“Sweet are the uses of advertisement.” The Professional Shakespeare.
“I believe in the value of an ad.,” said Mrs. Gudrun one night at the Paris Grand Opera, the Sceptre Theatre, London, being temporarily closed pending a new production. “Sarah believes in it, too—and that’s another of the remarkable points of resemblance between us. And for the sake of a puff, I’m willing to do all that a woman can.”
“Can’t do more,” said De Petoburgh, shaking his head owlishly. “Can’t possibly do more.”
“Shut up, De Peto. That woman’s ready to bite you for talking through her big aria,” commanded Mrs. Gudrun, with a slight glance of imperial indifference towards the infuriated prima donna. She dropped her opera-glasses into the orchestra with a crash, narrowly shaving the kettle-drums, and causing the cymbal-player to miss his cue, as she continued: “But, though I’m generally keen to see the pay-end of a big notion, this idea of Bobby Bolsover’s won’t do for macaroons. Not that I’m lacking in what the Americans call horse-grit—wasn’t I on De Brin’s automobile when he won the Paris-Rouen race with his Gohard Cup Defender in nineteen-three? That was one hairbreadth escape, from the revolver shot that started us—you remember Bobby put in ball cartridge by mistake—to the three flying kilometers at the finish, which we did on one wheel, as the brakes refused to act. And I’ve hung by one coupling over a raging 194American river in my own drawing-room Pullman saloon. But when it comes to dangling in a little basket that weighs next to nothing from a bag of gas that weighs nothing at all—I’m not taking any, and I don’t care who knows it. A captive balloon’s another thing. You’re cabled and sand-bagged and what not, and, unless you jump out, nothing can happen to you. But——Do see who’s knocking at the door!”
It was a uniformed and epauletted functionary conveying the polite intimation of the management that Madame and her party must positively maintain silence during the performance, or make themselves the trouble to depart!
“Tell him we’d had enough and were just going!” commanded Mrs. Gudrun. She rose, and, followed by the Duke, Bobby Bolsover, and Teddy Candelish—most active and ubiquitous of business managers, sailed out of the box, knocking over a fauteuil and carrying a footstool away upon the surging billows of her train. “Calls herself an artist!” she said, in reference to the prima donna, upon whose trills and roulades an enraptured audience hung breathless and enthralled; “and lets herself be put about by a little thing like that! Where’s her artistic absorption, I should like to know. Why, I’ve studied Juliet in the drawing-room where Bobby and De Petoburgh were having a rat-hunt under the tables and things, and what difference did it make to my conception of the part? Not a sou. And she was a shrimp-seller at Nice! They all have that voce squillante and those thick flat ankles and those rolling black eyes like treacle-balls. Let’s go and have some supper at the Café Paris.”
Over American grilled lobster and quails Georges Sand, Bobby Bolsover’s grand notion for an advertisement, cropped up again. One may explain that it consisted in the suggestion that Mrs. Gudrun and party 195should electrify Paris, and subsequently London, by traveling per motor-airship from St. Cloud, rounding the Eiffel Tower in emulation of the immortal Santos, and returning to the Highfliers’ Club airship station at the Parc upon the conclusion of the feat. A friend of De Petoburgh’s, a distinguished member of the Highfliers’ Club, would undertake to lend the airship—a newly completed vessel, with basket accommodation for three. This philanthropist did not propose to share the notoriety by joining the trip, and it was to be distinctly understood that De Petoburgh was to be responsible for any expenses involved.
And Bobby Bolsover, brimming, as usual, with genuine British bravery and brandy-and-soda, was ready to assume command.
“You know the principle of a motor?” Bobby demanded, as the supper proceeded, and a collection of champagne corks, gradually amassed on the corner of the table, assumed proportions favorable to purposes of demonstration.
“Candelish knows the principle of a motor,” said De Petoburgh. “Never could learn myshelf. Too much borror!”
“One may say that there is gasoline in a receptacle,” began Teddy. “Air passing through becomes charged with gas, and comes out ready to explode. Then——”
“To explode,” agreed De Petoburgh; “absorutely correc’ dennifishion, by Ringo!”
“Don’t mind De Peto: he’s in for one of his old attacks,” said Mrs. Gudrun. “His legs have been all over the place since breakfast. Well?”
“You give a twirl to a crank,” said Bobby Bolsover.
“Down goes the piston,” continued Teddy.
“Down go her pistol,” nodded De Petoburgh.
“And the dashed thing begins working automatically,” exclaimed Bobby Bolsover. De Petoburgh balked 196at the six-syllabled hedge. “Now, an airship is an example of——”
“The effectiveness of an a?rial propeller driven by a petrol motor,” put in Teddy.
“Jusso,” said De Petoburgh. “Jusso.”
“There is, practically speaking, no danger whatever,” pursued Bobby Bolsover, warming to the subject, “that does not attend other popular pursuits. You may be thrown from a horse, or tumble off a coach-box——”
“Did once,” said De Petoburgh, smiling in sad retrospection.
“Or you may blow up in a motor,” went on Bobby.
“But in either case,” said Mrs. Gudrun, with point, “one is on the ground, not hanging between heaven and earth, like What’s-his-name’s coffin.”
“Brarro!” exclaimed De Petoburgh. “Encore! Bis!”
“Permit me to put in, dear lady,” said Teddy Candelish, with his best professional manner, “that if you fall out of an airship, you eventually finish on the ground!”
“Under,” gloomily interpolated De Petoburgh. “Under.”
“And, further,” said Bobby Bolsover, “the guide-rope is in connection with the ground all the time. Seventy feet of it, trailing like——”
“Snakes!” said the irrepressible De Petoburgh, with a glassy stare.
“And,” went on Bobby, “we will have four picked men from the Highfliers’ Club Grounds to run beside the guide-rope all the way and back.”
“Thus combining personal advertisement,” said Teddy Candelish, “with physical integrity.”
Mrs. Gudrun permitted her classical features to soften. “Now you’re talking!” the lady said. She smiled through the bottom of her champagne-glass as Teddy, bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, and 197the trip was arranged forthwith. Thanks to the discretion of Teddy Candelish, the preparations were kept so profoundly secret that all Paris was on the alert when the eventful morning dawned. The Highfliers’ Club Grounds were literally besieged, and the intending sky-navigators fought their way to the a?rodrome containing their vessel through a surging throng of scientists, editors, journalists, dandies, actresses, photographers, pickpockets, and politicians.
“Regular scrimmage—what?” panted Bobby Bolsover, as, bare-headed and disheveled, he reached the private side-door of the balloon-house.
“We ought to have slept here,” said Mrs. Gudrun, straightening her hat-brim as the breathless men collected her hairpins.
“Nothing but perches to sleep on,” objected Bobby Bolsover, indicating the skeleton arrangements of the vast interior.
Mrs. Gudrun, whose eye soared with Bobby’s, would have changed color had the feat been possible.
“Do we really climb up that awful ladder to get on board?” she inquired. “I have more nerve than any woman I know; but I wasn’t educated as an acrobat. J’en suis tout baba, Bobby, that you should have let us all in for a thing like this. We’re planted, however, and must go through. What crowds of smart women! What on earth has brought them out so early in the morning? It must have got about that I’m going to be killed!” She gulped and clutched Teddy. “I c-can’t go on in this scene! Make an apology—make an apology and say I’m ill. I am ill—horribly!”
“I feel far from frisky,” said Bobby Bolsover candidly. “Gout all last night in the head and eyes, and—every limb, in fact, that one relies upon in steering a motor. But, of course, I am ready to undertake the helm—unless anybody else would like to volunteer?”
198He looked at Teddy, whose eye was clear, whose cheek was blooming, whose golden curls encroached upon a forehead unlined with the furrows of personal apprehension.
“W-what do you say, Teddy?” gasped Mrs. Gudrun.
“I deeply regret.... It is imperatively necessary, dear lady,” said Teddy glibly, “that in your absolute interests I should be at the ‘Fritz’ at twelve. The Paris representatives of the Daily Yelper, the Morning Whooper, and the Greenroom Rag, have appointed that hour to receive particulars of your start; three Berlin correspondents, one from Nice, and the editors of the Journal Rigolo and the Vie Patachon are to hole in ten minutes later; and there will be thousands of telegrams to open and answer. You know that the Syndicate of the Escurial Palace of Varieties have actually tendered to secure the turn. Therefore, though my heart will make the voyage in your company, I—cannot.”
Blue-eyed Teddy melted into thin air. Mrs. Gudrun, looking older than a professional beauty has any right to look, surveyed her companions with a hollow gaze of despair, while outside the a?rodrome Paris roared and waited. Bobby, as green as jade, in a complete suit of motor armor, goggles included, leaned limply against the ladder that led upwards to the platform of the a?rodrome. De Petoburgh, in foul-wea............