Then he remembered. She was the girl who played the Messenger. She had only three words to say, and to say them over and over again; and she had made a hit! "Seen the notices?" asked Marrier. "Yes. What of them?" "Oh! Well!" Marrier drawled. "What would you expect?" "That’s just what _I_ said!" observed Edward Henry. "You did, did you?" Mr. Marrier exclaimed, as if extremely interested by this corroboration of his views. Carlo Trent strolled in; he remarked that he happened to be just passing. But the discussion of the situation was not carried very far. That evening the house was nearly full, except the pit and the gallery, which were nearly empty. Applause was perfunctory. "How much?" Edward Henry enquired of the box-office manager when figures were added together. "Thirty-one pounds two shillings." "Hem!" "Of course," said Mr. Marrier. "In the height of the London season, with so many counter-attractions--! Besides, they’ve got to get used to the idea of it." Edward Henry did not turn pale. Still, he was aware that it cost him a trifle over sixty pounds "to ring the curtain up" at every performance, and this sum took no account of expenses of production nor of author’s fees. The sum would have been higher, but he was calculating as rent of the theatre only the ground-rent plus six per cent. on the total price of the building. What disgusted him was the duplicity of the first-night audience, and he said to himself violently: "I was right all the time, and I knew I was right! Idiots! Chumps! Of course I was right!" On the third night the house held twenty-seven pounds and sixpence. "Naturally," said Mr. Marrier. "In this hot weathah--! I never knew such a hot June! It’s the open-air places that are doing us in the eye. In fact I heard to-day that the White City is packed. They simply can’t bank their money quick enough." It was on that day that Edward Henry paid salaries. It appeared to him that he was providing half London with a livelihood: acting managers, stage managers, assistant ditto, property men, stage hands, electricians, prompters, call boys, box-office staff, general staff, dressers, commissionaires, programme girls, cleaners, actors, actresses, understudies, to say nothing of Rose Euclid at a purely nominal salary of one hundred pounds a week. The tenants of the bars were grumbling, but happily he was getting money from them. The following day was Saturday. It rained--a succession of thunderstorms. The morning and the evening performances produced together sixty-eight pounds. "Well," said Mr. Marrier. "In this kind of weathah you can’t expect people to come out, can you? Besides, this cursed week-ending habit--" Which conclusions did not materially modify the harsh fact that Edward Henry was losing over thirty pounds a day--or at the rate of over ten thousand pounds a year.