an original stroke!

And now he gazed through the peep-hole of the curtain upon a crammed
and half-delirious auditorium. The assistant stage-manager ordered him
off. The curtain went up on the drama in hexameters. He waited in the
wings, and spoke soothingly to Isabel Joy, who, looking juvenile in
the airy costume of the Messenger, stood flutteringly agog for her
cue.... He heard the thunderous crashing roar that met her entrance.
He did not hear her line. He walked forth to the glazed balcony at
the front of the house, where in the _entr'actes_ dandies smoked
cigarettes baptized with girlish names. He could see Piccadilly
Circus, and he saw Piccadilly Circus thronged with a multitude of
loafers who were happy in the mere spectacle of Isabel Joy's name
glowing on an electric sign. He went back at last to the managerial
room. Marrier was there, hero-worshipping.

"Got the figures yet?" he asked.

Marrier beamed.

"Two hundred and sixty pounds. As long as it keeps up it means a
profit of getting on for two hundred a naight!"

"But, dash it, man, the house only holds two hundred and thirty."

"But my good sir," said Marrier, "they're paying ten shillings a piece
to stand up in the dress-circle."

Edward Henry dropped into a chair at the desk. A telegram was lying
there, addressed to himself.

"What's this?" he demanded.

"Just cam."

He opened it and read:

* * * * *

"I absolutely forbid this monstrous outrage on a work of art.--TRENT."

* * * * *

"Bit late in the day, isn't he?" said Edward Henry, showing the
telegram to Marrier.

"Besides," Marrier observed, "he'll come round when he knows what his
royalties are."

"Well," said Edward Henry, "I'm going to bed." And he gave a
devastating yawn.

VIII

One afternoon Edward Henry sat in the king of all the easy-chairs in
the drawing-room of his house in Trafalgar Road, Bursley. Although
the month was September, and the weather warm even for September,
a swansdown quilt lay spread upon his knees. His face was pale--his
hands were paler; but his eye was clear and his visage enlightened.
His beard had grown to nearly its original dimensions. On a chair
by his side were a number of letters to which he had just dictated
answers. At a neighbouring table a young clerk was using a typewriter.
Stretched at full length on the sofa was Robert Machin, engaged in the
perusal of the second edi