I am eight years older now. It had never occurred to me that I am
advancing in life and experience until, in setting myself to recall
the various details of the affair, I suddenly remembered my timid
confusion before the haughty mien of the clerk at Keith Prowse's.
I had asked him: "Have you any amphitheatre seats for the Opera to-night?"
He did not reply. He merely put his lips together and waved his hand
slowly from side to side.
Not perceiving, in my simplicity, that he was thus expressing a
sublime pity for the ignorance which my demand implied, I innocently
proceeded: "Nor balcony?"
This time he condescended to speak.
"Noth--ing, sir."
Then I understood that what he meant was: "Poor fool! why don't you
ask for the moon?"
I blushed. Yes, I blushed before the clerk at Keith Prowse's, and
turned to leave the shop. I suppose he thought that as a Christian it
was his duty to enlighten my pitiable darkness.
"It's the first Rosa night to-night," he said with august affability.
"I had a couple of stalls this morning, but I've just sold them over
the telephone for six pound ten."
He smiled. His smile crushed me. I know better now. I know that clerks
in box-offices, with their correct neckties and their air of
continually doing wonders over the telephone, are not, after all, the
grand masters of the operatic world. I know that that manner of theirs
is merely a part of their attire, like their cravats; that they are
not really responsible for the popularity of great sopranos; and that
they probably go home at nights to Fulham by the white omnibus, or to
Hammersmith by the red one--and not in broughams.
"I see," I observed, carrying my crushed remains out into the street.
Impossible to conceal the fact that I had recently arrived from
Edinburgh as raw as a ploughboy!
If you had seen me standing irresolute on the pavement, tapping my
stick of Irish bog-oak idly against the curbstone, you would have
seen a slim youth, rather nattily dressed (I think), with a shadow of
brown on his upper lip, and a curl escaping from under his hat, and
the hat just a little towards the back of his head, and a pretty good
chin, and the pride of life in his ingenuous eye. Quite unaware that
he was immature! Quite unaware that the supple curves of his limbs had
an almost feminine grace that made older fellows feel paternal! Quite
unaware that he had everything to learn, and that all his troubles lay
before him! Actually fancying himself a man because he had just taken
his medical degree....
The June sun shone gently radiant in a blue sky, and above the roofs
milky-bosomed clouds were floating in a light wind. The town was
bright, fresh, alert, as London can be during the season, and the
joyousness of the busy streets echoed the joyousness of my heart (for
I had already, with the elasticity of my years, recovered from the
reverse inflicted on me by Keith Prowse's clerk). On the opposite side
of the street were the rich premises of a well-known theatrical club,
whose weekly entertainments had recently acquired fame. I was, I
recollect, proud of knowing the identity of the building--it was one
of the few things I did know in London--and I was observing with
interest the wondrous livery of the two menials motionless behind the
glass of its portals, when a tandem equipage drew up in front of the
pile, and the menials darted out, in their white gloves, to prove that
they were alive and to justify their existence.