Free New Albion by Dwayne Brenna Page B

suddenly rising. “You are sacked, sir.”
    Pratty got up from his chair as if this was completely expected. He thrust one arm into the sleeve of the ratty greatcoat which had been slung over his knees during the brief conversation. “Pearls before swine, as they say.”
    Mr. Wilton was fairly bouncing with anger. “Beg pardon, sir?”
    Pausing at the door, Pratty said, “Pearls before swine. A common phrase for common folk.”
    “More insolence!” Mr. Wilton bellowed. “Never darken my door again!”
    All would have been lost at that moment had I not said, in a pitch that sounded a little like high C on the organ at St. Paul’s, “Em, Mr. Wilton, we have less than two months now to mount the pantomime. The puffs will have to be written posthaste, the transformation scene created in our workshop, and the play rehearsed. I do not believe that the production can be gotten up in time if Mr. Farquhar Pratt is sacked, sir.”
    “We’ll find another playwright,” Mr. Wilton shouted, his face taut and hard and craggy as a mountain peak. “A better one.”
    “I’m afraid,” I said quietly, trying not to offend my employer, “that all of the reputable playwrights in London will have been hired by other theatres for their own pantomimes. Of course, there is always Eustace Heywood to fall back upon –” I was referring to Mr. Farquhar Pratt’s predecessor as stock playwright at the New Albion, a man more noted for sleeping off a night’s debauchery on the curb outside the theatre than for anything he did within. Mr. Heywood and the theatre had parted company nine years years earlier.
    “Drunken sot!” replied Mr. Wilton, his fists clenched. “Even so, he would probably be better than what we are saddled with now.”
    “Of course,” I added, “we would have to bail Mr. Heywood out of debtor’s prison, where he currently resides.”
    Mr. Wilton could not sustain his rage. He sat down in his leather armchair and looked as miserable as any animal in the London Zoo. “Is there no one else?” he asked quietly. “What about young Colin here?”
    Having been slouched in his chair, Mr. Tyrone came to attention. “I could give it a try, sar,” he said. “It’ll be a farst, but I’m haccustomed to farsts.”
    All of the colour in Mr. Wilton’s cheeks was dispelled at that moment. “Is there really nobody else?” He was looking at me.
    “Nobody that comes to mind,” I said.
    There was a brief pause, and then Mr. Wilton spoke in low measured tones. “Very well, then,” he said to me. “Call Pratt back in.”
    Pratty was nearly down the stairs and out the stage door by the time I tracked him down. Breathlessly, I told him that Mr. Wilton had had a change of heart.
    “A change of heart?” he replied. “Assuming Stoneface has a heart at all!”
    “He would like to speak to you again,” I said.
    Pratty looked me in the eye. “Do you think that insults roll off my back like water? I will not attend him in his office again.”
    “He had no intention of insulting you, Mr. Farquhar Pratt,” I responded. “What was said was said in the heat of the moment. On both sides.”
    It took some doing, but at last I was able to persuade Mr. Farquhar Pratt to relent in his desire to leave the theatre forever. We trudged in silence back up the creaky stair case to Mr. Wilton’s office. Mr. Wilton and young Tyrone were sitting in exactly the same positions in which I had left them; it was as if they had created a stage tableau. Mr. Wilton’s face was white as a new tombstone.
    There was a silence, and then Mr. Wilton spoke. “I will reinstate you, Mr. Farquhar Pratt. On the condition that you will agree to write the pantomime and that you will be faithful, from now on, to the schedule which Phillips has put before you.”
    It was Pratty’s turn to be haughty. He stood up straight. I could almost hear his spine cracking. “What of my fee?” he said, resolutely.
    “Your fee?” Mr. Wilton said.
    “Yes.”
    The