Character Q&A

One reader asked Phawkes:

"Hey Phawkes! Where, and how, did you meet your partner?"

Answer:

Ah, an interesting question that. 

I don’t suppose that I ever gave much thought to attending theatre, certainly not in my younger days. It was by purest chance that I found myself, stifling yawns, in the upper balcony of St. Bast’s College opera hall. 

The Dean of Marksmanship had developed a keen interest in theatre following the enrolment of his second daughter, Hethetica in the school’s College of Abstract Arts.

Myself, I had a keen interest in anything that might facilitate a transfer into Marksmanship and out of the teeth-achingly dull College of Applied Colonization.

Of course, I hadn’t bothered to discuss this plan with my father beforehand… all the more reason to win my way into the good graces of the Old Panther, as the Dean was known at the time.

Hethetica, as I recall, was playing the roll of some manner of ill-fated strumpet in the troupe’s production of Mew Flanders. Of her performance, I can recall little, apart from the frequent pauses in the recitation of her lines. It soon became apparent that the young lady had not memorized her part quite as well as she might have, given her titular roll in the drama.

As the evening progressed, I became aware of the Dean’s growing discomfort at my side, and I as well began to perspire, not only from the heat of the lime lamps, but from the fear that all this might, somehow, reflect badly upon me. I noticed more than a few members of the audience failed to return from the lobby after the Intermission.

During the third act, the poor girl’s performance, if anything, deteriorated. The audience grew ever more restless, and whispers filled the awkward silence left by every forgotten line.

During one particularly painful pause, it appeared that one of her fellow actors could take no more. A young Persian chap, who played the parson officiating one of the strumpet’s many marriages, began to improvise. I can’t recall now any of what he said, but his quick wit transformed a rather dull morality play into a ribald comedy.

The audience couldn’t have been more pleased… and the Dean of Marksmanship couldn’t have been more furious.

As soon as the curtain closed, the Dean was on his feet, and I, close on his tail, as terrified of what he might do next as I was curious. He pushed his way backstage, with me at his heel, and challenged the young Persian to a duel at dawn for besmirching the honor of his daughter with such an obscene performance.

I recall that it was quite difficult to hear him over the roaring applause of the audience beyond the curtain. The young Persian showed no sign of fear, though everyone at the college knew the Dean’s fearsome reputation with the revolver. The Persian simply informed the Old Panther that, as he made a habit of sleeping past noon every day, he would, regretfully have to decline the offered duel.

The Dean, now sputtering with rage, seized his daughter by the hand and dragged her from the theatre, leaving the snowy-haired lad to bask in the admiration of his fellow actors.

I could not say then why I chose to linger backstage among the soft-paws and libertines. Forgotten, for the moment, were all my dreams of courting the elite of the gun-oil set. So caught up was I in this mad rush of laughter and frivolity, a world utterly alien to me, I think I may even have cracked a smile or two at something the young Persian said.

By the time the sun rose the following morning, I stank of cigarillos, cheap wine, and bohemian sentiments. Over the course of the evening, I became acquainted with more than a few of the kind of students who would have never been admitted to the college in my father’s day, but, of them, I recall only a single name, that of the only man brave enough to ever tell the Old Panther to bugger off.

He told me his name was Prancy.