n students, colleens,
Dutch peasants, and daffodils. Musical comedy is the Irish stew of the
drama. Anything may be put into it, with the certainty that it will
improve the general effect.

He scanned the throng for a sight of Alice. Often as he had seen the
piece in the course of its six weeks' wandering in the wilderness he
had never succeeded in recognizing her from the front of the house.
Quite possibly, he thought, she might be on the stage already, hidden
in a rose-tree or some other shrub, ready at the signal to burst forth
upon the audience in short skirts; for in 'The Girl From Brighton'
almost anything could turn suddenly into a chorus-girl.

Then he saw her, among the daffodils. She was not a particularly
convincing daffodil, but she looked good to Henry. With wabbling knees
he butted his way through the crowd and seized her hand
enthusiastically.

'Why, Henry! Where did you come from?'

'I _am_ glad to see you!'

'How did you get here?'

'I _am_ glad to see you!'

At this point the stage-manager, bellowing from the prompt-box, urged
Henry to desist. It is one of the mysteries of behind-the-scenes
acoustics that a whisper from any minor member of the company can be
heard all over the house, while the stage-manager can burst himself
without annoying the audience.

Henry, awed by authority, relapsed into silence. From the unseen stage
came the sound of someone singing a song about the moon. June was also
mentioned. He recognized the song as one that had always bored him. He
disliked the woman who was singing it--a Miss Clarice Weaver, who
played the heroine of the piece to Sidney Crane's hero.

In his opinion he was not alone. Miss Weaver was not popular in the
company. She had secured the role rather as a testimony of personal
esteem from the management than because of any innate ability. She sang
badly, acted indifferently, and was uncertain what to do with her
hands. All these things might have been forgiven her, but she
supplemented them by the crime known in stage circles as 'throwing her
weight about'. That is to say, she was hard to please, and, when not
pleased, apt to say so in no uncertain voice. To his personal friends
Walter Jelliffe had frequently confided that, though not a rich man, he
was in the market with a substantial reward for anyone who was man
enough to drop a ton of iron on Miss Weaver.

Tonight the song annoyed Henry more than usual, for he knew that very
soon the daffodil