length in the office of the clerk-of-the-works, where Edward
Henry had arranged suitably to refresh the stone-layer and a few
choice friends of both sexes.

He had hoped that Elsie April would somehow reach that little office.
But Elsie April was absent, indisposed. Her absence made the one
blemish on the affair's perfection. Elsie April, it appeared, had been
struck down by a cold which had entirely deprived her of her voice, so
that the performance of the Azure Society's Dramatic Club, so eagerly
anticipated by all London, had had to be postponed. Edward Henry bore
the misfortune of the Azure Society with stoicism, but he had been
extremely disappointed by the invisibility of Elsie April at his
stone-laying. His eyes had wanted her.

Sir John, awaking apparently out of a dream when Edward Henry had
summoned him twice, climbed the uneven staircase and joined his host
and youngest rival on the insecure planks and gangways that covered
the first floor of the Regent Theatre.

"Come higher," said Edward Henry, mounting upward to the beginnings of
the second story, above which hung suspended from the larger crane the
great cage that was employed to carry brick and stone from the ground.

The two fur coats almost mingled.

"Well, young man," said Sir John Pilgrim, "your troubles will soon be
beginning."

Now Edward Henry hated to be addressed as "young man," especially in
the patronizing tone which Sir John used. Moreover, he had a suspicion
that in Sir John's mind was the illusion that Sir John alone was
responsible for the creation of the Regent Theatre--that without Sir
John's aid as a stone-layer it could never have existed.

"You mean my troubles as a manager?" said Edward Henry, grimly.

"In twelve months from now--before I come back from my world's
tour--you'll be ready to get rid of this thing on any terms. You will
be wishing that you had imitated my example and kept out of Piccadilly
Circus. Piccadilly Circus is sinister, my Alderman--sinister."

"Come up into the cage, Sir John," said Edward Henry. "You'll get a
still better view. Rather fine, isn't it, even from here?"

He climbed up into the cage, and helped Sir John to climb.

And, standing there in the immediate silence, Sir John murmured with
emotion:

"We are alone with London!"

Edward Henry thought:

"Cuckoo!"

They heard footsteps resounding on loose planks in a distant corner.

"Who's there?" Edward Henry called.

"Only me!" replied