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.