strange concealments, and finally the tables and chairs were broken to
pieces, and each object on the walls was torn down and flung in bits
on to the gorgeous general debris, to the top of which clambered the
violet hat, necklace and yellow petticoat, brandishing one single
little plate, whose life had been miraculously spared. Shrieks of
joy in that little plate played over the din like lightning in a
thunderstorm. And the curtain fell.

It was rung up fifteen times, and fifteen times the quartette of
artists, breathless, bowed in acknowledgment of the frenzied and
boisterous testimony to their unique talents. No singer, no tragedian,
no comedian, no wit could have had such a triumph, could have given
such intense pleasure. And yet none of the four had spoken a word.
Such is genius.

At the end of the fifteenth call the stage-manager came before the
curtain and guaranteed that two thousand four hundred plates had been
broken.

The lights went up. Strong men were seen to be wiping tears from their
eyes. Complete strangers were seen addressing each other in the manner
of old friends. Such is art.

"Well, that was worth a bob, that was!" muttered Edward Henry to
himself. And it was. Edward Henry had not escaped the general fate.
Nobody, being present, could have escaped it. He was enchanted. He had
utterly forgotten every care.

"Good evening, Mr. Machin," said a voice at his side. Not only he
turned but nearly everyone in the vicinity turned. The voice was the
voice of the stout and splendid managing director of the Empire, and
it sounded with the ring of authority above the rising tinkle of the
bar behind the Grand Circle.

"Oh! How d'ye do, Mr. Dakins?" Edward Henry held out a cordial hand,
for even the greatest men are pleased to be greeted in a place of
entertainment by the managing director thereof. Further, his identity
was now recognized.

"Haven't you seen those gentlemen in that box beckoning to you?" said
Mr. Dakins, proudly deprecating complimentary remarks on the show.

"Which box?"

Mr. Dakins' hand indicated a stage-box. And Henry, looking, saw three
men, one unknown to him, the second, Robert Brindley, the architect,
of Bursley, and the third, Dr. Stirling.

Instantly his conscience leapt up within him. He thought of rabies.
Yes, sobered in the fraction of a second, he thought of rabies.
Supposing that, after all, in spite of Mr. Long's Muzzling Order, as
cited by his infant son, an odd case