Goldwater stopped dead. 'Can't you sweep quietly?' he thundered terribly through the music.
Ignatz Levitsky tapped his baton, and the orchestra paused.
'It is I, the author!' said Pinchas, struggling up through clouds like some pagan deity.
Hamlet's face grew as inky as his cloak. 'And what do you want?'
'What do I want?' repeated Pinchas, in sheer amaze.
Kloot, in his peaked cap, emerged from the wings munching a sandwich.
'Sure, there's Shakespeare!' he said. 'I've just been round to the café to find you. Got this sandwich there.'
'But this—this isn't the first rehearsal,' stammered Pinchas, a jot appeased.
'The first dress-rehearsal,' Kloot replied reassuringly. 'We don't trouble authors with the rough work. They stroll in and put on the polish. Won't you come on the stage?'
Unable to repress a grin of happiness, Pinchas stumbled through the dim parterre, barking his shins at almost every step. Arrived at the orchestra, he found himself confronted by a chasm. He wheeled to the left, to where the stage-box, shrouded in brown holland, loomed ghostly.