"Well, of course we know now what happened, but nobody did then. Nobody was expecting him on the stage, before the scenes or behind 'em, and Mr. Kimball didn't know where he was gone. So it was the end of the piece before he was really missed. Then they begun to hunt, and no Elijah high or low nowhere. You know how the papers was full of it, and there would have been more about it, only Mr. Kimball and 'Liza Em'ly supposed it was just advertising. Even 'Liza Em'ly thought it was the wrong kind of advertising and that the leading lady had seen Elijah's face and thought it was better to kidnap him until the play got settled down her way. Seems if you can keep a play going any kind of a way for a little while, you can't never change it afterwards, no matter what you've put in it. It's all most remarkable business, a play is. But anyway, wherever he was, they all moved on to the next town anyhow. 'Liza Em'ly and Mr. Kimball went right with them to protect Elijah's interest, as it was plain to be seen from where Elijah's manager was sleeping, where his interest was now. And as soon as they begun to unload the scenery, the afternoon of that day, whatever do you suppose? There was Elijah, just where he'd fell when he tripped over the first scene. They'd carted him off in the triangle that unfolds into a grand piano, right along to the baggage-car, where they'd piled the whole of his play on top of him, ending up even with the chicken feathers." "Great heav--!" cried Mrs. Lathrop. "So he said," interrupted Miss Clegg. "But there was no help for it. Seems while you're playing Act III. of a play, Act II. is getting packed up, and Act I. is already in the train. So Elijah was all packed and pretty flat before they even missed him, and most crazy before he was found. Well, and so to try and soothe him they took him to the theater that night again, and the leading lady, when she looked at him and saw how awful weak he looked, sent him in a new idea she'd got, which was to let her have a poster done of him packed up in the scenery. Then every night he could sit in a box and at a certain sign give a yell and shoot out. Then she'd make a speech about his having been in the scenery car all the night before, and being naturally kind of excited. She said it would make the play draw like mad. Well, Elijah wouldn't consent to that a _tall_. And then again they worked with him and talked to him and called him a fool till he really begun to get awfully scared. They had in all the managers together, and they wouldn't let him consult any one. Seems they just all sat looking at his forehead just over his nose where you hypnotize people, and he kept getting more and more scared. Seems he told his nurse, during what they call a lucid interval, that you can talk all you please about will power--and it may be true of people in general--but no rule ever made on earth can possibly apply to any one who has just written a play. There's something about writing a play as