“Like many another idle young man about town, Mr. Howard Dennis was stage-mad, and one of his greatest delights was to don nightly a mask and a blue domino, and to ‘walk on’ in the second act, not so much in order to gratify his love for the stage, as to watch Miss Phyllis Morgan in her great scene, and to be present, close by her, when she received her usual salvo of enthusiastic applause from a delighted public. “On this eventful night—it was on 20th July last—the second act was in full swing; the supers, the stage hands, and all the principals were on the scene, the back of the stage was practically deserted. The beautiful pearls, fresh from the hands of Mr. Kidd, were in Miss Morgan’s dressing-room, as she meant to wear them in the last act. “Of course, since that memorable affair, many people have talked of the foolhardiness of leaving such valuable jewellery in the sole charge of a young girl—Miss Morgan’s dresser—who acted with unpardonable folly and carelessness, but you must remember that this part of the theatre is only accessible through the stage door, where sits enthroned that uncorruptible dragon, the stage door-keeper. “No one can get at it from the front, and the dressing-rooms for the supers and lesser members of the company are on the opposite side of the stage to that reserved for Miss Morgan and one or two of the principals. “It was just a quarter to ten, and the curtain was about to be rung down, when George Finch, the stage door-keeper, rushed excitedly into the wings; he was terribly upset, and was wildly clutching his coat, beneath which he evidently held something concealed. “In response to the rapidly-whispered queries of the one or two stage hands that stood about, Finch only shook his head excitedly. He seemed scarcely able to control his impatience, during the close of the act, and the subsequent prolonged applause. “When at last Miss Morgan, flushed with her triumph, came off the stage, Finch made a sudden rush for her. “‘Oh, Madam!’ he gasped excitedly, ‘it might have been such an awful misfortune! The rascal! I nearly got him through! but he escaped—fortunately it is safe—— I have got it——!’ “It was some time before Miss Morgan understood what in the world the otherwise sober stage door-keeper was driving at. Every one who heard him certainly thought that he had been drinking. But the next moment from under his coat he pulled out, with another ejaculation of excitement, the magnificent pearl necklace which Miss Morgan had thought safely put away in her dressing-room. “‘What in the world does all this mean?’ asked Mr. Howard Dennis, who, as usual, was escorting his _fiancée_. ‘Finch, what are you doing with Madam’s necklace?’ “Miss Phyllis Morgan herself was too bewildered to question Finch; she gazed at him, then at her necklace, in speechless astonishment.