The Fun Factory Read Online Free PDF Page B

that down!” he hissed.
    “I was just letting in some air,” I protested, but he was already hustling me briskly through the crowd.
    “I know, I know, but there’s someone I want you to meet, and it would be better if he didn’t know you really were a porter. You see the fellow in the striped blazer?”
    I did.
    “Well, that’s the Rotter!”
    “The rotter?”
    “From the Footlights Club.”
    “You mean the one who stole your trousers?”
    “Exactly so.”
    I drew myself up to my full height. “I see, sir. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to sling him out of the gates on his backside…?”
    “No, no, no, no,
no-o-o-o
!” Luscombe urgently grabbed my arm again to hold me back. “He was in tonight, he saw the smoker and wants to talk to you, to me, to
us
! Come on!”
    Harry Rottenburg – ‘The Rotter’ – was the president of the Footlights Club and – although I didn’t know it at that moment – he was the university’s leading theatrical celebrity. He was holding court at the far side of the room, surrounded by a dozen or more acolytes gazing at him worshipfully over the rims of their champagne glasses. The Rotter was somewhat older than his courtiers, having been a student himself some ten years earlier, and he now was a senior member of the university’s engineering department. His nickname was rather misleading, as “rotting”, or being a “rotter”, was undergraduate slang at that time for joking or sending someone up. Luscombe dragged me over and we hovered at his elbow, waiting for him to draw breath, which he did presently.
    “Mr Luscombe, there you are. I congratulate you, sir. An excellent turn.”
    Luscombe beamed. Praise from the Rotter was praise indeed. The Rotter was a burly figure, with broad shoulders and a square face that looked like it had been knocked about a bit. If his speciality, onstage that is, was playing female roles, then they must have been exclusively female characters who had played rugby union for Scotland (as he himself had).
    “And I apologise for the high jinks with your clothing last time we met. I sent a man round to your rooms with the items. I trust they arrived safely?”
    “Oh yes, thank you,” gushed Luscombe. “And there’s no need for apologies, really. Excellent rotting!”
    “Well, there we are. And this is your man, is it?”
    “Dandoe,” Luscombe put in, before I could speak for myself. “This is Dandoe, yes. Excellent chap.”
    “I congratulate you too, Mr Dandoe, most entertaining.” The Rotter offered his hand and I took it. A huge, meaty fist it was too. “Here’s the gist,” he went on. “I’m putting together a show at the New Theatre. It’s practically written, and I dare say we’ll be able to find something for the two of you. What do you say?”
    I was dumbstruck. Luscombe looked as though he had died and gone to heaven.
    “I’d be deligh … that is to say,
we’d
be delighted, wouldn’t we, Dandoe? Yes indeed we would,” Luscombe jabbered, and before I could say a word on my own account it was all arranged, and the Rotter swept grandly out of the Old Reader with his retinue in his wake. Luscombe was quite beside himself with glee.
    “Did you hear? We are to be in a Footlights show! How absolutely bally splendid!”
    I was sorry to bring him down to earth, because surely it was impossible for me, a mere college servant, to take part.
    “Ah, no, because I told Browes to tell the Rotter you were my manservant, my gentleman’s gentleman, do you see, and they would have no problem with that, it would be perfectly fine. It was all I could think of at the time, it was all rather sprung on me, and I wasn’t sure whether he liked you or me. But if you’re my man, do you see, he can’t have one of us without the other,so it fits the bill rather splendidly, doesn’t it?”
    Well, whether it did or it didn’t, I’d felt the intoxicating thrill of the Power. I wanted more, and whatever it took I was going to