These filed upon the platform, and were handed out-size pins with souvenir heads on them, but as soon as the first of these was applied to Master Bertie, an agonized «ouch!» re-echoed through the hall and convinced everyone that he was not even a genuine dummy.
This completed the disgust of the audience, who felt they had been taken for two rides, in opposite directions. A riot immediately started; the police burst in, and all the money had to be refunded. Eustace, who had come in a cab, had to stagger home on foot, overwhelmed by Bertie's considerable weight and by Sadie's upbraidings, which were no less hard to bear.
Arrived home, he deposited the figure on the divan, and stood like a man utterly beaten, hanging his head. Sadie continued to reproach him, for she felt the loss of her money very keenly, and no longer believed in the I don't know how many hundred thousand a year. «You did it on purpose,» said she. «You ruined everything on purpose.»
«No, my dear,» said he. «I did not do that. My ventriloquism was not very effective, I admit.»
«Don't be so brazen,» said she. «Don't be so barefaced. That final 'ouch' was the work of a master. You paraded your powers just where they were most destructive.»
«No. No,» said he. «I didn't let out that 'ouch.' I was as much surprised as anyone.»
«If you didn't do it, who did?» said she.
«How can I tell?» said he. «Unless, possibly, it was Bergen, who may have attended the show in a false beard, eager to ruin such a promising rival.»
«Stuff and nonsense,» said she. «You did it yourself, and you know it»
«It may be possible,» said he. «After all, the pin was stuck into the child of my genius, and I have a sensitive nature, though I am now a practical ventriloquist. But if so, Sadie, I assure you it was unconscious».
«About as unconscious as that pinch you gave me,» said Sadie with a sneer.
«I swear to you that was an unconscious pinch,» said Eustace.
«Oh, no, it wasn't,» said Bertie, who had been regarding this regrettable scene with his supercilious smile. «Sadie is right, as usual It was I who gave her the pinch. What's more, I was perfectly conscious of doing so, and the memory lingers yet.»
«But we are not married,» squealed Sadie. «We are not even engaged. What can we do?» She tittered, placed her hand on her mouth, and regarded the dummy with big, reproachful eyes.
«What are you?» cried Eustace, utterly flabbergasted. «Speak! Speak!»
«I speak when I want to, and I keep quiet when I want to,» replied the image.
«Are you some damned soul,» cried Eustace, «let out on parole from Hell, who nipped into my furnace to get a brief warm-up, and found my masterpiece there?»
The figure smiled superciliously.
«Is it possible,» cried Eustace, «that the clay in my back yard is the original clay from which Adam was made? But that would imply that Brooklyn is on the site of the Garden of Eden.»
The figure laughed outright
«Or have I succeeded,» said Eustace, «where all the scientists have failed, and changed dead clay into organic colloidal matter, charged with pep and energy? That must be it. In that case I'm the hell of a sculptor!»
«Have it your own way,» said the figure. «In any case you're a lousy ventriloquist, and it's ventriloquism that rakes in the I don't know how many hundred thousand a year.»
«There is something in that,» said Eustace. «But since you can speak so well, surely we can give terrific performances.»
«Not with me as the stooge,» said Bertie. «I have the looks and I have the personality. I'm not sitting on your knee any more. You can sit on mine if you like, and I'll run the show and draw the money.»
«Me sit on your knee?» cried Eustace. «No!»
«Oh, it's not so bad,» said the other. «Come on, why don't you try it? You don't want to? Well, perhaps the little lady will try.»
«Yes, I will,» said Sadie. «I don't think I don't know how many hundred thousand a year is to be sneezed at.» With that she seated herself on the image's knee.
«How d'you like it, honey?» asked the image.
«I think we ought to be engaged,» said she. «In fact, I think we ought to be married.»
«Don't worry about that,» said the image, chucking her under the chin. «On the stage, it's different. We troupers are practical.»
«Then take your practicality out of my studio,» said Eustace. «I'm going back to ideals. No more ventriloquism, no more clay, no more springs! I'm going to make tombstones, and by gosh, I'll make 'em heavy!»
«Just as you please,» said the image. «Sadie and I will get on very well as a couple.»
«She will not like the pins,» said Eustace.
«I shall allow no pins,» said the image with a reassuring glance at Sadie. «Just a little matter of this sort.» As he spoke, he gave her another pinch, similar to the first he had given her, only this time her squeal was in a deeper, fuller tone.
«Your squeal is very deep and full,» said Eustace to her, as he icily opened the door for their exit. «You had better remember that some of the springs I used were abominably old and rusty.»
With that he shut the door after them, and, contrary to his expressed intention, he approached a chunk of clay that stood handy, and began to model it into a very fetching Eve-like figure. Halfway through, however, he changed his mind yet again, and turned out a cute little Sealyham.
YOUTH FROM VIENNA
Young men with open faces, red cheeks, and brown hair all behave in the same way, and nothing in the world could be more reasonable. They fall into a job or in love with the utmost readiness and enthusiasm. If oil and Lucille let them down, they pretty soon console themselves with steel and Estelle.
Other young men seem born for one passion only, or maybe two, one job and one woman. If both passions are there they run together, like railway lines; they are strong as steel, and as devoid of romantic colouring. They go on forever, and if one or other fails the results are apt to be serious. Young men of this sort are sometimes very tall, lean to emaciation, with skull-like faces, deep-set and rather burning eyes, and mouths either terribly sensitive or terribly cruel, it is hard to say which. If they are poor they look like nothing on earth; if they are rich they look like Lincoln in the rail-splitting period.