“You alone are able to manage the business side of the production. You know the right men to go to. To approach them on behalf of a stranger’s work is far less likely to lead to success.” (True, true.) “I have assumed, you will see, that the play is certain to be produced. But that will only be so if you adopt it as your own,” (There was sense in this.) “Claim the authorship, and all will be well.” “I will,” I said. I packed up the play in its brown paper, and rushed from the house. At the post-office, at the bottom of the King’s Road, I stopped to send a telegram. It consisted of the words, “Accept thankfully.—Cloyster.” Then I took a cab from the rank at Sloane Square, and told the man to drive to the stage-door of the Briggs Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. The cab-rank in Sloane Square is really a Home for Superannuated Horses. It is a sort of equine Athenaeum. No horse is ever seen there till it has passed well into the sere and yellow. A Sloane Square cab-horse may be distinguished by the dignity of its movements. It is happiest when walking. The animal which had the privilege of making history by conveying me and _The Girl who Waited_ to the Briggs Theatre was asthmatic, and, I think, sickening for the botts. I had plenty of time to cool my brain and think out a plan of campaign. Stanley Briggs, whom I proposed to try first, was the one man I should have liked to see in the part of James, the hero of the piece. The part might have been written round him. There was the objection, of course, that _The Girl who Waited_ was not a musical comedy, but I knew he would consider a straight play, and put it on if it suited him. I was confident that _The Girl who Waited_ would be just what he wanted. The problem was how to get him to himself for a sufficient space of time. When a man is doing the work of half a dozen he is likely to get on in the world, but he has, as a rule, little leisure for conversation. My octogenarian came to a standstill at last at the stage-door, and seemed relieved at having won safely through a strenuous bit of work. I went through in search of my man. His dressing-room was the first place I drew. I knew that he was not due on the stage for another ten minutes. Mr. Richard Belsey, his valet, was tidying up the room as I entered. “Mr. Briggs anywhere about, Richard?” I asked. “Down on the side, sir, I think. There’s a new song in tonight for Mrs. Briggs, and he’s gone to listen how it goes.” “Which side, do you know?” “O.P., sir, I think.”