At length, “Mr. Horace Moncrieff” called the voice of the unseen Charon. In common with the rest, I glanced round languidly to see what sort of man “Mr. Horace Moncrieff” might be. The door was pushed open further. Charon, now revealed as a pale-faced young man with a drooping moustache, put his head into the room and repeated impatiently his invitation to the apparently coy Moncrieff. It suddenly occurred to me that I was Mr. Horace Moncrieff. “So glad you've found yourself,” said the pale-faced young man, as I joined him at the door. “Please don't lose yourself again; we're rather pressed for time.” I crossed with him through a deserted refreshment bar--one of the saddest of sights--into a room beyond. A melancholy-looking gentleman was seated at the piano. Beside him stood a tall, handsome man, who was opening and reading rapidly from a bundle of letters he held in his hand. A big, burly, bored-looking gentleman was making desperate efforts to be amused at the staccato conversation of a sharp-faced, restless-eyed gentleman, whose peculiarity was that he never by any chance looked at the person to whom he was talking, but always at something or somebody else. “Moncrieff?” enquired the tall, handsome man--whom I later discovered to be Mr. Hodgson, the manager--without raising his eyes from his letters. The pale-faced gentleman responded for me. “Fire away,” said Mr. Hodgson. “What is it?” asked of me wearily the melancholy gentleman at the piano. “'Sally in Our Alley,'” I replied. “What are you?” interrupted Mr. Hodgson. He had never once looked at me, and did not now. “A tenor,” I replied. “Not a full tenor,” I added, remembering the O'Kelly's instructions. “Utterly impossible to fill a tenor,” remarked the restless-eyed gentleman, looking at me and speaking to the worried-looking gentleman. “Ever tried?” Everybody laughed, with the exception of the melancholy gentleman at the piano, Mr. Hodgson throwing in his contribution without raising his eyes from his letters. Throughout the proceedings the restless-eyed gentleman continued to make humorous observations of this nature, at which everybody laughed, excepting always the melancholy pianist--a short, sharp, mechanical laugh, devoid of the least suggestion of amusement. The restless-eyed gentleman, it appeared, was the leading low comedian of the theatre. “Go on,” said the melancholy gentleman, and commenced the accompaniment. “Tell me when he's going to begin,” remarked Mr. Hodgson at the conclusion of the first verse. “He has a fair voice,” said my accompanist. “He's evidently nervous.” “There is a prejudice throughout theatrical audiences,” observed Mr. Hodgson, “in favour of a voice they can hear. That is all I am trying to impress upon him.”