But competition is a dangerous tool, and I often used to wonder where all this frenzy would end, and to what point it was leading. It had got beyond the well-defined limits of a good-humoured race. If it had been a case of nations, it is quite plain what the result would have been. Competition would have become contention, jealousy would have bred hatred, and there would have been a war, of which the real issue would have been, shall we say, the prop-box. But of course the companies themselves would not have fought; they had started the war, that would have been enough for them. And the ordinary _Gefangener_, who had quite unconsciously fanned this flame, by scratching at the sore place and aggravating the little itch, would find himself enrolled under one standard or the other, and involved in a war of which he was the unwitting cause. And he would be told--well, what would he be told? That he was fighting for a prop-box? That would never do. There might come a time when he would not consider a prop-box worth the surrender of his liberty. No, the manager would have to find some striking and impersonal cause, “not for passion, or for power.” A theme must be found fitting for high oratory, a framework constructed that would bear the weight of many sounding phrases. Let the poor _Gefangener_ believe that he is fighting for the freedom of the English stage; let the old catchwords rip, “Art against Vulgarity,” “The Drama against the Vaudeville,” “Shakespeare against A Little Bit of Fluff.” And then.... But fortunately we were not nations armed with a pulpit and a Press, we were simply prisoners of war, and this competition produced some very delightful entertainment. But all the same, I still wonder where things would have ended, if we had stayed there much longer. We were riding for a smash. We had exhausted our limited resources; for one man cannot compose, stage and produce a new musical comedy every fortnight, and the rivalry of the two parties had developed at such an alarming pace that we were faced with the prospect of a return to “The Money Moon,” when Milton Hayes returned to the stage, and, in his own phrase, “let loose the light that set the vault of heaven on fire.” § 2 For some weeks Milton Hayes had been living the retired life of an author, architect or other student. For he had found the effort of repeated performances in an unnatural atmosphere a very real strain on his nerves. “No Sanatogen,” he said, “that’s what does it. I can’t act without Sanatogen. I used to try champagne once, but it left me like a rag afterwards. Sanatogen’s the stuff.” As a traveller in this commodity he would have made quite a hit. He never wearied of singing its praises, and we used to ask him why he did not forward to the firm one of those credentials that begin, “Since using your admirable tonic....”