"Worse than that—it's all up with 'Mrs. Tankerville,' too."
"Five minutes to nine! We ought to be there now."
"Well, we'll just have to tell them that he's been taken sick——"
"Everybody knows what that means," said J. B. impatiently. "Might as well tell the truth."
"Good Lord! What will the girls think? And Miss Baxter, too—what will she think? What will everybody say? We'll never hear the last of it! Can't anybody—can't one of you fellows take his part? Here, Ollie Hunt—or you, Joe?"
Vain hope! "I'm doing Gwynne Peters' part as it is," said Joe, helplessly. A hurried canvass revealed the dire fact that the one or two men who were of a size to wear the dress either were already provided with parts of too much importance to be left out, or could not sing the music allotted to Mrs. Gessler. Nobody remembered the dialogue in either play; but that was a small matter, if only someone could be found, a dummy, a straw man, anybody to appear on the stage and read the lines. Things looked black—and already the carriages of prompt arrivals were beginning to roll into the Pallinder gate.
"Couldn't you give him some stuff—something strong that would bring him around, Doctor?" it was asked as the old gentleman returned from a look at his guest. "They won't be surprised at an amateur performance being late—and an hour might straighten him out."
The doctor shook his head. "Nothing I know of in the whole range of medicine," said he briefly. "He's sound asleep, stupefied, dead drunk, or whatever you choose to call it—as if he'd been drugged. Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine was the last straw—terribly strong stuff."
"I guess there's no way out of it—we'll have to give the thing up or postpone it," said Archie gloomily. "Nice job for the Pallinders, isn't it? Think of the staging and lights——"