“Why don’t you try it, Milton?” we used to say. “It would be a jolly good advertisement. ‘Milton Hayes, the author of the _Green Eye_, says....’ You’d have your name placarded all over the kingdom.” But he would none of it. “No,” he said, “that’s far too obvious. Any beginner tries that stunt, or men that are ‘has beens.’ I might invent a mixture. But no, not the other thing. It’s not the sort of publicity one wants.” But whatever commercial advantage Sanatogen may have lacked as an advertising agent, its absence in Hayes’s life certainly affected his nerves. It is a compound that he found palatable only in milk, and even condensed milk was a rare commodity. The result was that Milton Hayes joined the band of Wordsmiths in the Alcove, and spent his time working on his lyrics and on a musical comedy. This programme satisfied him well enough for a couple of months. In France he had spent much of his time organising concert parties, and in his heart of hearts he was not sorry to be quit for a time of grease paints and the greenroom. But it could not last; and within a short time he was longing for fresh worlds to conquer. And, at the suggestion of a friend, he altered and abbreviated his musical comedy into a farcical libretto calculated to run for about a hundred minutes. This composition he laid in all good faith before the Entertainments Committee, suggesting that he should choose his cast from the pick of the “Pows” and the “Shivers,” and should himself produce the show. It was a simple proposal; but he had not calculated upon the extent to which professional rivalry had imprisoned the dramatic activities of the camp. While all the world slept momentous things had happened. A scheme of regulations had been drawn up for the guidance of the managing directors, which in a way resembled the qualifications of League Football. To prevent poaching it had been decided that, once a performer had figured on the playbills of one company, he could not transfer his allegiance elsewhere. No assistance was to be given by one party to another; only the piano, the orchestra and the prop-box were common property. There was a sort of trade boycott afoot in which only neutral waters were free from tariff. And then into this world of regulated commerce Milton Hayes entered like the bold bad buccaneer of Romance, demanding free ports and free transport, the very pirate of legality.