“My dear friend,” said Steevens, “I have no intention of going to the playhouse unless you are in my company--I promised so much to Dr. Johnson. What, man, have you no consideration for your friends, leaving yourself out of the question? Have you no consideration for your art, sir?” “What do you mean by that?” “I mean that perhaps while you are walking here some question may arise on the stage that you, and you only, can decide--are you willing to allow the future of your comedy to depend upon the decision of Colman, who is not the man to let pass a chance of proving himself to be a true prophet? Come, sir, you have shown yourself to be a man, and a great man, too, before to-night. Why should your courage fail you now when I am convinced you are on the eve of achieving a splendid success?” “It shall not--it shall not!” cried Goldsmith after a short pause. “I'll not give in should the worst come to the worst. I feel that I have something of a man in me still. The years that I have spent in this battle have not crushed me into the earth. I'll go with you, my friend--I'll go with you. Heaven grant that I may yet be in time to avert disaster.” They hurried together to Charing Cross, where a hackney coach was obtainable. All the time it was lumbering along the uneven streets to Covent Garden, Goldsmith was talking excitedly about the likelihood of the play being wrecked through Colman's taking advantage of his absence to insist on a scene being omitted--or, perhaps, a whole act; and nothing that Steevens could say to comfort him had any effect. When the vehicle turned the corner into Covent Garden he craned his head out of the window and declared that the people were leaving the playhouse--that his worst fears were realized. “Nonsense!” cried Steevens, who had put his head out of the other window. “The people you see are only the footmen and linkmen incidental to any performance. What, man, would the coachmen beside us be dozing on their boxes if they were waiting to be called? No, my friend, the comedy has yet to be damned.” When they got out of the coach Goldsmith hastened round to the stage door, looking into the faces of the people who were lounging around, as if to see in each of them the fate of his play written. He reached the back of the stage and made for where Colman was standing, just as Quick, in the part of Tony Lumpkin, was telling Mrs. Hardcastle that he had driven her forty miles from her own house, when all the time she was within twenty yards of it. In a moment he perceived that the lights were far too strong; unless Mrs. Hardcastle was blind she could not have failed to recognise the familiar features of the scene. The next moment there came a hiss--a solitary hiss from the boxes. “What's that, Mr. Colman?” whispered the excited author. “Psha! sir,” said Colman brutally. “Why trouble yourself about a squib when we have all been sitting on a barrel of gunpowder these two hours?”