I tried to remember. "To tell the truth, I don't know. We haven't used props of any kind in rehearsals—not even the sword, after that first time."
"No? Look here, that's apt to be significant. We'll have to look at the properties."
We explored the auditorium and the stage with a fine show of casual interest. Davidson and Switz were putting final touches on the scenery—a dark blue backdrop for evening sky, a wall painted to resemble vine-hung granite, benches and an arbor—but no properties lay on the table backstage.
"You know this is a Friday, Gib?" demanded Jake, looking up from where he was mending the cable of a floodlight. "Bad luck, opening our play on a Friday."
"Not a bit," laughed Pursuivant. "What's begun on a Friday never comes to an end. Therefore——"
"Oi!" crowed Jake. "That means we'll have a record-breaking run, huh?" He jumped up and shook my hand violently. "You'll be working in this show till you step on your beard."
We wandered out again, and Sigrid joined us. She was in high spirits.
"I feel," she said excitedly, "just as I felt on the eve of my first professional appearance. As though the world would end tonight!"
"God forbid," I said at once, and "God forbid," echoed Judge Pursuivant. Sigrid laughed merrily at our sudden expressions of concern.
"Oh, it won't end that way," she made haste to add, in the tone one reserves for children who need comfort. "I mean, the world will begin tonight, with success and happiness."