The new play, "Haddon Hall," had been announced for half-past eight precisely on the evening of Wednesday, the twentieth day of May. It still wanted a few minutes to the hour of eight when that famous American impressario, Mr. Charles Izard, permitted a waiter in the Carlton Hotel to serve him with a coffee and liqueur; while he confided to his invaluable confederate and stage-manager, Mr. Walter Lacombe, the assuring intelligence that he had no doubt either about the play or the company. "They're ho-mo-gen-e-us," he said, lighting a cigar with comfortable deliberation; "the first act's bully and any play with that Third Act I produce. We must get something written for her to follow in. My side will take "Haddon Hall" and it will take Etta Romney. If it doesn't, I close up." Mr. Lacombe, the stage-manager, had his own doubts, but he was far too diplomatic to express them. "When you close up, I sell bananas," said he; "that will be in the Ides of March." Mr. Charles Izard, who had not enjoyed the distinction of three years' idleness at Cambridge (and so had made a vast fortune), produced those strange concatenations of sounds which served him for laughter before uttering a pious wish. "It's the 'ides of the critics' I'd like to touch," he exclaimed with real feeling; "you know what they're going to say about this as well as I do----" "Oh, of course," said Lacombe frankly, "they'll baste it, sure enough. No historical play is likely to please Watley. He'll say that hot blankets are the proper treatment." "I'd like to wrap him up in 'em and smother him," interjected Mr. Charles Izard, still piously. "That's so--he's capable _de tout_. But I fancy he will take her none the less." "Etta Romney, why yes! I'd like to see the man who wouldn't take her. It's a woman that makes a play nowadays. If you'd more of 'em this side, you wouldn't have so many failures. In America we star the woman first and the play afterwards. Here you star the man and when all the schoolgirls have seen him, your theatre's empty." "Exactly--this play is the exception. You've certainly cut the writing on the wall. There's no room for whiskers on your ideas." Mr. Izard drained his coffee cup and admitted loftily that there was not.