"You’ve got to go on," said Marrier. "Now, pull yourself togethah. The Great Beast is calling for you. Say a few wahds." Carlo Trent in his turn seized the hand of Edward Henry, and it was for all the world as though he were seizing the hand of an intellectual and poetic equal, and wrung it. "Come now!" Mr. Marrier, beaming, admonished him, and then pushed. "What must I say?" stammered Carlo. "Whatever comes into your head." "All right! I’ll say something." A man in a dirty white apron, drew back the heavy mass of the curtain about eighteen inches, and, Carlo Trent stepping forward, the glare of the footlights suddenly lit his white face. The applause, now multiplied fivefold and become deafening, seemed to beat him back against the curtain. His lips worked. He did not bow. "Cam back, you fool!" whispered Marrier. And Carlo Trent stepped back into safe shelter. "Why didn’t you say something?" "I c-couldn’t," murmured the greatest dramatic poet in the world; and began to cry. "Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech!" "Here!" said Edward Henry gruffly. "Get out of my way! I’ll settle ’em. Get out of my way!" And he riddled Carlo Trent with a fusillade of savagely scornful glances. The man in the apron obediently drew back the curtain again, and the next second Edward Henry was facing an auditorium crowded with his patrons. Everybody was standing up, chiefly in the aisles and crowded at the entrances, and quite half the people were waving, and quite a quarter of them were shouting. He bowed several times. An age elapsed. His ears were stunned. But it seemed to him that his brain was working with marvellous perfection. He perceived that he had been utterly wrong about "The Orient Pearl." And that all his advisers had been splendidly right. He had failed to catch its charm and to feel its power. But this audience--this magnificent representative audience drawn from London in the brilliant height of the season--had not failed. It occurred to him to raise his hand. And as he raised his hand it occurred to him that his hand held a lighted cigarette. A magic hush fell upon the magnificent audience, which owned all that endless line of automobiles outside. Edward Henry, in the hush, took a pull at his cigarette. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, pitching his voice well, for municipal politics had made him a practised public speaker, "I congratulate you. This evening you--have succeeded!" There was a roar, confused, mirthful, humorously protesting. He distinctly heard a man in the front row of the stalls say: "Well, for sheer nerve--!" And then go off into a peal of laughter. He smiled and retired. Marrier took charge of him. "You merit the entire confectioner’s shop!" exclaimed Marrier, aghast, admiring, triumphant.