e took this play to a London
manager, but heard nothing of it for a long time, and at last it was
returned to him. Then, on going to a first night at the theatre to see
a new tragedy, which this manager called his own, he was amazed to see
his rejected play, with certain changes, produced upon the stage, and
when the cry "Author! Author!" arose, he stood up in his place; but
illness and privation had done their work, and he died proclaiming
himself the author of the play.

"Ah," said the man, when the reading was finished, "I cannot tell you
how much the story has interested me. I once was an actor myself, and
anything pertaining to the stage appeals to me, although it is years
since I saw a theatre. It must be hard luck to work for fame and then
be cheated out of it, as was the man in the tale; but I suppose it
sometimes happens, although, for the honesty of human nature, I hope
not very often."

"Did you act under your own name, or did you follow the fashion so many
of the profession adopt?" asked the girl, evidently interested when he
spoke of the theatre.

The young man laughed for, perhaps, the first time on the voyage. "Oh,"
he answered, "I was not at all noted. I acted only in minor parts, and
always under my own name, which, doubtless, you have never heard--it is
Sidney Ormond."

"What!" cried the girl in amazement; "not Sidney Ormond the African
traveller?"

The young man turned his wan face and large, melancholy eyes upon his
questioner.

"I am certainly Sidney Ormond, an African traveller, but I don't think
I deserve the 'the,' you know. I don't imagine anyone has heard of me
through my travelling any more than through my acting."

"The Sidney Ormond I mean," she said, "went through Africa without
firing a shot; whose book, _A Mission of Peace_, has been such a
success, both in England and America. But, of course, you cannot be he;
for I remember that Sidney Ormond is now lecturing in England to
tremendous audiences all over the country. The Royal Geographical
Society has given him medals or degrees, or something of that sort--
perhaps it was Oxford that gave the degree. I am sorry I haven't his
book with me, it would be sure to interest you; but some one on board
is almost certain to have it, and I will try to get it for you. I gave
mine to a friend in Cape Town. What a funny thing it is that the two
names should be exactly the same."

"It is very strange," said Ormond gloomily, and his eyes again