the
former engaged in an attempt at familiarity with the smileless
attendant.

"Hello, Bob; how goes it?" said he, strutting up to the door.

Bob's bulk blocked the passage.

"Who d'you want to see?" he demanded, gruffly.

"Who d'you suppose?" asked Harvey, gaily.

"Don't get fresh," snapped the door man, making as if to slam the iron
door in his face. Suddenly he recognised the applicant. "Oh, it's you,
is it?"

"You must be going blind, Bobby," said Harvey, in a fine effort at
geniality. "I'm taking a friend in to show him how it's done. My
friend, Mr. Butler, Bob."

Mr. Butler stepped on Harvey's toes and said something under his
breath.

"Is Miss Duluth expecting you, Mr.--er--Mr.--Is she?" asked old Bob.

"No. I'm going to surprise her."

Bob looked over his shoulder hastily.

"If I was you," he said, "I'd send my card in. She's--she's nervous
and a shock might upset her."

"She hasn't got a nerve in her body," said Harvey. "Come on, Butler.
Mind you don't fall over the braces or get hit by the scenery."

They climbed a couple of steps and were in the midst of a small,
bustling army of scene shifters and property men. Old Bob scratched
his head and muttered something about "surprises."

Three times Harvey tried to lead the way across the stage. Each time
they were turned back by perspiring, evil-minded stage hands who
rushed at them with towering, toppling canvases. Once Harvey nearly
sat down when an unobserving hand jerked a strip of carpet from under
his feet. A grand staircase almost crushed Mr. Butler on its way into
place, and some one who seemed to be in authority shouted to him as he
dodged:--

"Don't knock that pe-des-tal over, you pie face!"

At last they got safely over, and Harvey boldly walked up to the
star's dressing-room.

"We're all right now," he said to Butler, with a perceptible quaver in
his voice. "Just you wait while I go in and tell her I am here."

Butler squeezed himself into a narrow place, where he seemed safe
from death, mopped his brow, and looked like a lost soul.

Two men, sitting off to the left, saw Harvey try the locked door and
then pound rather imperatively.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed one of them, staring.
"It's--it's--er--What's-His-Name, Nellie's husband! Well, of all the
infernal----"

"That?" gasped Fairfax.

"What in thunder is he doing here this time o' night! Great Scott,
he'll spoil everything," groaned Ripton, the manager.

Harvey pounded a