_Dick_ (_jumping up_). Winifred, I---- (_with a great gulp_) I LOVE YOU!!! Whereupon he picked her up in his arms and carried her triumphantly off the stage ... and after a little natural hesitation the curtain came down. . . . . . Behind the scenes all was consternation. Mr. Levinski (absolutely furious) had a hasty consultation with the author (also furious), in the course of which they both saw that the Fourth Act as written was now an impossibility. Poor Prosper, who had almost immediately recovered his sanity, tremblingly suggested that Mr. Levinski should announce that, owing to the sudden illness of Mr. Vane, the Fourth Act could not be given. Mr. Levinski was kind enough to consider this suggestion not entirely stupid; his own idea having been (very regretfully) to leave out the two parables and three reminiscences from India and concentrate on the love-scene with the widow. "Yes, yes," he said. "Your plan is better. I will say you are ill. It is true; you are mad. To-morrow we will play it as it was written." "You can't," said the author gloomily. "The critics won't come till the Fourth Act, and they'll assume that the Third Act ended as it did to-night. The Fourth Act will seem all nonsense to them." "True. And I was so good, so much myself, in that Act." He turned to Prosper. "You--fool!" "Or there's another way," began the author. "We might----" And then a gentleman in the gallery settled it from the front of the curtain. There was nothing in the programme to show that the play was in four acts. "The Time is the present day and the Scene is in Sir Geoffrey Throssell's town-house," was all it said. And the gentleman in the gallery, thinking it was all over, and being pleased with the play and particularly with the realism of the last moment of it, shouted "_Author!_" And suddenly everybody else cried "_Author! Author!_" The play was ended. . . . . .