第38章

I laugh at the knockabout brothers, I confess, so long as they are on the stage; but they do not convince me.Reflecting on the performance afterwards, my dramatic sense revolts against the "plot."I cannot accept the theory of their being brothers.The difference in size alone is a strain upon my imagination.It is not probable that of two children of the same parents one should measure six foot six, and the other five foot four.Even allowing for a freak of nature, and accepting the fact that they might be brothers, I do not believe they would remain so inseparable.The short brother would have succeeded before now in losing the long brother.Those continual bangings over the head and stomach would have weakened whatever affection the short brother might originally have felt towards his long relation.At least, he would insist upon the umbrella being left at home.

"I will go for a walk with you," he might say, "I will stand stock still with you in Trafalgar Square in the midst of the traffic while you ask me silly riddles, but not if you persist in bringing with you that absurd umbrella.You are too handy with it.Put it back in the rack before we start, or go out by yourself."Besides, my sense of justice is outraged.Why should the short brother be banged and thumped without reason? The Greek dramatist would have explained to us that the shorter brother had committed a crime against the gods.Aristophanes would have made the longer brother the instrument of the Furies.The riddles he asked would have had bearing upon the shorter brother's sin.In this way the spectator would have enjoyed amusement combined with the satisfactory sense that Nemesis is ever present in human affairs.I present the idea, for what it may be worth, to the concoctors of knockabout turns.

[Where Brotherly (and Sisterly) Love reigns supreme]

The family tie is always strong on the music-hall stage.The acrobatic troupe is always a "Family": Pa, Ma, eight brothers and sisters, and the baby.A more affectionate family one rarely sees.

Pa and Ma are a trifle stout, but still active.Baby, dear little fellow, is full of humour.Ladies do not care to go on the music-hall stage unless they can take their sister with them.I have seen a performance given by eleven sisters, all the same size and apparently all the same age.She must have been a wonderful woman--the mother.They all had golden hair, and all wore precisely similar frocks--a charming but decolletee arrangement--in claret-coloured velvet over blue silk stockings.So far as I could gather, they all had the same young man.No doubt he found it difficult amongst them to make up his mind.

"Arrange it among yourselves," he no doubt had said, "it is quite immaterial to me.You are so much alike, it is impossible that a fellow loving one should not love the lot of you.So long as I marry into the family I really don't care."When a performer appears alone on the music-hall stage it is easy to understand why.His or her domestic life has been a failure.Ilistened one evening to six songs in succession.The first two were sung by a gentleman.He entered with his clothes hanging upon him in shreds.He explained that he had just come from an argument with his wife.He showed us the brick with which she had hit him, and the bump at the back of his head that had resulted.The funny man's marriage is never a success.But really this seems to be his own fault."She was such a lovely girl," he tells us, "with a face--well, you'd hardly call it a face, it was more like a gas explosion.

Then she had those wonderful sort of eyes that you can see two ways at once with, one of them looks down the street, while the other one is watching round the corner.Can see you coming any way.And her mouth!"It appears that if she stands anywhere near the curb and smiles, careless people mistake her for a pillar-box, and drop letters into her.