"When may I expect the other?" he enquired. "If all goes well, about six o’clock this evening." "I see," said Mr. Stillbottle comprehendingly. "Carriages at five-forty-five--eh?" "Precisely," said Mr. Welwyn. "You have hit off the situation to a nicety." He laughed, in high spirits. His resilient nature had entirely recovered from the humiliation of the morning. "Meanwhile"--he produced a sheet of note-paper--"I shall be obliged if you will kindly commit these notes to memory." Mr. Stillbottle laboriously perused the document. "Lord love a duck!" he observed in a dazed voice--"What’s this?" "A list of--let us say, your entrances and exits this afternoon," explained Mr. Welwyn smoothly. "You understand theatrical terms, I believe." He had struck the right chord. Mr. Stillbottle’s rheumy eye lit up. "Entrances and ex-- oho! Now I begin to take you," he said. "We ’re agoin’ to do drawing-room theatricals, are we? Kind o’ benefit matinée--eh?" "In a sense, yes," replied Mr. Welwyn. "Are you endowed with the dramatic instinct?" "Come again!" said Mr. Stillbottle politely. "Could you play a part, do you think?" "Could I play a part?" repeated Mr. Stillbottle witheringly. "Could a duck swim? Why, I was _in_ the profession, off and on, for a matter of fourteen years." "In what capacity?" asked Mr. Welwyn, much interested. "Well, I’ve bin a good many things," said the versatile Stillbottle, putting his feet up on the sofa. "I’ve bin a guest in the palace of the Dook of Alsatia; I ’ve bin the middle bit of the sea-serpent--what you might call the prime cut--in a ballet of fish; and I was once the second wave on the O.P. side of the storm what wrecked Sinbad the Sailor." Mr. Welwyn smiled sympathetically. Here was another rolling stone. "What made you abandon such a promising career, Mr. Stillbottle?" he asked. The late prime cut of the sea-serpent shook his head gloomily. "The old story," he said--"professional jealousy. It started with my bein’ cast for the front legs of a elephant in a pantomime. That was the stage-manager’s bit of spite. My usual place is the _’ind_ legs--and that takes a bit of doing, I can tell you. (The ’ind legs ’as to wag the tail, you see.) If I was to tell you the number of ’ind legs I’d played, you’d be surprised," he continued, plunging into an orgy of irrelevant reminiscence. "Why, I recollect in eighty-four, at the Old Brit., ’Oxton way--" "But what was the matter with the front legs you were speaking of?" enquired Mr. Welwyn opportunely.