Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham.mobi [285]
“Well, it comes round to my own idea in the end.”
One day, when Philip had been at the shop for five months, Miss Alice Antonia, the well-known seriocomic, came in and asked to see Mr. Sampson. She was a large woman, with flaxen hair, and a boldly painted face, a metallic voice, and the breezy manner of a comédienne accustomed to be on friendly terms with the gallery boys of provincial music-halls. She had a new song and wished Mr. Sampson to design a costume for her.
“I want something striking,” she said. “I don’t want any old thing, you know. I want something different from what anybody else has.”
Mr. Sampson, bland and familiar, said he was quite certain they could get her the very thing she required. He showed her sketches.
“I know there’s nothing here that would do, but I just want to show you the kind of thing I would suggest. ”
“Oh no, that’s not the sort of thing at all,” she said, as she glanced at them impatiently. “What I want is something that’ll just hit ’em in the jaw and make their front teeth rattle.”
“Yes, I quite understand, Miss Antonia,” said the buyer, with a bland smile, but his eyes grew blank and stupid.
“I expect I shall ’ave to pop over to Paris for it in the end.”
“Oh, I think we can give you satisfaction, Miss Antonia. What you can get in Paris you can get here.”
When she had swept out of the department Mr. Sampson, a little worried, discussed the matter with Mrs. Hodges.
“She’s a caution and no mistake,” said Mrs. Hodges.
“Alice, where art thou?” remarked the buyer, irritably, and thought he had scored a point against her.
His ideas of music-hall costumes had never gone beyond short skirts, a swirl of lace, and glittering sequins; but Miss Antonia had expressed herself on that subject in no uncertain terms.
“Oh, my aunt!” she said.
And the invocation was uttered in such a tone as to indicate a rooted antipathy to anything so commonplace, even if she had not added that sequins gave her the sick. Mr. Sampson “got out” one or two ideas, but Mrs. Hodges told him frankly she did not think they would do. It was she who gave Philip the suggestion:
“Can you draw, Phil? Why don’t you try your ’and and see what you can do?”
Philip bought a cheap box of water colors, and in the evening while Bell, the noisy lad of sixteen, whistling three notes, busied himself with his stamps, he made one or two sketches. He remembered some of the costumes he had seen in Paris, and he adapted one of them, getting his effect from a combination of violent, unusual colors. The result amused him and next morning he showed it to Mrs. Hodges. She was somewhat astonished, but took it at once to the buyer.
“It’s unusual,” he said, “there’s no denying that.”
It puzzled him, and at the same time his trained eye saw that it would make up admirably. To save his face he began making suggestions for altering it, but Mrs. Hodges, with more sense, advised him to show it to Miss Antonia as it was.
“It’s neck or nothing with her, and she may take a fancy to it.”
“It’s a good deal more nothing than neck,” said Mr. Sampson, looking at the décolletage. “He can draw, can’t he? Fancy ’im keeping it dark all this time.”
When Miss Antonia was announced, the buyer placed the design on the table in such a position that it must catch her eye the moment she was shown into his office. She pounced on it at once.
“What’s that?” she said. “Why can’t I ’ave that?”
“That’s just an idea we got out for you,” said Mr. Sampson casually. “D’you like it?”
“Do I like it!” she said. “Give me ’alf a pint with a little drop of gin in it.”
“Ah, you see, you don’t have to go to Paris. You’ve only got to say what you want and there you are.”
The work was put in hand at once, and Philip felt quite a thrill of satisfaction when he saw the costume completed. The buyer and Mrs. Hodges took all the credit of it; but he did not care, and when he went with them to the Tivoli to see Miss Antonia wear it for the first time he was filled with elation. In answer to her questions he at last told Mrs. Hodges how he had learnt to draw