"Oh, rot, man! It's the stroke of your life, this is."
Mr. Etheringham returned, glared at the imperturbable Joe, and selected another stall. Second Act.
The Second Act went well, but when they came to set the Third, there was a bad breakdown in the scenery. A long long wait—and Mr. Etheringham audible from behind the curtain, raging furiously. Mr. Beverley emerged from the pit and came up behind Joe Halliday and Arthur.
"Just my luck!" he observed, in the apathetic calm of utter despair.
"Jolly good thing it happened to-night, and not to-morrow!" exclaimed Joe.
"But it probably will happen to-morrow too," the author insisted.
Arthur was laughing at the two when Miss Ayesha Layard, in the third of her wonderful frocks, came in front and tripped up to them.
"If anybody's cold, they'd better go behind and listen to old Langley," she remarked, as she sank into the stall by Arthur's side. She had a large towel tied round her waist, and adjusted it carefully beneath and round her before she trusted her frock to the mercies of the seat. "I once spoilt a frock in my early days, and old Bramston boxed my ears for it," she explained to Arthur. Then she turned round and regarded Mr. Beverley with an air of artless and girlish admiration. "To think that he wrote this masterpiece! He who is known to, and will soon be adored by, the public as Claud Beverley, but who in private life——"
"Shut up, will you!" commanded Mr. Beverley with sudden and fierce fury. "If you do happen to—to——" He was in a difficulty for a phrase and ended without finding it—"Well, you might have the decency to hold your tongue about it."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry! Didn't know it was such a secret as all that." The offended man looked implacable. "If you don't forgive me, I shall go and drown myself in that bath! Oh, well, he won't, so never mind! Here, Joe, take him out and give him a drink. There's just time before closing."