fter
it?"

"Well, it was and it was not me, Sir," Jimmie acknowledged; "the truth
is that I saw it labelled all right and left it with the rest of the
luggage to look after itself. I suppose----"

"Oh, what is the use of talking," Brown broke in impatiently; he had
thrust his hat back on his fiery head, the lines of fat above his collar
shone with perspiration. "You had better go on, all of you, and see
about getting rooms; the first rehearsal is in an hour, box or no box,
and don't you forget it."

"I don't see," wailed Mrs. O'Malley, almost as soon as his back was
turned, "how we are to live through this sort of thing. What is the use
of a rehearsal if none of our things are going to turn up?"

"I guess there will be a performance whether or no," Fanny told her.
"Come along, honey," this to Joan, "seize up your bag and follow me; we
have got to find diggings of sorts before the hour is up."

Joan found, as they trudged from lodging-house to lodging-house, that
the theatrical profession was apparently very unpopular in Tonbridge. As
Fanny remarked, it was always as well to tell the old ladies what to
expect, but the very mention of the word theatre caused a chill to
descend on the prospective landladies' faces. They found rooms finally
in one of the smaller side streets; a fair-sized double bedroom, and a
tiny little sitting-room. The house had the added advantage of being
very near the theatre, which was just as well, for they had barely time
to settle with the woman before they had to hurry off for the rehearsal.

"It won't do to be late," Fanny confided to Joan. "Daddy is in an awful
temper; we shan't get any champagne to-night unless some of us soothe
him down."

At the small tin-roofed theatre supreme chaos reigned upon the stage and
behind it. Daddy Brown, his hat thrown off, his coat discarded, stormed
and raged at everyone within hearing. _The Country Girl_ had replaced
_The Arcadians_ on the bill; it was an old favourite and less
troublesome to stage. Fanny was to play _Molly_; it was a part that she
might have been born for. Daddy Brown won back to his good humour as he
watched her; her voice, clear and sweet, carried with it a certain
untouched charm of youth, for Fanny put her whole heart into her work.

Joan felt herself infected by the other's spirit, she joined in the
singing, laughing with real merriment at her chorus partner. The stage
boards cracked and creaked, the man at the piano watched t