He was looking the stranger over as he spoke, taking him for some stage-struck youth who had probably persuaded the good-natured actor to give him an interview. His expression changed, however; as he glanced at the card which the young man handed over, and he started a little and held out his hand with a smile. "Oh!--Mr. Copplestone?" he exclaimed. "How do you do? My name's Stafford--I'm Mr. Oliver's business manager. So he made an appointment with you, did he--here, today? Wants to see you about your play, of course." Again he looked at the newcomer with a smiling interest, thinking secretly that he was a very youthful and ingenuous being to have written a play which Bassett Oliver, a shrewd critic, and by no means easy to please, had been eager to accept, and was about to produce. Mr. Richard Copplestone, seen in the flesh, looked very young indeed, and very unlike anything in the shape of a professional author. In fact he very much reminded Stafford of the fine and healthy young man whom one sees on the playing fields, and certainly does not associate with pen and ink. That he was not much used to the world on whose edge he just then stood Stafford gathered from a boyish trick of blushing through the tan of his cheeks. "I got a wire from Mr. Oliver yesterday--Sunday," replied Mr. Copplestone. "I ought to have had it in the morning, I suppose, but I'd gone out for the day, you know--gone out early. So I didn't find it until I got back to my rooms late at night. I got the next train I could from King's Cross, and it was late getting in here." "Then you've practically been travelling all night?" remarked Stafford. "Well, Mr. Oliver hasn't turned up--most unusual for him. I don't know where--" Just then another man came hurrying down the passage from the dressing-rooms, calling the business manager by name. "I say, Stafford!" he exclaimed, as he emerged on the street. "This is a queer thing!--I'm sure there's something wrong. I've just rung up the 'Angel' hotel. Oliver hasn't turned up there! His rooms were all ready for him as usual yesterday, but he never came. They've neither seen nor heard of him. Did you see him yesterday?" "No!" replied Stafford. "I didn't. Never seen him since last thing Saturday night at Northborough. He ordered this rehearsal for one--no, a quarter to one, here, today. But somebody must have seen him yesterday. Where's his dresser--where's Hackett?" "Hackett's inside," said the other man. "He hasn't seen him either, since Saturday night. Hackett has friends living in these parts--he went off to see them early yesterday morning, from Northborough, and he's only just come. So he hasn't seen Oliver, and doesn't know anything about him; he expected, of course, to find him here." Stafford turned with a wave of the hand towards Copplestone.