_The curtain falls amid tumultuous applause, at the end of which a clear treble voice, extremely like_ MR. RAVENSHAWE’S, _announces peremptorily_, “Act two will be left out, because they won’t do it.” _So the curtain rising on the third Act reveals_ REGINALD _lying in much the same position as before, except that now his couch is furnished with a pillow and an eiderdown quilt, and he himself is sick unto death, mortally wounded in that fatal quarrel_. ANGELINA _has apparently been giving, or is about to give, him his medicine. She stands beside him, a bottle and spoon in her hand._ REGINALD (_sitting up and clutching at his breast in agony_): Hell and damnation! This pain again! (_Swoons._) ANGELINA: How he must suffer! REGINALD (_once more reviving_): Take that stuff away. I am past all first aids now. Angelina! (_Deliriously, and with a frantic gesture._) Take it away! (ANGELINA, _alarmed, drops the bottle, which strikes the leg of the couch and breaks_.) ANGELINA: Oh! (_A Voice from the audience_:――“What was in it, dear? I hope it won’t leave a stain on the carpet. Bridget, you’d better go and wipe it up at once.”) ANGELINA (_reassuringly_): It’s not ink: it’s only liquorice wine. MR. RAVENSHAWE (_from the hall_): I knew you’d break it, and you said you wouldn’t. You can just make me some more. ANGELINA: Don’t be so greedy. It wasn’t more than half full, and you’d watered it twice. (_Enter_ BRIDGET, _with a cloth and a bucket of hot water_.) BRIDGET: You’ll have to get up, Master Palmer. It’s all run under the sofa. REGINALD (_rising from his death-bed_): Oh, dash it all, you know. That spoils the whole thing. _The other members of the company enter, and Maud Vivien says rather spitefully_, “It’s Ann’s fault. She would insist on being Angelina.” “Are we to take it that the performance is concluded?” asked the canon, getting up out of his arm-chair, “because, if so, I fancy you’d better wash before supper. We all enjoyed the play immensely.” “Look at Edward,” giggled Ann. “His moustache has spread all over his face.” “Oh, can’t we have supper the way we are?” cried Jim. “What’s the use of fagging about washing when we’ll have to do it over again in the morning?” But Aunt Caroline was firm. “There must be washing. And proper washing with soap,” she added. “I’ve got my pillow-cases to consider.” “Were we good?” asked Ann, modestly. “Yes dear, very good. I don’t know how you made it up so well.” “I don’t think Miss Johnson liked it,” Ann whispered. “Her face got awfully red.” “It’s rotten that bottle breaking!” said Palmer, as, in the seclusion of the gentlemen’s dressing-room, he divested himself of Reginald’s attire. “It was in the last act that I was going to have the best rag of all――when Reginald’s dying.... Look here, Jim, you might fold up those clothes instead of chucking them all over the place!”