It is either the lights or a missing prop or a hiatus between speech and action which the first acquaintance with the scenery develops or a "jumbled" ensemble or something unexpected which brings the rehearsal to an abrupt halt. The dialogue stops like a megaphone suddenly shut off. The director hurries down the centre aisle, the prompter's head appears at the proscenium arch. "Loved I not honour more!" repeats the actor, looking expectantly off stage. "Loved I not honour more!" bellows the stage-manager, getting into the game. "That's _your_ cue, Mr. Prime Minister. Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones! Where _is_ Mr. Jones?" "Jones! Jones!" reverberates about the stage and in the flies. "Here I am! I hear you!" answers a muffled voice up-stage. "I can't get through. The entrance's blocked with a sacred elephant!" There is a rush of stage hands in the direction indicated. Simultaneously Mr. Jones appears L. I. E. "I'm sorry," he says, "but I couldn't butt in through the stone walls of the castle, now could I?" indicating the boxed set which formed the outer walls of the scene. The obstruction is removed amidst a heated confab and the stage cleared for action. "Go back--go back to Miss Melon's entrance." Miss Melon enters. The scene starts flatly enough. It is difficult to pick up a scene and get back into the atmosphere at once. One must "warm up to it." A star requires an effective entrance. The audience must be apprised of her approach. "Here she comes now!" (accompanied by a look off stage.) Or, a flunkey enters and solemnly announces, "His Highness, Prince of Ptomania, mounts the steps." These helpful hints prepare the reception which the ushers start at the psychological moment. Many persons are backward about applauding for fear of making a mistake: just follow the usher. The supporting actors understand that they are expected to "humour" the applause, either upon an entrance or for a scene. Stars, however, do not always encourage applause for their supporting actors. Some of them go so far as to "shut it off" by flashing on house light on a curtain in which they do not figure, or dimming the foots or directing the actors to "jump in" with the next speech. In the midst of a scene which sends little shivers up and down one's spinal column the star hesitates, stammers, repeats, then interpolates while she searches frantically among the papers on the table for the missing prop. "Where's the knife--the fatal dagger?" she demands, dropping the rôle as one would step out of a petticoat. The man about to be killed joins in the hunt for the deadly weapon. "I can't kill you very well without a knife, can I, Jack? Unless I stab you with a hatpin--" There is something so incongruous in the rapid contrasts that everyone, including the star herself, gives way to laughter. Meanwhile the stage-manager's yells for Props have brought that culprit from the flies where he has been touching up a damp cloud with a paint brush. "The knife!" a chorus hurls at him.