Читать книгу A Pirate of Parts - Richard Neville - Страница 5

Yes, he was a strolling player pure and simple. He was an actor by profession, and jack of all trades through necessity. He could play any part from Macbeth to the hind leg of an elephant, equally well or bad, as the case might be. What he did not know about a theatre was not worth knowing; what he could not do about a playhouse was not worth doing—provided you took his word for it. From this it might be inferred he was a useful man, but he was not. He had a queer way of doing things he ought not to do, and of leaving undone things he should have done. Good nature, however, was his chief quality. He bubbled over with it. Under the most trying circumstances he never lost his temper. He laughed his way through life, apparently without care. Yet he was a man of family, and those who were dependent upon him were not neglected, for his little ones were uppermost in his heart. Acting was his legitimate calling, but he would attempt anything to turn an honest penny. In turn he had been sailor, engineer, pilot, painter, manager, lecturer, bartender, soldier, author, clown, pantaloon, and a brass band. To preach a sermon would disconcert him as little as to undertake to navigate a balloon. He could get away with a pint of Jersey lightning, and under its stimulating influence address a blue ribbon temperance meeting on the pernicious effects of rum. Where he was born no one could tell. He claimed laughingly that it was so long since he was first produced he had lost track of the date. A friend of his maintained that he was bred in the blue grass region, he was such an admirable judge of whisky. On that score he might as well have been born in the County Galway as in the state of Kentucky. He had a voluminous shock of red hair; his name was Handy, and no one ever thought of addressing him otherwise, even on the slightest acquaintance. When he had an engagement he was poorer than when he was out of a job. He was a daisy of the chronic impecunious variety.

The summer of—'7 was a hard season with actors, and as Handy was one of the guild he suffered like the rest of his calling. He was not so fortunate as to have country relatives with whom he might visit and spend a brief vacation down on the old farm, so he had to bestir himself to hit upon some scheme or other to bridge over the so-called dog days. He pondered over the matter, and finally determined to organize a company to work the towns along the Long Island Sound coast. Most men would have shrunk from an undertaking of this character without the necessary capital to embark in the venture. Handy, however, was not an individual of that type. He was a man of great natural and economical resources, when put to the test. Moreover, he had a friend who was the owner of a good-sized canvas tent; was on familiar terms with another who was the proud possessor of a fairly good-sized sailing craft; his credit at the printer's was good for twenty or twenty-five dollars, and in addition he had eleven dollars in hard cash in his inside pocket. What more could an enterprising man, with energy to burn, desire?

On the Rialto Handy picked up seven good men and true, who, like himself, had many a time and oft fretted their brief hour upon the stage—and possibly will again—who were willing to embark their fame and fortune in the venture. They knew Handy was a sailor bold, and so long as they had an angel in the shape of a vessel to perform the transportation part of the scheme without being compelled to count railroad ties, in case of ill luck, sailing was good enough for them. Besides, time was no object, for they had plenty of it to spare.

They were all actors like Handy himself. The stories they could unfold of barn-storming in country towns in years gone by would fill a volume as bulky as a census report. Moreover, they could turn their talents to any line of business and double, treble, quintuple parts as easily as talk. They were players of the old stock school.

One of the company played a cornet badly enough to compel the inhabitants of any civilized town to take to the woods until he had made his departure; another was a flutist of uncertain qualifications, while a third could rasp a little on the violin; and as for Handy himself, he could tackle any other instrument that might be necessary to make up a band; but playing the drum—the bass drum—or the cymbals, was his specialty.

A company was accordingly organized, the day of departure fixed, the printing got out—and the printer "hung up." The vessel was anchored off Staten Island, and was provisioned with one keg of beer, a good-sized box of hardtack, a jar of Vesey Street pickles, a Washington Street ham, five large loaves and all the fishes in the bay. The company, after some preliminary preparations, boarded the Gem of the Ocean, for such was the pretentious name of the unpretentious craft that was to carry Cæsar and his fortunes. Perhaps Handy's own description of the first night's adventure might prove more interesting than if given by another.