Then, going to the theatre, the first person he met was Rosenberg, who sent another chill to his heart. “First nights are always good,” said Mr. Rosenberg. “It was all ‘paper’, you know. To-night is the real test.” And so the second performance came; and in the theatre were some two hundred people, and the occasion was the most awful “frost” that ever froze the heart of an unhappy partisan of the “drama of ideas”. After which, according to schedule, the play moved to another manufacturing town; and in the theatre were some two hundred and fifty people--and a frost some ten degrees lower yet! Section 11. So at twelve o’clock that night there was a consultation in a room at the hotel, attended by Thyrsis and Miss Lewis and Mr. Tapping and Mr. Jones. “You see,” said the last named; “the play is a failure.” “Absolutely!” said Mr. Tapping. “I knew it would be!” cried Miss Lewis. “And you?” asked Mr. Jones of Thyrsis. “It has not succeeded in these towns,” said Thyrsis. “But then--how could it succeed, except where there are intellectual people? You promised to take it to New York.” “It’s no use!” declared Jones. “New York would laugh it dead in one night.” “It would,” said Mr. Tapping, decisively. “I knew it all along,” cried Miss Lewis. So they went on for ten minutes; and then, “What are you going to do?” asked Thyrsis, in terror. “The play must be altered,” said Jones. “How altered?” “It must be altered as Miss Lewis asked you at first.” Thyrsis sprang up. “What!” he cried. “It must be done!” said Mr. Jones. “It must,” said Mr. Tapping. “I knew it all along!” cried Miss Lewis again. “But I won’t stand for it!” exclaimed Thyrsis, wildly. “It must be done!” said Mr. Jones, in his heaviest steam-roller tone. “But I won’t have it!” “What’ll you do?” “I’ll go to law! I’ll get an injunction.” “What is there in our contract to prevent our altering the play?” demanded the man. “What!” gasped Thyrsis. “You know what our understanding was!” “Humph!” said the other. “Can you prove it?” “And do you mean that you would go back on that understanding?” “And do you mean that you expect me to see this money wasted and the play sent to pot?” Thyrsis, in his agony, turned to Miss Lewis. “Will you let him break our bargain?” he cried. “But what else is there to be done?” she answered. “Don’t you see that the play is a failure? And don’t you see the plight you’ve got me in?” Thyrsis was dumb with dismay. He stared from one of these people to another, and his heart went down--down. He saw that his case was hopeless. He had no one to help him or to advise him, and he had less than eleven dollars in his pocket. “What do you propose to do?” he asked, weakly. “I have already telegraphed to Richard Haberton,” said Jones. “He will meet us and see the next two performances; and then we’ll lay the company off until we get some kind of a practical play.”