from the wings on the prompt side
there shambled out a stout and shrinking figure, in whose hand was a
script of the play and on whose face, lit up by the footlights, there
shone a look of apprehension. It was Fillmore, the Man of Destiny.

3

Alas, poor Fillmore! He stood in the middle of the stage with the
lightning of Mr. Bunbury's wrath playing about his defenceless head, and
Sally, recovering from her first astonishment, sent a wave of sisterly
commiseration floating across the theatre to him. She did not often pity
Fillmore. His was a nature which in the sunshine of prosperity had a
tendency to grow a trifle lush; and such of the minor ills of life as
had afflicted him during the past three years, had, she considered,
been wholesome and educative and a matter not for concern but for
congratulation. Unmoved, she had watched him through that lean period
lunching on coffee and buckwheat cakes, and curbing from motives of
economy a somewhat florid taste in dress. But this was different. This
was tragedy. Somehow or other, blasting disaster must have smitten the
Fillmore bank-roll, and he was back where he had started. His presence
here this morning could mean nothing else.

She recalled his words at the breakfast-table about financing the
play. How like Fillmore to try to save his face for the moment with an
outrageous bluff, though well aware that he would have to reveal the
truth sooner or later. She realized how he must have felt when he had
seen her at the hotel. Yes, she was sorry for Fillmore.

And, as she listened to the fervent eloquence of Mr. Bunbury, she
perceived that she had every reason to be. Fillmore was having a bad
time. One of the chief articles of faith in the creed of all theatrical
producers is that if anything goes wrong it must be the fault of the
assistant stage manager and Mr. Bunbury was evidently orthodox in his
views. He was showing oratorical gifts of no mean order. The paper-knife
seemed to inspire him. Gradually, Sally began to get the feeling that
this harmless, necessary stage-property was the source from which
sprang most, if not all, of the trouble in the world. It had disappeared
before. Now it had disappeared again. Could Mr. Bunbury go on struggling
in a universe where this sort of thing happened? He seemed to doubt it.
Being a red-blooded, one-hundred-per-cent American man, he would try
hard, but it was a hundred to one shot that he would get through. He
had asked fo