“Guv’nor,” he said, “that’s what I’m here to say. It all comes of trying to get off our own railway system. Now what’s wrong with doing ‘The Vespers’ instead?” “’Pon my soul,” said Eliphalet, “I believe it would bear reviving.” “It would—and not a cent to pay, either.” Eliphalet leant back and rubbed his fingers together. “‘The Vespers?’” he spoke the title lovingly. “Why, Manning, it must be twenty years since I played ‘The Vespers.’ Ah, Manning, they knew how to write—those old ’uns. They had poetry, understanding. This ultra-modern business is all wrong, Manning, all wrong.” “It’s all wrong for us, Guv’nor.” He did not overstress the “us,” but it had a meaning which Eliphalet was not slow to perceive. “Let the cobbler stick to his last,” he said. Manning rose abruptly. “Well, I’ll send Lennard a letter and return the script.” “No,” said Eliphalet, “I’ll do that.” Manning eyed him doubtfully. “You are under no obligation to pay him anything, Guv’nor.” “No—no—no. Of course not.” But nevertheless there was a cheque for forty pounds in the letter he posted. Perhaps subconsciously, he was paying for a lesson and not for a play. It was the Eliphalet touch. He, too, had had his disappointments, and maybe, this was one of them. No man should raise hopes and dash them to the ground. CHAPTER VII GAS WORKS The effects of international politics are far-reaching. But for them Eliphalet Cardomay would certainly have produced “The Vespers.” The declaration of peace in South Africa was the direct cause of his abandoning the project. A wave of patriotism seized him, and on its impulse he purchased the touring rights of a great military melodrama, entitled “The Flag,” which had been accorded considerable success in a London theatre. In this play he figured as a dashing, if rather improbable Colonel, whose courage was to be relied upon in any extremity. The extremities were many and dire, but never failed to find our hero alert, sententious, resourceful and with an inexhaustible supply of cigarettes. Truth to tell, the part was not eminently suited, either to his personality or method. Colonels do not, as a rule, wear much hair upon the temples or nape of the neck, nor do they engage unduly in gesture or vocalisation. Eliphalet, on the other hand, did all these things—declining to sacrifice his established traditions on the shrine of convention. His “Colonel,” therefore, was an indifferent impersonation less like unto a soldier than unto Van Biene in “The Broken Melody.” In the last scene of the play there was a great “to do”; nothing less, in short, than a bombardment and assault upon the Consulate which the Colonel and his brave followers were defending. With heavy odds against them, these gallant few contrived to hold out until the opportune arrival of a rescue-party headed by the Colonel’s young and lovely daughter, and heralded by a fife-and-drum band.