Part V Chapter 4 Doctor Dolittle's Circus by Hugh Lofting
FAME, FORTUNE--AND RAIN
Stage Manager Dolittle's anxiety about his company's behavior before a real audience turned out to be unnecessary. The lights and the music and the enormous crowd, instead of scaring the animals, had the effect of making them act the better. The Doctor said afterward that they had never done as well in rehearsal.
As for the audience, from the moment that the curtain went up they were simply spellbound. At the beginning many people would not believe that the actors were animals. They whispered to one another that it must be a troupe of boys or dwarfs, with masks on their faces. But there could be no disguising the two little owls who had opened the show by marching out like soldiers with the announcement cards. And as the pantomime proceeded even the most unbelieving of the audience could see that no human actors, no matter how well trained and disguised, could move and look like this.
At first Gub-Gub was an easy favorite. His grimaces and antics made the audience rock with laughter. But when Dab-Dab came on, opinion was divided. Her dance with Toby and Jip simply brought down the house, as the saying goes. She captivated everybody. And it was really marvelous, considering how ungainly she usually was in her movements, to see with what grace she did the minuet. The people clapped, stamped the floor, yelled "Encore!" and just wouldn't let the show go on till she had done her dance a second time.
Then a lady in the front row threw a bunch of violets onto the stage. Dab-Dab had never had flowers thrown at her before and didn't know what to make of it. But Swizzle, an old actor, understood. Springing forward, he picked up the bouquet and handed it with a flourish to Columbine.
"Bow!" whispered the Doctor from the wings in duck language. "Bow to the audience--to the lady who threw the bouquet!"
And Dab-Dab curtsied like a regular ballerina.
When the curtain came down at the end and the music of the orchestra blared out loud the applause was deafening. The company trooped on hand in hand and bowed again and again. And still the audience called them back. Then the Doctor made them take the calls separately. Gub-Gub did antics and made faces; Swizzle took off his helmet and bowed; Toby sprang into the air with harlequinish agility; Jip struck tragic Pierrot-like attitudes, and Dab-Dab once more brought down the house by pirouetting across the stage on her toes, flipping kisses to the audience with the tips of her wings.
More bouquets were thrown to Columbine and a bunch of carrots to Pantaloon--which he started eating before he left the stage.
Mr. Bellamy said he had never seen such enthusiasm in the theatre since he had owned it. And he immediately asked Blossom if he would be willing to renew the engagement for a second week.
When the other turns were over and the audience left the theatre Gub-Gub went out into the hall to look at the stage from the seats. There he found many programs scattered around the floor. He asked the Doctor what they were. And he was delighted when he was shown his own name printed there as playing the part of Pantaloon.
"Humph!" said he, folding it carefully. "I must keep this. I think I'll put it in my menu album."
"Don't you mean your stamp album?" asked the Doctor.
"No," said Gub-Gub. "I gave up collecting stamps some time ago. I collects menus now. They're much better fun to look at."
The Dolittle household, now that they were encamped near the theatre, did not see so much of their old friends of the circus. Nevertheless, the Doctor frequently went across the amusement park to see how Matthew and the pushmi-pullyu were getting on. And Hop the clown, Hercules and the Pintos often visited the theatre to see the pantomime and to make tea at the Dolittle wagon.
The extraordinary success of the Doctor's play continued throughout the week--the crowds growing greater, if anything, with each performance. It became necessary to secure seats a long way in advance if you wanted to see the show, a thing which had only happened once before at the Amphitheatre when a world-famous violinist had played there.
Wealthy gentlemen and elegant ladies called at the Doctor's little wagon almost every evening to congratulate him and to see and pet his marvelous animal actors. Gub-Gub got frightfully conceited and put on no end of temperamental airs, often refusing to see his admirers if they called during the hour he was accustomed to take for his nap.
"Famous artists have to be very careful of themselves," he said. "I am only at home to callers between ten and twelve in the morning. You better have that printed in the newspapers, Doctor."
One lady brought an autograph album for him to sign, and with the Doctor's help, he put a very clumsy "G. G." in it for her and the picture of a parsnip, which, he said, was his family crest.
Dab-Dab, although she had become just as famous, was much more easily interviewed by visitors. Immediately after each performance she could be seen bustling about her household duties in the wagon, often still wearing her ballet skirt while she made beds or fried potatoes.
"That pig makes me tired," she said. "What's the use of our putting on airs? None of us would be famous if it hadn't been for the Doctor. Any animal could do what we do if they had him to teach them. By the way, Doctor," she added, spreading the tablecloth for supper, "have you been to see Blossom about the money?"
"No," said the Doctor. "Why bother yet? The first week is hardly over. And I understand the pantomime is to run a second one. No, I haven't seen Blossom in--let me see--not in three days."
"Well, you ought to. You should go and get your share of the money every night."
"Why? Blossom is a trustworthy man."
"Is he?" said Dab-Dab, putting the salt-cellars on the table. "Well, I wouldn't trust him further than I could see him. If you take my advice, you'll get your money each night. There must be a lot owing to you, especially since they put the pantomime on twice a day instead of only in the evening."
"Oh, that's all right, Dab-Dab," said the Doctor. "Don't worry. Blossom will bring me the money as soon as he has his accounts straightened out."
The housekeeper during the next few days frequently asked John Dolittle to see about this matter, but he never would. And even after the first week was over and the second nearly so Blossom had not come forward with the Doctor's share, nor, indeed, was he often seen by any member of the Dolittle household. The pushmi-pullyu had also done well with his sideshows, and, as the money made by this was quite sufficient for living expenses, the easy-going Doctor, as usual, refused to worry.
Toward the end of the second week the fame of the Puddleby Pantomime had become so great and so many people had called to interview the Doctor and his company that it was decided to give an at home and to invite the public to tea.
Then for a whole morning the good housekeeper was more than usually busy. Over two hundred printed cards of invitation had been sent out. Mrs. Mugg was called in to help. A large number of small tables were set about the wagon; the inside of the caravan was decorated with flowers; lots of tea and cakes were prepared and at four o'clock on Saturday afternoon the gates of the little enclosure beside the theatre were thrown open to visitors.
All the animals, some of them dressed in their pantomime costumes, then acted as hosts and sat around at the tables, sipping tea with the elegant ladies and gentlemen who were anxious to meet them. It was a farewell party, for the next day the whole of Blossom's Circus was to leave. The Mayor of the city came and the Mayoress and a number of newspaper reporters, who made sketches in their notebooks of Hostess Dab-Dab pouring tea and Gub-Gub handing around cakes.
The next day, after one of the most successful visits of its career, the circus packed up and moved out of Manchester.
The town they went to was a small one, some twelve miles to the northeast. Rain began to fall as the wagons arrived at the show ground and th work of setting up was very disagreeable for everyone. For, besides the wretched, steady drizzle, the dirt underfoot soon got worked up into mud with the constant tramping of feet.
The rain continued the next day, and the next. This, of course, was a terrible thing for the circus business, because nobody came to see the show.
"Well, never mind," said the Doctor, as his family sat down to breakfast on the third rainy morning. "We made plenty of money in Manchester. That should tide us over a bad spell easily."
"Yes, but you haven't got that money yet, remember," said Dab-Dab, "thought goodness knows I've told you often enough to ask Blossom for it."
"I saw him this morning," said John Dolittle, "just before I came in to breakfast. It's quite all right. He says it was such a large amount he was afraid to keep it on him or in his wagon. So he put it in a bank in Manchester."
"Well, why didn't he take it out of the bank when he left," asked Dab-Dab, "and give you half of it?"
"It was a Sunday," said the Doctor. "And, of course, the banks were closed."
"But what does he mean to do about it, then?" asked the housekeeper. "He isn't going to leave it there, is he?"
"He's going back to-day to fetch it. He was just starting off on horseback when I spoke to him. I didn't envy him his ride in the rain."
Now, running a circus is an expensive thing. The animals have to be fed, the workmen and performers have to be paid and there are a whole lot of other expenses for which money must be handed out hourly. So that during these rainy days, when no people came and the enclosure stood wet and empty instead of making money, "The Mammoth Circus" was losing it every day--every hour, in fact.
Just as the Doctor finished speaking the menagerie keeper, with his coat collar turned up against the rain, poked his head in at the door.
"Seen the boss anywhere around?" he asked.
"Mr. Blossom has gone into Manchester," said John Dolittle. "He expects to be back about two in the afternoon, he told me."
"Humph!" said the man. "That's a nuisance."
"Why?" asked the Doctor. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"I want money for rice and hay--for the menagerie," said the keeper. "The boss said he'd give me some this morning. The corn dealer's brought the feed. 'E won't leave it unless he gets his money. And my animals need the stuff bad."
"Oh, I suppose it slipped Mr. Blossom's mind," said the Doctor. "I'll pay the bill for you and get it from him when he returns. How much is it?"
"Thirty shillings," said the keeper--"two bales of hay and fifty pounds of rice."
"All right," said the Doctor. "Too-Too, give me the money box."
"There you are! There you are!" Dab-Dab broke in, her feathers all ruffled up with anger. "Instead of getting the money from Blossom that he owes you, you are paying his bills for him! The animals' feed isn't your concern. What's the use? What's the use? Blossom getting richer and you getting poorer; that's you, all over."
"The animals must be fed," said the Doctor, taking the money from the box and giving it to the keeper. "I'll get it back, Dab-Dab. Don't worry!"
The rain grew heavier and heavier all that morning. This was the circus's fourth day in this town. Hardly a penny had been taken in at the gates since the tents had been set up.
The Doctor, ever since his performance with Beppo at Bridgeton, had been looked upon by the show folk with an almost superstitious respect. Any man, they felt, who could talk the language of animals must know more about them than a mere ringmaster like Blossom. The Doctor had little by little made great changes throughout the management of the whole concern--though there still remained a tremendous lot that he wished to alter. Many of the performers had for some time considered him as the most important man in the circus and Blossom as just a figurehead.
The menagerie keeper had hardly left before another man turned up wanting money for some other of the daily expenses of the show. And throughout that morning people kept coming to the Doctor with tales that Blossom had promised them payment at a certain time. The result, of course, was that before long the Dolittle money box (which had been quite well filled by the pushmi-pullyu's exhibition the last two weeks) was empty once more.
Two o'clock in the afternoon came--three o'clock--and still Mr. Blossom hadn't returned.
"Oh, he must have been delayed," said the Doctor to Dab-Dab, who was getting more anxious and more angry every minute. "He'll be here soon. He's honest. I'm sure of that. Don't worry."
At half-past three Jip, who had been out nosing around in the rain, suddenly rushed in.
"Doctor!" he cried. "Come over to Blossom's wagon. I think there's something wrong."
"Why, Jip? What's the matter?" said the Doctor, reaching for his hat.
"Mrs. Blossom isn't there," said Jip. "At first I thought the door was locked. But I pushed it, and it wasn't. There's nobody in it. His trunk is gone--and nearly everything else, too. Come over and look. There's something queer about this."