"Why don't we begin?" asked Simpson; "I can't remember my part much longer. Oh, by the way, when you come up to me and say, 'Your Majesty e'en forgets the story of the bull's-eye and the revolving bookcase----" "Go away; I don't say anything so silly." "Oh, of course it's Blair. Blair, when you come up to me and say----" They retired to the back of the stage to arrange a very effective piece of business. "Any card you like, madam, so long as it is in the pack. The Queen of Hearts? Certainly. Now I take the others and tear them up--so. The card remaining will be yours. Ah, as I thought--it is the Queen of Hearts." "Archie, you're talking too much," said Dahlia, "and none of it comes into your part really." "I'm getting the atmosphere. Have you an old top hat on you, dear, because if so we'll make a pudding. No top hat? Then pudding is horf." "But stay, who is this approaching? Can it be--I say, mind the footlights. When are we going to begin?" "There!" said Thomas proudly. "Anybody would know that was blood." "But how perfectly lovely," said Myra. "Only you want some notches." "What for?" "To show where you executed the other men, of course. You always get a bit off your axe when you execute anybody." "Yes, I've noticed that too," I agreed. "Notches, Thomas, notches." "Why don't you do something for a change? What about the trap or whatever it is you catch your bally rats with? Why don't you make that?" "It isn't done with a trap, Thomas dear. It's partly the power of the human eye and partly kindness. I sit upon a sunny bank and sing to them." "Which is that?" "If we don't begin soon," began Simpson---- "Hallo, Emperor, what's that you're saying? Quite so, I agree with you. I wonder if your High Fatness can lend me such a thing as a hard-boiled egg. Simpkins, when this rehearsal is over--that is to say, to-morrow--I'll take you on at juggling; I'm the best----" Deny finished his conversation with Miss Fortescue and turned to the stage. "Now then, please, _please_," he said. "We'll just take the First Act. Scene, The Emperor's Palace. Enter Rat-catcher. You come on from the left." I coughed and came on. My part was not a long one, but it was a very important one. I was the connecting link between the different episodes of the play, and they wanted some connecting. Whenever anybody came on to the stage, I said (supposing I was there, and I generally was--the rat-catcher of those days corresponding to the modern plumber)--I said, "But who is this?" or "Hush, here comes somebody." In this way, the attention of the wakeful part of the audience was switched on to the new character, and continuity of action was preserved. I coughed and came on. "No," said Derry, "you must come on much more briskly." "I can't. I've been bitten by a rat." "It doesn't say so anywhere."