However, as the first night approached, the condition of affairs improved a little, and Henry saw with satisfaction that the resemblance of Prince's Theatre to a lunatic asylum was more superficial than real. Also, the tone of the newspapers in referring to the imminent production convinced even John Pilgrim that Henry was perhaps not quite an ordinary author. John Pilgrim cancelled a proof of a poster which he had already passed, and ordered a double-crown, thus:
LOVE IN BABYLON.
A PLAY IN ONE ACT, FOUNDED ON
HENRY SHAKSPERE KNIGHT'S
FAMOUS NOVEL.
BY
Henry Shakspere Knight and Alfred Doxey.
ENID ANSTRUTHER—MISS JANE MAP.
Geraldine met Jane, and asked her to tea at the flat. And Geraldine hired a brougham at thirty pounds a month. From that day Henry's reception at the theatre was all that he could have desired, and more than any mere author had the right to expect. At the final rehearsals, in the absence of John Pilgrim, his word was law. It was whispered in the green-room that he earned ten thousand a year by writing things called novels. 'Well, dear old pal,' said one old actor to another old actor, 'it takes all sorts to make a world. But ten thousand! Johnny himself don't make more than that, though he spends more.'
The mischief was that Henry's digestion, what with the irregular hours and the irregular drinks, went all to pieces.