Mr. Manning jerked back the cuff of his sleeve and shut his teeth tight. The faces of the disputants were barely two inches apart. The dresser came into the room, and Eliphalet passed noiselessly out. Chuckling stupidly, he made his way to the stage. “Take up the curtain,” he ordered, and the assistant stage-manager, accustomed to years of implicit obedience, touched the bell, and the curtain rose. “Excuse me,” the dresser was saying. “A doan’t think t’ poor gentleman’s droonk. A think t’is physic as ’as oop-set ’im. ’E’s been taking doases very free from this ’ere.” And he held aloft the empty bottle of Enoch’s Instantaneous. The stage-manager seized the bottle and read the label. “Did he take the lot?” “Aye, and another bottle beside.” “Drugged!—p’raps he’s killed himself.” Then, in a roar: “Where the hell did he get the stuff?” Mr. Dyson fell back a step and covered his mouth guiltily. “You?” Manning jerked out the monosyllable threateningly. “I did mention—I—I told him it was good,” faltered Mr. Dyson. “Then,” said Freddie Manning, “you’ll go right on before the curtain and tell the house just exactly what’s happened. The Guv-nor’s going home to bed right now, and, look here again, you’d better state the facts pretty lucid, for I swear I’ll break your neck if it gets about that the Guv’nor was tight.” From the distance came the sound of a mighty roar of laughter. Simultaneously they turned and saw, for the first time, that Eliphalet Cardomay had gone. “He’s on!” exclaimed Manning and, followed by Mr. Dyson, made a dash for the wings. He was on! That was the opinion of the entire audience. One of the great dramatic moments of the play had been wrecked and lay in splinters on the stage. A scene, the moving nature of which would have wrung tears from a stone, had, by a single line, been turned into an ecstasy of laughter. The wife and child of the melancholy but Reverend Coles, having seen through the falsity of the life they had chosen, and battered by the glittering villainies of Black Moustache’s patent leather boots and doubtful champagne, had returned weepingly, to implore his forgiveness and his blessing, and he, instead of replying, “I forgive and bless you,” had smiled idiotically and said, “Chase me!” The house rocked and fell about with laughter. The unprecedented success of his sally made a profound impression upon Eliphalet. He saw himself as a comedian—a funny man. The last of his self-control fell from him, and he gave himself over to rickety horse-play and clumsy mafficking. He overset chairs and tables, and laughed stupidly, He turned tragedy into farce, and the Reverend Coles from a figure of pathos became a figure of fun.