But, alas! with the change of text came a fresh trouble. Situations had to be re-constructed to fit the new psychology. Nothing daunted, Eliphalet dipped afresh into his old lore, and emerged with stilted and stereotyped scenes which he faithfully paraphrased and transplanted. And the finished article bore about as much resemblance to “A Man’s Way” as a cow to a nightingale. Poor Eliphalet Cardomay! The quicksands of tradition would not let him go. “Yes,” said Freddie Manning, “it’s more like our usual stuff now.” He took out a cigarette, which he licked thoughtfully before lighting “But I was thinking——” “What?” said Eliphalet. “Hasn’t it struck you, Guv’nor, that the title ‘A Man’s Way,’ doesn’t fit any longer?” Eliphalet looked quite scared. “But I like the title enormously. It’s so original—er—modern.” “But it don’t belong, Guv’nor. It gives the wrong idea.” “Ye-es, I see what you mean. With this more ascetic character, eh?” “Exactly.” He rubbed his nose productively. “‘A Man’s Prayer’ would be better,” he hazarded. Eliphalet thought it over and shook his head. “No, it ain’t good. How about ‘The Great Trust?’” “Sounds a shade American, Manning.” “It does.” Eliphalet struck the table. “I have it,” he said. “‘His Prayer.’” “That’s the note!” “Then let Lennard know we have decided to call it that. And you might take back some of these to the theatre.” He indicated the pile of plays on his table from which his alterations had been quarried. Freddie Manning carried off these veterans of the Road, and having nothing better to do for an hour he perused the four acts of “The Vespers” and became pregnant of an idea. He said nothing about it at the theatre that night, but the following morning, when, faithful to his usual routine, he paid his eleven o’clock call on his master, he had every intention of doing so. In the meanwhile Eliphalet had passed a troubled night. Dispassionately and clear-headedly he had been through “His Prayer” (late “A Man’s Way”) and had given it deep thought. He had chosen this work because he believed it would lift him from the Old School and place him among the moderns, and lo! it was even as all his other plays. He had been deceived. There was not a spark of originality in it. It was set and stereotyped, lifeless and dull. “Why, why did I ever believe in the thing?” recurred over and over again in his mind. So before Manning had a chance to speak a word, he was saying: “I have made a most grievous error in the matter of ‘A Man’s Way.’ It’s no good, Manning—no good at all, and I cannot conceive how I ever thought it was.” “We are all liable to mistakes, Guv’nor.” Eliphalet shook his head. “Perhaps I am getting old,” he said, “and losing my sense of good and ill. Why, even with the alterations I have so laboriously contrived, it does not compare with the poorest play in our repertoire.” Manning slapped his hat on the table.