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He had answered many encores, and he was an instinctive artist. It was part of the fuel of his vanity that his audience had never yet had enough of him. Dramatic judgment, as well as dramatic sense of delivery, was native to him, qualities which the shrewd Felix Stuhk, his manager and exultant discoverer, recognized and wisely trusted in.
"Yes, seh, I's had champagne, and it's a nice kind of lickeh sho enough; but, Misteh Stuhk, seh, I don' want any of them high-tone drinks to-night, an' ef yo' don' mind, I'd rather amble off 'lone, or mebbe eat that po'k-chop with some otheh cullud man, ef I kin fin' one that ain' one of them no-'count Carolina niggers. Do you s'pose yo' could let me have a little money to-night, Misteh Stuhk?"
He felt suddenly very weary of Stuhk. "Nothing the matter, Gideon, is there? Not feeling sick or anything?" "No, Misteh Stuhk; no, seh. Jes don' feel extry pert, that's all." "But what is it anything bothering you?" Gideon sat gloomily before his mirror. "Misteh Stuhk," he said at last, "I been steddyin' it oveh, and I about come to the delusion that I needs a good po'k-chop.
"I'll bet that coon's going to buy himself a ring or something," he reflected as he went in search of the local manager and Gideon's money. But Stuhk was wrong. Gideon had no intention of buying himself a ring. For the matter of that, he had several that were amply satisfactory.
Seems foolish, I know, but it do' seem as if a good po'k-chop, fried jes right, would he'p consid'able to disumpate this misery feelin' that's crawlin' and creepin' round my sperit." Stuhk laughed. "Pork-chop, eh? Is that the best you can think of? I know what you mean, though. I've thought for some time that you were getting a little overtrained.
For months he had lived in a heaven of gratified vanity, but at last his appetite had begun to falter. He was sated; his soul longed to wipe a spiritual mouth on the back of a spiritual hand, and have done. His face, now that the curtain was down and he was leaving the stage, was doleful, almost sullen. Stuhk met him anxiously in the wings, and walked with him to his dressing-room.
To be sure, Gideon had done the rest; Stuhk was as ready as any one to do credit to Gideon's ability. Still, after all, he, Stuhk, was the discoverer, the theatrical Columbus who had had the courage and the vision.
The place was eery with the ghost of dead effort; but it pleased him. He made a fire and cooked supper, eating enormously and with relish. His conscience did not trouble him at all. Stuhk and his own career seemed already distant; they took small place in his thoughts, and served merely as a background for his present absolute content. He picked some oranges, and ate them in meditative enjoyment.
When Gideon was on the stage, Stuhk used to enjoy peeping out at the intent, smiling faces of the audience, where men and women and children, hardened theater-goers and folk fresh from the country, sat with moving lips and faces lit with an eager interest and sympathy for the black man strutting in loose-footed vivacity before them.
Stuhk thought rapidly. Gideon had certainly worked hard, and he was not dissipated. If he wanted to roam the town by himself, there was no harm in it. The sullenness still showed in the black face; Heaven knew what he might do if he suddenly began to balk. Stuhk thought it wise to consent gracefully. "Good!" he said. "Fly to it. How much do you want? A hundred?" "How much is coming to me?"
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