cing him no
more than had Mr. Staff, to begin with.

II

THE BANDBOX

In the playhouses of France, a hammering on the stage alone heralds the
rising of the curtain to disclose illusory realms of romance. Precisely
so with Mr. Staff, upon the door of whose lodging, at nine o'clock the
next morning, a knocking announced the first overt move against his
peace of mind.

At that time, Staff, all unconscious of his honourable peril, was
standing in the middle of the floor of the inner room (his lodgings
comprised two) and likewise in the approximate geographical centre of a
chaotic assemblage of assorted wearing apparel and other personal
impedimenta.

He was wondering, confusedly, how in thunderation he was to manage to
cram all that confounded truck into the limited amount of trunk space at
his command. He was also wondering, resentfully in the names of a dozen
familiar spirits, where he had put his pipe: it's simply maddening, the
way a fellow's pipe will persist in getting lost at such critical times
as when he's packing up to catch a train with not a minute to spare....
In short, so preoccupied was Staff that the knocking had to be repeated
before he became objectively alive to it.

Then, confidentially, he said: "What the devil _now_?"

In louder tones calculated to convey an impression of intense
impatience, he cried: "Come _in_!"

He heard the outer door open, and immediately, upon an impulse esoteric
even in his own understanding, he chose to pretend to be extravagantly
busy--as busy as by rights he should have been. For a minute or longer
he acted most vividly the part of a man madly bent on catching his train
though he were to perish of the attempt. And this despite a suspicion
that he played to a limited audience of one, and that one unappreciative
of the finer phases of everyday histrionic impersonation: an audience
answering to the name of Milly, whose lowly station of life was that of
housemaid-in-lodgings and whose imagination was as ill-nourished and
sluggish as might be expected of one whose wages were two-and-six a
week.

Remembering this in time, the novelty of make-believe palled on Staff.
Not that alone, but he could hear Milly insisting in accents not in the
least apologetic: "Beg pardon, sir ..."

He paused in well-feigned surprise and looked enquiringly over his
shoulder, as though to verify a surmise that somebody had spoken. Such
proving to be the case, he turned round to confr