Act I., when the hero and the faithful young labourer had both enlisted

in a crack cavalry regiment, he came on with his brown bag to find them and give information of importance, and was at once, to the great joy of the pit and gallery, again kicked off, whilst the regiment, consisting of eight men and a girl officer, marched round the stage several times to a military air, and, after the girl officer had delivered a few sentences of admirable patriotism, went off to the Royal Albert Docks to take ship for South Africa. Indeed, throughout the piece it was Mr. Railton's privilege to follow the leading man and his low comedy friend, and whether he encountered them on the quay at Cape Town, out on the veldt near Modder River, or at the Rhodes Club at Kimberley, he was ever hailed by the entire theatre with joyous cries of "Kick him, kick him!" advice upon which the low comedy man always acted.

"D'you like your job?" asked Erb at the end of Act II., as he prepared to go round to the front and collect the men of his committee.

"Someone must hold the piece together," said young Railton, wearily making a cigarette. "Take me away, and the entire show falls to pieces. Even you must have noticed that."

"Upon my word," said Erb, looking at him wonderingly, "you are a perfect marvel. I never saw anything like you."

"Thanks, old chap," replied the other gratefully, and shaking his hand. "Meet me after the show and we'll have a drink together. I was afraid at first you were a bit of a bounder. Don't mind me saying so now, do you?"

"Not at all," replied Erb. "You gave me much the same impression."

"That's most extr'ordinary. There's an idea for a curtain-raiser in that. Two men beginning by hating each other, and later on--"

"Any message for your young lady?"

"Which?" asked Mr. Railton.

"You know very well who I mean," said Erb with some annoyance.

"Oh," with sudden enlightenment, "you mean the Danks person. Oh, tell her I'm all right."

Erb looked at him rather dangerously, but the young man, secure in the mailed armour of self-content, did not observe this. Erb, placing his doubled fists well down into the pockets of his coat, turned and went off.

"By the bye," called Mr. Railton, in his affected voice.

Erb did not trust himself to answer, but went down the narrow stone passage, and drew a deep breath when he reached the doorway and the dimly lighted alley; he had work to do, and this, as always, enabled him to forget his personal grievances. In the saloon bar of a neighbouring public-house he found two members of his committee: because they wore their Sunday clothes they smoked cigars, extinguishing them carefully, and placing the ends in their waistcoat pockets; they came out on Erb's orders to take up position at the stage door. The others were in front of the house, and Erb, going in and standing by the swing door of the circle, discovered them one by one and gave them signal to come out, which they did with great importance, stepping on toes of mere ordinary people in a lordly way.

"Did he send any message?" asked Rosalind anxiously.

"Sent his love." Worth saying this to see the quick look of relief and happiness that danced across her face. "Said he was looking forward to seeing you."

"Ah!"

Three minutes later, when the leading man had done something noble that in the proclaimed opinion of the heroine (there, oddly enough, as a nurse) foreshadowed the inevitable Victoria Cross, and Mr. Railton had come on in a kilt to be kicked off once more, and there remained only the affairs of England, home, and beauty to be arranged in the last act; the curtain went down, and two minutes later still, the orchestra having disappeared in search of refreshment and the audience occupied in cracking nuts and hailing acquaintances with great trouble at distant points, the curtain went up again on a flapping scene, behind which the tweed-capped men, it appeared, were setting an elaborate set for Act IV., doing it with some audible argument and no little open condemnation of each other's want of dexterity. Chairs on the stage stood in a semicircle, and marching on from the left came the dozen members of the committee in their suits of black, twirling bowler hats, and glancing nervously across the footlights in response to the ejaculatory shouting of names. Spanswick, wearing a look of pained resignation, received a special shout, but the loudest cheers were reserved for the secretary, and those in front who did not know him soon took up the cry.

"Erberberberb--"

It became certain at once that Payne was not to give an epoch-making speech. Confused perhaps by the footlights, uncertain of the attitude of this great crowded theatre, Payne's memory ran its head against a brick wall and stayed there: he made three repetitions of one sentence, and then, having reversed the positions of the tumbler and the decanter, started afresh, the audience encouraging him by cries of "Fetch him out, Towser, fetch him out," as though Mr. Payne were an unwilling dog, but the same brick wall stood in his way, and, concluding weakly with the remark, "Well, you all know what I mean," he called upon Erb, and sat down glancing nervously across to the pit stalls, where was Mrs. Payne, her head shaking desolately, her lips moving with unspoken words of derision.

"I'm going to take five minutes," said Erb, in his distinct and deliberate way. He took out his watch and laid it on the table. "Even if I'm in the middle of a sentence when that time is up, I promise I'll go down like a shot. I suppose you know the story of the man who--"

Good temper smiled and laughed from the front row of the pit stalls and up to the very topmost row of the gallery at Erb's anecdote, and, hoping for another story, they sat forward and listened. He knew that he held them now, knew they would cheer anything he liked to say, providing he said it with enough of emphasis. He went on quickly that this advantage might not be lost, pounding the palm of one hand with the fist of the other, so that the dullest might know by this gesture when a point was intended; spoke of the good feeling that was aroused by the presence of a fellow-man's misfortune; mentioned the work of his own society, urged that so long as this feeling of comradeship existed, so long would their condition improve, not perhaps by a leap or a bound, but by steady, cautious, and gradual progression. Up in the circle his young elocution teacher nodded approvingly, flushing with pride at her pupil's careful enunciation, giving a start of pain at a superfluous aspirate that cleaved the air.

"He can talk," admitted a man behind her.

"If I'd had the gift of the gab," said the man's neighbour, "I could have made a fortune."

Erb stepped out near to the footlights and gave his peroration in an impassioned manner that had the useful note of sincerity. Those in the theatre, who were sympathisers, rose and cheered like a hurricane; the rest, not to be left out of a gratifying show of emotion, joined in, and Spanswick, the hero of the evening, as he rose from his chair to say a few words, might have been a leading politician, a general who had rescued his country from difficulties, or an exceptionally popular member of the Royal Family, instead of a railway carman of third-rate excellence with a notable wife.

Spanswick said this was the proudest moment of his life. Spanswick would never forget that night: useless for anybody to ask him to do so. If people should come to Spanswick and invite him to erase that evening from his recollection, he would answer definitely and decidedly, "Never!" So long as memory lasted and held its sway, so long would he guarantee to keep that evening in mind, and carry remembrance with him. Thus Spanswick, in a generous way that suggested he was doing a noble and spontaneous act, and one for which the audience should be everlastingly grateful. Payne, as Chairman, rose, and ignoring a suggestion from the gallery that he should dance a hornpipe, led the group off, the members looking shyly across at the audience, and the audience howling indignantly at one of the men who replaced his hat before getting off.

"Were you nervous, Erb?" asked Louisa excitedly. "_I_ was. Nearly fainted, didn't I?"

"Oh, don't talk," whispered her lady-companion, enchanted by the commencement of Act Four. "Don't talk, please, when there's such beautiful things going on."

Mr. Railton had nothing to do in the last act, the dramatist having apparently felt that the thin vein of humour which had been struck in the character was by this time exhausted, and Rosalind looked with anxiety at the curtained doorway of the circle, but Mr. Railton did not appear during the last act, and he was not in the vestibule below when the audience poured out into Blackfriars Road. She was very silent on this, and when Erb saw her into a tram she shook hands without a word. Going back to assist Louisa's young man in the task of escorting the two other ladies, he found himself intercepted by Mr. Lawrence Railton--Railton, in an astrachan bordered coat, and well wrapped around the throat, giving altogether the impression that here was some rare and valuable product of nature that had to be specially protected.

"I want you!" said the young man.

"You'll have to want," said Erb brusquely, and going on.

"But it concerns the girl you were speaking of."

"Where can we go?" asked Erb, stopping.

"Come round to the bar at the back of the circle," said Railton, "and you can give me a drink," he added generously.

A few members of the company were near the bar, and Railton, to compensate for the presence of such an ordinary-looking companion, began to talk loudly and condescendingly. Never drank till after the show, he explained, some drank during the performance, but none of the best men did so. One could not give a good reading of the part unless one observed the principles of strict abstemiousness. He flattered himself that he was not one likely to make mistakes, and he held his future, as it were, well and securely in both hands. If Erb would promise not to let the matter go any further, he would show him, in the strictest confidence, a letter from a West End manager, that would prove how near one could be to conspicuous success.

"Not that one," he said, opening a violet envelope. "That's from a dear thing at Skipton. Worships the very ground I walk on."

The letter in question fell on the floor. Erb picked it up and, in doing so, could not help noticing that it began: "Sir, unless you forward two and eight by return, the parcel of laundry will be sold without--"

"Here it is," cried Railton. "'Mr. So-and-so thanks Mr. Lawrence Railton for his note, and regrets that the arrangements for the forthcoming production are complete.'" "Regrets, you see, mark that! A post earlier, and evidently he would have--don't drown it, my dear chap!"

"In regard," said Erb, putting down the water-bottle, "to Miss Rosalind Danks."

"I hadn't finished what I was saying."

"Didn't mean you should. Let's drop your personal grievances for a bit. Why didn't you come round and see her before she left?"

"Now that," said Railton, leaning an elbow on the counter, "goes straight to the very crux of the question. That's just where I wanted to carry you. I hate a man who wastes time on preliminaries. My idea always is that if you've got a thing to say, say it!"

"Well then, say it!"

"My position," said Railton, importantly, "is this. I have, as I think I said, the artistic temperament. I am all emotion, all sentiment, all heart! It may be a virtue, it may be a defect; I won't go into that. The point is that little Rosie is the exact opposite. I confess that I thought at one time that we might be well suited to each other, but I see now that I made a mistake. Doesn't often happen, but I did make a mistake there, and the unfortunate part of the business is that I--in a kind of way, don't you know--promised to marry her."

"So I understood. When does the affair come off?"

"My dear old chap," said Railton, with effusive confidence, "the affair is off. But you know what women are, and I find it rather difficult--for, mind you, I am above all things a man of honour--I find it rather difficult to write to her and tell her so. Some men wouldn't hesitate for a moment. Some men have no delicacy. But what I thought was this: Do you want to earn a couple of pounds?"

"Go on!" said Erb, quietly.

"Assuming that you _do_ want to earn a couple of pounds, this is where you come in. You, I gain, have a certain admiration for her. Now, if you can take her off my hands so that I can get out of the engagement with dignity, I am prepared to give you, in writing mind, a promise to pay--"

Mr. Railton went down swiftly on the floor. The other people hurried up.

"You dare strike me!" he cried complainingly, as he rose his handkerchief to his face. "Do it again, that's all."

He went down again with the same unexpectedness as before. Three men stood round Erb, who looked quietly at his own clenched fist; the knuckles had a slight abrasion.

"Want any more?" he asked.

Mr. Railton made one or two efforts from his crumpled position to speak; the three men suggested police, but he waved his hand negatively.

"Do you want any more, you scoundrel you?" repeated Erb.

"No," answered Mr. Lawrence Railton, weakly, from the linoleum, "I don't want any more. I always know my limit."