At a quarter past one of a certain Monday afternoon in the course of a sunny October, Jerramy leaned over the half-door of his sanctum in conversation with an anxious-eyed man who for the past ten minutes had hung about in the restless fashion peculiar to those who are waiting for somebody. He had looked up the street and down the street a dozen times; he had pulled out his watch and compared it with the clock of a neighbouring church almost as often; he had several times gone up the dark passage which led to the dressing-rooms, and had come back again looking more perplexed than ever. The fact was that he was the business manager of the great Mr. Bassett Oliver, who was opening for the week at Norcaster in his latest success, and who, not quite satisfied with the way in which a particular bit of it was being played called a special rehearsal for a quarter to one. Everything and everybody was ready for that rehearsal, but the great man himself had not arrived. Now Mr. Bassett Oliver, as every man well knew who ever had dealings with him, was not one of the irregular and unpunctual order; on the contrary, he was a very martinet as regarded rule, precision and system; moreover, he always did what he expected each member of his company to do. Therefore his non-arrival, his half hour of irregularity, seemed all the more extraordinary. "Never knew him to be late before--never!" exclaimed the business manager, impatiently pulling out his watch for the twentieth time. "Not in all my ten years' experience of him--not once." "I suppose you've seen him this morning, Mr. Stafford?" inquired Jerramy. "He's in the town, of course?" "I suppose he's in the town," answered Mr. Stafford. "I suppose he's at his old quarters--the 'Angel.' But I haven't seen him; neither had Rothwell--we've both been too busy to call there. I expect he came on to the 'Angel' from Northborough yesterday." Jerramy opened the half-door, and going out to the end of the passage, looked up and down the street. "There's a taxi-cab coming round the corner now," he announced presently. "Coming quick, too--I should think he's in it." The business manager bustled out to the pavement as the cab came to a halt. But instead of the fine face and distinguished presence of Mr. Bassett Oliver, he found himself confronting a young man who looked like a well-set-up subaltern, or a cricket-and-football loving undergraduate; a somewhat shy, rather nervous young man, scrupulously groomed, and neatly attired in tweeds, who, at sight of the two men on the pavement, immediately produced a card-case. "Mr. Bassett Oliver?" he said inquiringly. "Is he here? I--I've got an appointment with him for one o'clock, and I'm sorry I'm late--my train--" "Mr. Oliver is not here yet," broke in Stafford. "He's late, too--unaccountably late, for him. An appointment, you say?"