“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—”