Chapter I: One of the Players

"Do I know everybody?" I asked Myra towards the end of the dinner, looking round the table.

"I think so," said Myra. "If there's anybody you don't see in the window ask for him."

"I can see most of them. Who's that tall handsome fellow grinning at me now?"

"Me," said Archie, smiling across at us.

"Go away," said Myra. "Gentlemen shouldn't eavesdrop. This is a perfectly private conversation."

"You've got a lady on each side of you," I said heatedly, "why don't you talk to _them_? It's simply scandalous that Myra and I can't get a moment to ourselves."

"They're both busy; they won't have anything to say to me."

"Then pull a cracker with yourself. Surely you can think of something, my lad."

"He has a very jealous disposition," said Myra, "and whenever Dahlia---- Bother, he's not listening."

I looked round the table again to see if I could spy a stranger.

"There's a man over there--who's he? Where this orange is pointing."

"Oranges don't point. Waggle your knife round. Oh, him? Yes, he's a friend of Archie's--Mr Derry."

"Who is he? Does he do anything exciting?"

"He does, rather. You know those little riddles in the Christmas crackers?"

"Yes?"

"Yes. Well, he couldn't very well do those, because he's an electrical engineer."

"But why----"

"No, I didn't. I simply asked you if you knew them. And he plays the piano beautifully, and he's rather a good actor, and he never gets up till about ten. Because his room is next to mine, and you can hear everything, and I can hear him not getting up."

"That doesn't sound much like an electrical engineer. You ask him suddenly what amperes are a penny, and see if he turns pale. I expect he makes up the riddles, after all. Simpson only does the mottoes, I know. Now talk to Thomas for a bit while I drink my orange."

Five minutes elapsed, or transpired (whichever it is), before I was ready to talk again. Generally, after an orange, I want to have a bath and go straight off to bed, but this particular one had not been so all-overish as usual.

"Now then," I said, as I examined the crystallised fruit, "I'm with you in one minute."

Myra turned round and looked absently at me.

"I don't know how to begin," she said to herself.

"The beginning's easy enough," I explained, as I took a dish of green sweets under my charge, "it's the knowing when to stop."

"Can you eat those and listen to something serious?"

"I'll try.... Yes, I can eat them all right. Now, let's see if I can listen.... Yes, I can listen all right."

"Then it's this. I've been putting it off as long as I can, but you've got to be told to-night. It's--well--do you know why you're here?"

"Of course, I do. Haven't I just been showing you?"

"Well, why are you here?"

"Well, frankly, because I'm hungry, I suppose. Of course, I know that if I hadn't been I should have come in to dinner, just the same, but---- Hang it, I mean that's the root idea of a dining-room, isn't it? And I am hungry. At least I was."

"Stave it off again with an almond," said Myra, pushing them along to me. "What I really meant was why you're here in the house."

This was much more difficult. I began to consider possible reasons.

"Because you all love me," I started; "because you put the wrong address on the envelope; because the regular boot-boy's ill; because you've never heard me sing in church; because--stop me when I'm getting warm--because Miss Fortescue refused to come unless I was invited; because----"

"Stop," said Myra. "That was it. And, of course, you know I didn't mean that at all."

"What an awful lot of things you don't mean to-night. Be brave, and have it right out this time."

"All right, then, I will. One, two, three--we're going to act a play on Saturday."

She leant forward, and regarded me with apprehension.

"But why not? I'll promise to clap."

"You can't, because, you see, you're going to act too. Isn't it jolly?" said Myra breathlessly.

I gave what, if I hadn't just begun the last sweet, would have been a scornful laugh.

"Me act? Why, I've never--I don't do it--it isn't done--I don't act--not on Saturdays. How absurd!"

"Have you told him, Myra?" Dahlia called out suddenly.

"I'm telling him now. I think he's taking it all right."

"Don't talk about me as 'him'!" I said angrily. "And I'm not taking it all right. I'm not taking it at all."

"It's only such a very small part--we're all doing something, you know. And your costume's ordered and everything. But how awfully sporting of you."

After that, what could I say?

"Er--what am I?" I asked modestly.

"You're a--a small rat-catcher," said Myra cheerfully.

"I beg your pardon?"

"A rat-catcher."

"You said a small one. Does that mean that I'm of diminutive size, or that I'm in a small way of business, or that my special line is young ones?"

"It means that you haven't much to say."

"I see. And would you call it a tragic or a pathetic part?"

"It's a comic part, rather. You're Hereditary Grand Rat-Catcher to the Emperor Bong. Bong the Second. Not the first Bong, the Dinner Bong."

"Look here. I suppose you know that I've never acted in my life, and never been or seen a rat-catcher in my life. It is therefore useless for you to tell me to be perfectly natural."

"You have so little to do; it will be quite easy. Your great scene is where you approach the Emperor very nervously----"

"I shall do the nervous part all right."

"And beg him to spare the life of his mother-in-law."

"Why? I mean, who is she?"

"Miss Fortescue."

"Yes, I doubt if I can make that bit seem quite so natural. Still, I'll try."

"Hooray. How splendid!"

"A rat-catcher," I murmured to myself. "Where is the rat? The rat is on the mat. The cat is on the rat. The bat is on the cat. The----"

"Mr Derry will go through your part with you to-morrow. Some of it is funnier than that."

"The electrical engineer? What do they know about rat-catching?"

"Nothing, only----"

"Aha! Now I see who your mysterious Mr Derry is. He is going to coach us."

"He is. You've found it out at last. How bright green sweets make you."

"They have to be really bright green sweets. Poor man! What a job he'll have with us all."

"Yes," said Myra, as she prepared to leave me. "Now you know why he doesn't get up till ten."

"In the rat-catching business," I said thoughtfully, as I opened the door, "the real rush comes in the afternoon. Rat-catchers in consequence never get up till ten-thirty. Do you know," I decided, "I am quite beginning to like my little part."