o shillings."

"Hem!"

"Of course," said Mr. Marrier, "in the height of the London season,
with so many counter-attractions--! Besides, they've got to get used
to the idea of it."

Edward Henry did not turn pale. Still, he was aware that it cost him
a trifle over sixty pounds "to ring the curtain up" at every
performance--and this sum took no account of expenses of production
nor of author's fees. The sum would have been higher, but he was
calculating as rent of the theatre only the ground-rent plus six per
cent on the total price of the building.

What disgusted him was the duplicity of the first-night audience, and
he said to himself violently, "I was right all the time, and I knew I
was right! Idiots! Chumps! Of course I was right!"

On the third night the house held twenty-seven pounds and sixpence.

"Naturally," said Mr. Marrier, "in this hot weathah! I never knew such
a hot June! It's the open-air places that are doing us in the eye. In
fact I heard to-day that the White City is packed. They simply can't
bank their money quick enough."

It was on that day that Edward Henry paid salaries. It appeared to him
that he was providing half London with a livelihood: acting-managers,
stage-managers, assistant ditto, property men, stage-hands,
electricians, prompters, call-boys, box-office staff, general
staff, dressers, commissionaires, programme-girls, cleaners, actors,
actresses, understudies, to say nothing of Rose Euclid at a purely
nominal salary of a hundred pounds a week. The tenants of the bars
were grumbling, but happily he was getting money from them.

The following day was Saturday. It rained--a succession of
thunderstorms. The morning and the evening performances produced
together sixty-eight pounds.

"Well," said Mr. Marrier, "in this kind of weathah you can't expect
people to come out, can you? Besides, this cursed week-ending habit--"

Which conclusions did not materially modify the harsh fact that Edward
Henry was losing over thirty pounds a day--or at the rate of over ten
thousand pounds a year.

He spent Sunday between his hotel and his club, chiefly in reiterating
to himself that Monday began a new week and that something would have
to occur on Monday.

Something did occur.

Carlo Trent lounged into the office early. The man was for ever being
drawn to the theatre as by an invisible but powerful elastic cord. The
papers had a worse attack than ever of Isabel Joy, for she had been
convic