“Hope you took that stuff all right?”
“Yes—I think so. Fancy I ought to have another dose. Let’s stop and buy some more.”
“No time. I’ll give you some at the theatre. Hurry along.”
The local dresser was not a man of marked intelligence or great celerity of action, but he contrived to get Eliphalet into the outer coverings of the Reverend Barnard Coles in less than quarter of an hour.
Mr. Dyson, busily employed in the front of the house, sent round his bottle of Enoch’s Instantaneous, half of which Eliphalet drank. He would probably have drunk the rest, had not the cork been pushed inwards and floated across the neck of the bottle before he had finished the contents.
Just before his entrance, Mr. Dyson rushed round with a few words of warning.
“Clinkin’ house,” he said. “Packed out—but they may want holding.”
“Thass all right—we know.”
“Feeling pretty good in yourself?”
Eliphalet took a deep breath, closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. At that instant he heard his cue. Alert at once, he opened the door and walked on to the stage. The lights dazzled him. He was struck with a consciousness of something left undone. What was it? Ah! he had failed to answer Mr. Dyson’s question. Wherefore he promptly replied: