"Now or never," calmly replied the vender from her chair-top.

"The devil take the women," muttered Hart, frantically, as he rushed headlong into his tiring-room.

"Marry, Heaven defend," laughed Nell; "for he's got the men already."

She sprang lightly from the chair to the floor.

Hart was back on the instant, well out of breath but purse in hand.

"Here, here," he exclaimed. "Never mind the oranges, wench. The audience will be waiting."

"Faith and troth, and is not Nell worth waiting for?" she cried, her eyes shining radiantly. Indeed, the audience would have gladly waited, could they have but seen her pretty, winsome way! "These are yours--all--all!" she continued, as she gleefully emptied the basket of its remaining fruit over Prince Almanzor's head.

Hart protested vainly.

Then rushing back to Moll, Nell threw both arms about the girl triumphantly. "There, Moll," she said, "is your basket and all the trophies"; and she gave Moll the basket with the glittering coins jangling in it.

"Your cue--your cue is spoken, Mistress Nell," shrieked d.i.c.k from the stage-door.

Nell heeded not. Her eyes happening upon an orange which had fallen near the throne-chair, she caught it up eagerly and hurled it at Manager Hart.

"Forsooth, here's another orange, Master Manager."

He succeeded in catching it despite his excitement.

"Your cue--your cue--Mistress Nell!" came from every throat as one.

Nell tossed back her head indifferently. "Let them wait; let them wait,"

she said, defiantly.

The stage-beauty crossed leisurely to the gla.s.s and carelessly arranged her drapery and the band of roses encircling her hair.

Then the hoyden was gone. In an instant, Nell was transformed into the princess, Almahyde. The room had been filled with breathless suspense; but what seemed to the players an endless period of time was but a minute. Nell turned to the manager, and with all the suavity of a princess of tragedy kissed her hand tantalizingly to him and said: "Now, Jack, I'll teach you how to act."

She pa.s.sed out, and, in a moment, rounds of applause from the amphitheatre filled the room. She was right; the audience would wait for her.

A moment later, the greenroom was deserted except for Manager Hart and Lord Buckingham. Hart had thrown the call-boy almost bodily through the door that led to the stage, thus venting his anger upon the unoffending lad, who had been unfortunate enough to happen in his way ill betimes.

He now stood vainly contemplating himself before the gla.s.s and awaiting his cue. Buckingham leaned upon a chair-top, uncertain as to his course.

"Damme! She shall rue this work," he muttered at length. "A man might as well make love to a wind-mill. I forgot to tell her how her gown becomes her. That is a careless thing to forget." The reflection forthwith determined his course. "Nelly, Nelly, Nelly," he called as he quickly crossed the room after the departed Nell, "you are divine to-night. Your gown is simply--"

The manager's voice stayed him at the stage-door. "My lord, come back; my lord--"

Buckingham's hand had gone so far, indeed, as to push open the door. He stood entranced as he looked out upon the object of his adoration upon the stage. "Perfection!" he exclaimed. "Your eyes--"

"My lord, my lord, you forget--"

Buckingham turned indignantly at the voice which dared to interrupt him in the midst of his rhapsody.

"You forget--your oranges, my lord," mildly suggested Hart, as he pointed to the fruit scattered upon the floor.

Buckingham's face crimsoned. "Plague on't! They are sour, Master Hart."

With a glance of contempt, he turned on his heel and left the room.

A triumphant smile played upon the manager's face. He felt that he had annoyed his lordship without his intention being apparent. "A good exit, on my honour," he muttered, as he stood contemplating the door through which Buckingham had pa.s.sed; "but, by Heaven, he shall better it unless he takes his eyes from Nell. Great men believe themselves resistless with the fair; more often, the fair are resistless with great men."

He took a final look at himself in the gla.s.s, adjusted his scimiter; and, well satisfied with himself and the conceit of his epigram unheard save by himself, he also departed, to take up his cue.

CHAPTER III

_He took them from Castlemaine's hand to throw to you._

The greenroom seemed like some old forest rent by a storm. Its furniture, which was none too regular at best, either in carving or arrangement, had the irregularity which comes only with a tempest, human or divine. The table, it is true, still stood on its four oaken legs; but even it was well awry. The chairs were scattered here and there, some resting upon their backs. To add to all this, oranges in confusion were strewn broadcast upon the floor.

A storm in fact had visited the greenroom. The storm was Nell.

In the midst of the confusion, a jolly old face peeped cautiously in at the door which led to the street. At the sound of Manager Hart's thunderous tones coming from the stage, however, it as promptly disappeared, only to return when the apparent danger ceased. It was a rare old figure and a rare old dress and a rare old man. Yet, not an old man either. His face was red; for he was a tavern spirit, well known and well beloved,--a lover of good ale! Across his back hung a fiddle which too had the appearance of being the worse for wear, if fiddles can ever be said to be the worse for wear.

The intruder took off his dilapidated hat, hugged his fiddle closely under his arm and looked about the room, more cautiously than respectfully.

"Oons, here is a scattering of props; a warfare of the orange-wenches!"

he exclaimed. "A wise head comes into battle after the last shot is fired."

He proceeded forthwith to fill his pockets, of which there seemed to be an abundance of infinite depth, with oranges. This done, he calmly made a hole in the next orange which came to his hand and began to suck it loudly and persistently, boy-fashion, meanwhile smacking his lips. His face was one wreath of unctuous smiles. "There is but one way to eat an orange," he chuckled; "that's through a hole."

At this moment, Hart's voice was heard again upon the stage, and the new-comer to the greenroom liked to have dropped his orange. "Odsbud, that's one of Master Hart's love-tones," he thought. "I must see Nell before he sees me, or it will be farewell Strings." He hastened to Nell's tiring-room and rapped lightly on the door. "Mistress Nell!

Mistress Nell!" he called.

The door opened, but it was not Nell. Her maid pointed toward the stage.

Strings--for Strings was his name, or at least none knew him by a better--accordingly hobbled across the room--for the wars too had left their mark on him--and peeped off in the direction indicated.

"Gad," he exclaimed, gleefully clapping his hands, "there she goes on the stage as a Moorish princess."

There was a storm of applause without.

"Bravo, Nelly, bravo!" he continued. "She's caught the lads in the pit.

They worship Nell out there." The old fellow straightened up as if he felt a personal pride in the audience for evincing such good taste.

"Oons! Jack Hart struts about like a young game-c.o.c.k at his first fight," he observed. He broke into an infectious laugh, which would have been a fine ba.s.so for Nell's laugh.

From the manager, his eye turned toward the place which he himself had once occupied among the musicians. He began to dance up and down with both feet, his knees well bent, boy-fashion, and to clap his hands wildly. "Look ye, little Tompkins got my old place with the fiddle.

Whack, de-doodle-de-do! Whack, de-doodle, de-doodle-de-do!" he cried, giving grotesque imitations to his own great glee of his successor as leader of the orchestra.

Then, shaking his head, confident of his own superiority with the bow, he turned back into the greenroom and, with his mouth half full of orange, uttered the droll dictum: "It will take more than catgut and horse-hair to make you a fiddler, Tommy, my boy."