No one could compete with Eliphalet Cardomay’s energy in this direction. He had made a strict rule to read two plays on week-days and three on Sundays, and he never departed from it. Yet, despite his diligent inquiry into the realms, or rather, reams, of the unknown, never once, in thirty years of provincial management, did he discover and produce a new play. He just went on doing the old repertory routine of revival and re-revival, and then back again to the beginning. Sometimes he would vary the order by purchasing the touring rights of a successful London melodrama, but these ventures were few and far between. Yet always at the back of his head was the belief that one day he would chance upon and present an entirely original and unexploited work. It was at a time when he was debating on the advisability of making an offer for the latest Lyceum success that a copy of “A Man’s Way” came to hand. He started to examine it on a journey between Glasgow and Brighton, and before arriving at his journey’s end he had read it three times, and his stage-manager, Freddie Manning, had read it twice. “What do you think, Manning?” he queried. “Not too bad,” replied Manning, who was not given to superlatives. “A good title, ‘A Man’s Way’—an arresting title.” “Might be worse.” “And an ingenious plot.” “M’m!” “Something very original about it.” “Wants a lot of cutting.” “Oh, yes—too long.” “Damsite!” “This Mr. Theodore Leonard—ever heard of him, Manning?” The stage-manager picked his teeth negatively. “No, neither have I. A first play, probably. Very fresh and ingenious—modern, too. Yes, yes! The part of the doctor—with a little alteration—I think we could get away with it. H’m! read it again, Manning—read it again.” The result of Manning’s second excursion through “A Man’s Way” was reassuring. He repeated his former verdict that it “wasn’t too bad.” That night as he lay in bed Eliphalet Cardomay digested “A Man’s Way” and revolved the possibilities of doing it in his mind. It was so essentially unlike anything he had ever done before that the prospect pleased. The central character of the doctor was his firm, purposeful way—his manner of treating wife and patient with the same unvarying but just dictatorship—it was new, and yet true to life—very human, if only on account of the unemotional quality of the work. From beginning to end there wasn’t a single set speech—no lofty periods of crescendo to induce those rapturous outbursts of applause by means of which members of provincial audiences seek to convince their immediate neighbours that they are sensible and appreciative to the influences of uplifting thought.