(3) Bear in mind the fact that the play is _not_ the thing, but the players. The most thrilling Third Act is as dross compared with the excitement and suspense of watching to see whether Johnny Blank will _really_ kiss Connie Dash in the proposal scene, or whether the fact (known to at least two-thirds of the audience) that they have not been on speaking terms for the past six months will result in the usual amateur _ne plus ultra_--a sort of frustrated peck, falling short by about six inches. Again, the joy of hearing the hero falter in a stirring apostrophe to the gallery is enhanced by the knowledge that he is reading it from inside the crown of his hat, and has lost the place: while the realistic and convincing air of deference with which the butler addresses the duchess is the more readily recognized and appreciated by an audience who are well aware that he happens in private life to be that lady's husband. The entertainment to which we must now draw the reader's unwilling attention was to consist of three parts. First, the Tableaux Vivants--thirty seconds of tableaux to about ten minutes of outer darkness and orchestral selection; then a comedietta; and finally, Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks. The largest room behind the scenes had been reserved for the lady _artistes_; a draughty passage, furnished chiefly with flaring candles and soda-water syphons, being apportioned to the gentlemen. The _loge des dames_ was a bare and cheerless apartment, but tables and mirrors had been placed round the walls; and here some fifteen or twenty maidens manoeuvred with freezing politeness or unrestrained elbowings (according to their shade of social standing) for positions favourable to self-contemplation. Joan and Sylvia Tarrant foregathered in the middle of the floor. "I think we'd better dress here, dear," said Joan cheerfully, "and leave the nobility and gentry to fight for the dressing-tables. After all," she added complacently, "you and I need the least doing up of any of them." The tableaux on the whole were a success, though it was some time before the audience were permitted to inspect them. The musical director, a nervous individual with a _penchant_ for applied science, had spent the greatest part of two days in fixing up an electric bell of heroic proportions controlled from the conductor's desk, and ringing into the ear of the gentleman in charge of the lighting arrangements. A carefully type-written document (another by-product of the musician's versatility) apprised this overwrought official that one ring signified "stage-lights up," and two rings "stage-lights down."