For thirty years it had been Mr. Breitmann's misfortune to fight incompetency in some shape or other. It had fallen to his lot to manipulate vast armies of theatrical supernumeraries and to teach them to perform the apparently impossible feat of being in two places at once. Mr. Breitmann's struggles with the British super had taught him one great secret: the British super, like the British donkey, never does what he is told until the person in authority over him loses his temper. So Breitmann, to avoid loss of time, used to begin by losing his temper at once; so terrible were his ebullitions of wrath, that nobody ever attempted to argue with him, and he always carried his point. Finding his tactics invariably successful within the walls of the theatre, he adopted them with similar success in ordinary life, and the time he saved was enormous. His negotiations with Mrs. Charmington, her husband and her solicitor, were over in forty-eight hours; a satisfactory bargain was concluded between them for the purchase of "Ethel's Sacrifice," a melodrama of thrilling interest, originally written as a novel by Robinson. Robinson had submitted the manuscript to Breitmann, and then for a fortnight the pair had "collaborated." What took place during that dreadful fortnight is only known to the two collaborators. Robinson at its commencement was a bright-eyed young fellow, full of enthusiasm, poetry and romance; at the end of the fortnight all the enthusiasm, poetry and romance had been knocked out of him. "Ethel's Sacrifice" had been altered, tinkered, transposed, cut and filled with comic incidents of the most every-day description, incidents from which the poetic soul of the unhappy Robinson revolted. Then "Ethel's Sacrifice" was gabbled through one summer's evening at a remote provincial theatre, and "Ethel's Sacrifice," by Messrs. Robinson and Breitmann, became a marketable security, duly protected by act of parliament. A nervous invalid left London for prolonged mental rest and change of scene--that was Robinson; his collaborator calmly returned to his multifarious business engagements and the onerous duties of the protection of his innumerable copyrights. Now Mr. Breitmann not only sold "Ethel's Sacrifice" to the Charmingtons, but he sold them the benefits of his own personal skill in its production. When the bills said that "Ethel's Sacrifice" was produced under the personal supervision of Mr. William Breitmann, the knowing ones jumped at once to the correct conclusion that "Ethel's Sacrifice" would be a success. Mr. Breitmann had stipulated with Mrs. Charmington that he should not deliver to her the complete drama until she herself was letter-perfect in the title _rôle_. "You're never perfect, you know," he had said to her, "and you won't be till you've played the thing in the provinces for six months; that's the curse of amateurs, they never are perfect." "But I'm not an amateur, Mr. Breitmann," the lady had retorted indignantly.