onsider it, even under
the name of "Hullo, Cellar-Flap!" It was now called, "Pass Along,
Please!" and, according to its authors, was a real revue.

Roland was to learn, as the days went on, that in the world in which he
was moving everything was real revue that was not a stunt or a corking
effect. He floundered in a sea of real revue, stunts, and corking
effects. As far as he could gather, the main difference between these
things was that real revue was something which had been stolen from some
previous English production, whereas a stunt or a corking effect was
something which had been looted from New York. A judicious blend of
these, he was given to understand, constituted the sort of thing the
public wanted.

Rehearsals began before, in Roland's opinion, his little army was
properly supplied with ammunition. True, they had the first act, but
even the authors agreed that it wanted bringing up-to-date in parts.
They explained that it was, in a manner of speaking, their life-work,
that they had actually started it about ten years ago when they were
careless lads. Inevitably, it was spotted here and there with smart
topical hits of the early years of the century; but that, they said,
would be all right. They could freshen it up in a couple of evenings; it
was simply a matter of deleting allusions to pro-Boers and substituting
lines about Marconi shares and mangel-wurzels. "It'll be all right,"
they assured Roland; "this is real revue."

In times of trouble there is always a point at which one may say,
"Here is the beginning of the end." This point came with Roland at the
commencement of the rehearsals. Till then he had not fully realized
the terrible nature of the production for which he had made himself
responsible. Moreover, it was rehearsals which gave him his first clear
insight into the character of Miss Verepoint.

Miss Verepoint was not at her best at rehearsals. For the first time, as
he watched her, Roland found himself feeling that there was a case to
be made out for the managers who had so consistently kept her in the
background. Miss Verepoint, to use the technical term, threw her weight
about. There were not many good lines in the script of act one of "Pass
Along, Please!" but such as there were she reached out for and
grabbed away from their owners, who retired into corners, scowling and
muttering, like dogs robbed of bones. She snubbed everybody, Roland
included.

* * * *