Mr. Manning shoved his hat on the back of his head and said:
“If he is, no one is going to say so before me.”
“Where’s his understudy?”
“You look after the front of the house and leave the back to me. Clear out!”
“He’s blind to the wide.”
Mr. Manning jerked back the cuff of his sleeve and shut his teeth tight. The faces of the disputants were barely two inches apart. The dresser came into the room, and Eliphalet passed noiselessly out. Chuckling stupidly, he made his way to the stage.
“Take up the curtain,” he ordered, and the assistant stage-manager, accustomed to years of implicit obedience, touched the bell, and the curtain rose.
“Excuse me,” the dresser was saying. “A doan’t think t’ poor gentleman’s droonk. A think t’is physic as ’as oop-set ’im. ’E’s been taking doases very free from this ’ere.” And he held aloft the empty bottle of Enoch’s Instantaneous.
The stage-manager seized the bottle and read the label.
“Did he take the lot?”