And it was! The simplicity of the
thing was what impressed him. Since winning a scholarship at school by
altering the number of marks opposite his name on a paper lying on the
master's desk, Edward Henry had never achieved advancement by a device
so simple. And he thought: "I am nothing! The Five Towns is nothing!
All that one hears about Americans and the United States is true. As
far as getting on goes, they can make rings round us. Still, I shall
tell him about the Countess and the mule--"
"Yes," continued Mr. Seven Sachs, "Wunch was very kind to me. But he
was pretty well down and out, and he left, and Archibald got a
new stage-manager, and I was promoted to do a bit of assistant
stage-managing. But I got no increase of salary. There were two
women stars in the play Archibald was doing then--'The Forty-Niners.'
Romantic drama, you know! Melodrama you'd call it over here. He never
did any other sort of play. Well, these two women stars were about
equal, and when the curtain fell on the first act they'd both make a
bee line for Archibald to see who'd get to him first and engage him
in talk. They were jealous enough of each other to kill. Anybody could
see that Archibald was frightfully bored, but he couldn't escape. They
got him on both sides, you see, and he just _had_ to talk to 'em, both
at once. I used to be fussing around fixing the properties for the
next act.
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