ing the audience, after calling the manager himself three times, set
up a cry for "Laflin." The obsequious attendant pretended to consider it
as a fourth call for the manager, and made as if to move the curtain
aside for him once more; but, with a magnanimity rare indeed in a "star"
of his magnitude, "No, no!" he said; "it is Mr. Laflin they want. Quick,
lad, and take your first call."

So little Mike stepped before the curtain, and made his first bow to an
affectionate burst of applause. What happy tears would have glittered in
Esther's eyes had she been there to see it, and in Henry's too, and
particularly, perhaps, in excitable Angel's!

Even so soon was the blossom giving promise of the fruit.

CHAPTER XL

A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD

Meanwhile, Henry plodded away at Aunt Tipping's, working sometimes on a
volume of essays for the London publisher, and sometimes on his novel,
now and again writing a review, and earning an odd guinea for a poem;
and now and again indulging in a day of richly doing nothing. Otherwise,
one day was like another, with the many exceptions of the days on which
he saw Angel or Esther. With Ned, he spent many of his evenings; and he
soon formed the pleasant habit of dropping in on Gerard, last thing
before bed-time, for a smoke and half an hour's chat.

There is always a good deal of youth left in any one who genuinely loves
youth; and Gerard always spoke of his youth as Adam, in his declining
years, might have spoken of Paradise. For him life was just youth--and
the rest of it death.

"After thirty," he would say, "the happiest life is only history
repeating itself. I am no cynic,--far from it; but the worst of life is
the monotony of the bill of fare. To do a thing once, even twice, is
delightful--perhaps even a third time is successfully possible; but to
do it four times, is middle age. If you think of it, what is there to do
after thirty that one ought not to have achieved to perfection before?
You know the literary dictum, that the poet who hasn't written a
masterpiece before he is thirty will never write any after. Of course,
there are exceptions; I am speaking of the rule. In business, for
example, what future is there for the man who has not already a dashing
past at thirty? Of course, the bulk, the massive trunk and the
impressive foliage of his business, must come afterwards; but the tree
must have been firmly rooted and stoutly branched before then, and able
to