‘The Primate of Fiji’ was duly accepted and put into rehearsal by the astute and enterprising manager of the Ambiguities Theatre. ‘It’s a risk,’ he said candidly, when he read the manuscript over, ‘a decided risk, Mr. Berkeley; I acknowledge the riskiness, but I don’t mind trying it for all that. You see, you’ve staked everything upon the doubtful supposition that the Public possesses a certain amount of elementary intelligence, and a certain appreciation of genuine original wit and humour. Your play’s literature, good literature; and that’s rather a speculative element to introduce into the regular theatre nowadays. Illegitimate, I should call it; decidedly illegitimate—but still, perhaps, worth trying. Do you know the story about old Simon Burbury, the horsedealer? Young Simon says to him one morning, “Father, don’t you think we might manage to conduct this business of ours without always telling quite so many downright lies about it?” The old man looks back at him reproachfully, and says with a solemn shake of the head, “Ah, Simon, Simon, little did I ever think I should live to see a son of mine go in for speculation!” Well, my dear sir, that’s pretty much how a modern manager feels about the literary element in the drama. The Public isn’t accustomed to it, and there’s no knowing how they may take it. Shakespeare, now, they stand readily enough, because he’s an old-established and perfectly respectable family purveyor. Sheridan, too, of course, and one play of Goldsmith’s, and a trifle or so of George Colman—all recognised and all tolerated because of their old prescriptive respectability. But for a new author to aim at being literary’s rather presumptuous; now tell me yourself, isn’t it? Seems as if he was setting himself up for a heaven-sent genius, and trying to sit upon the older dramatists of the present generation. Melodrama, sensation, burlesque—that’s all right enough—perfectly legitimate; but a real literary comic opera, with good words and good music—it IS a little strong, for a beginner, Mr. Berkeley, you WILL acknowledge.’
‘But don’t you think,’ Arthur answered, smiling good-humouredly at his cynical frankness, ‘an educated and cultured Public is beginning to grow up that may, perhaps, really prefer a little literature, provided it’s made light enough and attractive enough for their rapid digestion? Don’t you think intelligent people are beginning to get just a trifle sick of burlesque, and spectacle, and sensation, and melodrama?’
‘Why, my dear sir,’ the manager answered promptly, ‘that’s the exact chance on which I’m calculating when I venture to accept your comic opera from an unknown beginner. It’s clever, there’s no denying that, and I hope the fact won’t be allowed to tell against it: but the music’s bright and lively; the songs are quaint and catching; the dialogue’s brisk and not too witty; and there’s plenty of business—plenty of business in it. I incline to think we can get together a house at the Ambiguities that’ll enter into the humour of the thing, and see what your play’s driving at. How did you learn all about stage requirements, though? I never saw a beginner’s play with so little in it that was absolutely impossible.’
‘I was a Shooting Star at Oxford,’ Berkeley answered simply, ‘so that I know something—like a despised amateur—about stage necessities; and I’ve written one or two little pieces before for private acting. Besides, Watkiss has helped me with all the technical arrangements of the little opera.’
‘It’ll do,’ the manager answered, more confidently; ‘I won’t predict a success, because you know a manager should never prophesy unless he knows; but I think there’s a Public in London that’ll take it in, just as they took in “Caste” and “Society,” twenty years back, at the Prince of Wales’s. Anyhow, I’m quite prepared to give it a fair trial.’
On the first night, Arthur Berkeley and the Progenitor went down in fear and trembling to the stage door of the Ambiguities. There was a full house, and the critics were all present, in some surprise at the temerity of this new man; for it was noised abroad already by those who had seen the rehearsals that ‘The Primate of Fiji’ was a fresh departure, after its own fashion, in the matter of English comic opera. The curtain rose upon the chorus of mermaids, and the first song was a decided hit. Still the Public, as becomes a first night, maintained a dignified and critical reserve. When the President of the Board of Trade, in full court costume, appeared upon the scene, in the midst of the very realistic long-haired sea-ladies, the audience was half shocked for a moment by the utter incongruity of the situation; but after a while they began to discover that the incongruity was part of the joke, and they laughed quietly a sedate and moderate laugh of suspended judgment. As the Progenitor had predicted, the gods were the first to enter into the spirit of the fun, and to give a hand to the Primate’s first sermon. The scientific professors on the Challenger Expedition took the fancy of the house a little more decidedly; and even the stalls thawed visibly when the professor of biology delivered his famous exposition of the evolution hypothesis to the assembled chiefs of Raratouga. But it was the one feeble second-hand old joke of the piece that really brought pit and boxes down together in a sudden fit of inextinguishable laughter. The professor of political economy enquired diligently, with note book in hand, of the Princess of Fiji, whether she thought the influence of the missionaries beneficial or otherwise; whether she considered these preachers of a new religion really good or not; to which the unsophisticated child of nature responded naively, ‘Good, very good—roasted; but not quite so good boiled,’ and the professor gravely entered the answer in his philosophic note-book. It was a very ancient jest indeed, but it tickled the ribs of the house mightily, as ancient jests usually do, and they burst forthwith into a hearty roar of genuine approval. Then Arthur began to breathe more freely. After that the house toned down again quietly, and gave no decided token of approbation till the end of the piece. When the curtain dropped there was a lull of hushed expectation for poor Arthur Berkeley; and at its close the house broke out into a storm of applause, and ‘The Primate of Fiji’ had firmly secured its position as the one great theatrical success of the present generation.
There was a loud cry of ‘Author! Author!’ and Arthur Berkeley, hardly knowing how he got there, or what he was standing on, found himself pushed from behind by friendly hands, on to the narrow space between the curtain and the footlights. He became aware that a very hot and red body, presumably himself, was bowing mechanically to a seething and clapping mass of hands and faces over the whole theatre. Backing out again, in the same semi-conscious fashion, with the universe generally reeling on more than one distinct axis all around him, he was seized and hand-shaken violently, first by the Progenitor, then by the manager, and then by half a dozen other miscellaneous and unknown persons. At last, after a lot more revolutions of the universe, he found himself comfortably pitched into a convenient hansom, with the Progenitor by his side; and hardly knew anything further till he discovered his own quiet supper table at the Chelsea lodgings, and saw his father mixing a strong glass of brandy and seltzer for him, to counteract the strength of the excitement.
Next morning Arthur Berkeley ‘awoke, and found himself famous.’ ‘The Primate of Fiji’ was the rage of the moment. Everybody went to hear it—everybody played its tunes at their own pianos—everybody quoted it, and adapted it, and used its clever catchwords as the pet fashionable slang expressions of the next three seasons. Arthur Berkeley was the lion of the hour; and the mantelpiece of the quiet little Chelsea study was ranged three rows deep with cards of invitation from people whose very names Arthur had never heard of six months before, and whom the Progenitor declared it was a sin and shame for any respectable young man of sound economical education even to countenance. There were countesses, and marchionesses, too, among the senders of those coronetted parallelograms of waste pasteboard, as the Progenitor called them—nay, there was even one invitation on the mantelpiece that bore the three strawberry leaves and other insignia of Her Grace the Duchess of Leicestershire.
‘Can’t you give us just ONE evening, Mr. Berkeley,’ said Lady Hilda Tregellis, as she sat on the centre ottoman in Mrs. Campbell Moncrieff’s drawing-room with Arthur Berkeley talking lightly to her about the nothings which constitute polite conversation in the nineteenth century. ‘Just one evening, any day after the next fortnight? We should be so delighted if you could manage to favour us.’
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t, Lady Hilda,’ Arthur answered. ‘My evenings are so dreadfully full just now; and besides, you know, I’m not accustomed to so much society, and it unsettles me for my daily work. After all, you see, I’m a journeyman playwright now, and I have to labour at my unholy calling just like the theatrical carpenter.’
‘How delightfully frank,’ thought Lady Hilda. ‘Really I like him quite immensely.—Not even the afternoon on Wednesday fortnight?’ she went on aloud. ‘You might come to our garden party on Wednesday fortnight.’
‘Quite impossible,’ Arthur Berkeley answered. ‘That’s my regular day at Pilbury Regis.’
‘Pilbury Regis!’ cried Lady Hilda, starting a little. ‘You don’t mean to say you have engagements, and in the t............