Indignant as he was at this impertinence, there was something so exquisitely absurd in such a cartel of defiance, that Nicholas was obliged to bite his lip and read the note over two or three times before he could muster sufficient gravity and sternness to address the hostile messenger, who had not taken his eyes from the ceiling, nor altered the expression of his face in the slightest degree.
‘Do you know the contents of this note, sir?’ he asked, at length.
‘Yes,’ rejoined Mr. Folair, looking round for an instant, and immediately carrying his eyes back again to the ceiling.
‘And how dare you bring it here, sir?’ asked Nicholas, tearing it into very little pieces, and jerking it in a shower towards the messenger. ‘Had you no fear of being kicked downstairs, sir?’
Mr. Folair turned his head—now ornamented with several fragments of the note—towards Nicholas, and with the same imperturbable dignity, briefly replied ‘No.’
‘Then,’ said Nicholas, taking up the tall hat and tossing it towards the door, ‘you had better follow that article of your dress, sir, or you may find yourself very disagreeably deceived, and that within a dozen seconds.’
‘I say, Johnson,’ remonstrated Mr. Folair, suddenly losing all his dignity, ‘none of that, you know. No tricks with a gentleman’s wardrobe.’
‘Leave the room,’ returned Nicholas. ‘How could you presume to come here on such an errand, you scoundrel?’
‘Pooh! pooh!’ said Mr. Folair, unwinding his comforter, and gradually getting himself out of it. ‘There—that’s enough.’
‘Enough!’ cried Nicholas, advancing towards him. ‘Take yourself off, sir.’
‘Pooh! pooh! I tell you,’ returned Mr. Folair, waving his hand in deprecation of any further wrath; ‘I wasn’t in earnest. I only brought it in joke.’
‘You had better be careful how you indulge in such jokes again,’ said Nicholas, ‘or you may find an allusion to pulling noses rather a dangerous reminder for the subject of your facetiousness. Was it written in joke, too, pray?’
‘No, no, that’s the best of it,’ returned the actor; ‘right down earnest—honour bright.’
Nicholas could not repress a smile at the odd figure before him, which, at all times more calculated to provoke mirth than anger, was especially so at that moment, when with one knee upon the ground, Mr. Folair twirled his old hat round upon his hand, and affected the extremest agony lest any of the nap should have been knocked off—an ornament which it is almost superfluous to say, it had not boasted for many months.
‘Come, sir,’ said Nicholas, laughing in spite of himself. ‘Have the goodness to explain.’
‘Why, I’ll tell you how it is,’ said Mr. Folair, sitting himself down in a chair with great coolness. ‘Since you came here Lenville has done nothing but second business, and, instead of having a reception every night as he used to have, they have let him come on as if he was nobody.’
‘What do you mean by a reception?’ asked Nicholas.
‘Jupiter!’ exclaimed Mr. Folair, ‘what an unsophisticated shepherd you are, Johnson! Why, applause from the house when you first come on. So he has gone on night after night, never getting a hand, and you getting a couple of rounds at least, and sometimes three, till at length he got quite desperate, and had half a mind last night to play Tybalt with a real sword, and pink you—not dangerously, but just enough to lay you up for a month or two.’
‘Very considerate,’ remarked Nicholas.
‘Yes, I think it was under the circumstances; his professional reputation being at stake,’ said Mr. Folair, quite seriously. ‘But his heart failed him, and he cast about for some other way of annoying you, and making himself popular at the same time—for that’s the point. Notoriety, notoriety, is the thing. Bless you, if he had pinked you,’ said Mr. Folair, stopping to make a calculation in his mind, ‘it would have been worth—ah, it would have been worth eight or ten shillings a week to him. All the town would have come to see the actor who nearly killed a man by mistake; I shouldn’t wonder if it had got him an engagement in London. However, he was obliged to try some other mode of getting popular, and this one occurred to him. It’s a clever idea, really. If you had shown the white feather, and let him pull your nose, he’d have got it into the paper; if you had sworn the peace against him, it would have been in the paper too, and he’d have been just as much talked about as you—don’t you see?’
‘Oh, certainly,’ rejoined Nicholas; ‘but suppose I were to turn the tables, and pull his nose, what then? Would that make his fortune?’
‘Why, I don’t think it would,’ replied Mr. Folair, scratching his head, ‘because there wouldn’t be any romance about it, and he wouldn’t be favourably known. To tell you the truth though, he didn’t calculate much upon that, for you’re always so mild-spoken, and are so popular among the women, that we didn’t suspect you of showing fight. If you did, however, he has a way of getting out of it easily, depend upon that.’
‘Has he?’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘We will try, tomorrow morning. In the meantime, you can give whatever account of our interview you like best. Good-night.’
As Mr. Folair was pretty well known among his fellow-actors for a man who delighted in mischief, and was by no means scrupulous, Nicholas had not much doubt but that he had secretly prompted the tragedian in the course he had taken, and, moreover, that he would have carried his mission with a very high hand if he had not been disconcerted by the very unexpected demonstrations with which it had been received. It was not worth his while to be serious with him, however, so he dismissed the pantomimist, with a gentle hint that if he offended again it would be under the penalty of a broken head; and Mr. Folair, taking the caution in exceedingly good part, walked away to confer with his principal, and give such an account of his proceedings as he might think best calculated to carry on the joke.
He had no doubt reported that Nicholas was in a state of extreme bodily fear; for when that young gentleman walked with much deliberation down to the theatre next morning at the usual hour, he found all the company assembled in evident expectation, and Mr. Lenville, with his severest stage face, sitting majestically on a table, whistling defiance.
Now the ladies were on the side of Nicholas, and the gentlemen (being jealous) were on the side of the disappointed tragedian; so that the latter formed a little group about the redoubtable Mr. Lenville, and the former looked on at a little distance in some trepidation and anxiety. On Nicholas stopping to salute them, Mr. Lenville laughed a scornful laugh, and made some general remark touching the natural history of puppies.
‘Oh!’ said Nicholas, looking quietly round, ‘are you there?’
‘Slave!’ returned Mr. Lenville, flourishing his right arm, and approaching Nicholas with a theatrical stride. But somehow he appeared just at that moment a little startled, as if Nicholas did not look quite so frightened as he had expected, and came all at once to an awkward halt, at which the assembled ladies burst into a shrill laugh.
‘Object of my scorn and hatred!’ said Mr. Lenville, ‘I hold ye in contempt.’
Nicholas laughed in very unexpected enjoyment of this performance; and the ladies, by way of encouragement, laughed louder than before; whereat Mr Lenville assumed his bitterest smile, and expressed his opinion that they were ‘minions’.
‘But they shall not protect ye!’ said the tragedian, taking an upward look at Nicholas, beginning at his boots and ending at the crown of his head, and then a downward one, beginning at the crown of his head, and ending at his boots—which two looks, as everybody knows, express defiance on the stage. ‘They shall not protect ye—boy!’
Thus speaking, Mr. Lenville folded his arms, and treated Nicholas to that expression of face with which, in melodramatic