General Vodkakoff strutted into the room, listening complacently to the applause which was still going on. He had gone well. He felt pleased with himself. It was not for a moment that he noticed Clarence. "Ah," he said, "the interviewer, eh? You wish to--" Clarence began to explain his mission. While he was doing so the Grand Duke strolled to the basin and began to remove his make-up. He favoured, when on the stage, a touch of the Raven Gipsy No. 3 grease-paint. It added a picturesque swarthiness to his appearance, and made him look more like what he felt to be the popular ideal of a Russian general. The looking-glass hung just over the basin. Clarence, watching him in the glass, saw him start as he read the first paragraph. A dark flush, almost rivalling the Raven Gipsy No. 3, spread over his face. He trembled with rage. "Who put that paper there?" he roared, turning. "With reference, then, to Mr. Hubert Wales's novel," said Clarence. The Grand Duke cursed Mr. Hubert Wales, his novel, and Clarence in one sentence. "You may possibly," continued Clarence, sticking to his point like a good interviewer, "have read the trenchant, but some say justifiable remarks of the Rev. Canon Edgar Sheppard, D.D., Sub-Dean of His Majesty's Chapels Royal, Deputy Clerk of the Closet, and Sub-Almoner to the King." The Grand Duke swiftly added that eminent cleric to the list. "Did you put that paper on this looking-glass?" he shouted. "I did not put that paper on that looking-glass," replied Clarence precisely. "Ah," said the Grand Duke, "if you had, I'd have come and wrung your neck like a chicken, and scattered you to the four corners of this dressing-room." "I'm glad I didn't," said Clarence. "Have you read this paper on the looking-glass?" "I have not read that paper on the looking-glass," replied Clarence, whose chief fault as a conversationalist was that he was perhaps a shade too Ollendorfian. "But I know its contents." "It's a lie!" roared the Grand Duke. "An infamous lie! I've a good mind to have him up for libel. I know very well he got them to put those paragraphs in, if he didn't write them himself." "Professional jealousy," said Clarence, with a sigh, "is a very sad thing." "I'll professional jealousy him!" "I hear," said Clarence casually, "that he _has_ been going very well at the Lobelia. A friend of mine who was there last night told me he took eleven calls." For a moment the Russian General's face swelled apoplectically. Then he recovered himself with a tremendous effort. "Wait!" he said, with awful calm. "Wait till to-morrow night! I'll show him! Went very well, did he? Ha! Took eleven calls, did he? Oh, ha, ha! And he'll take them to-morrow night, too! Only"--and here his voice took on a note of fiendish purpose so terrible that, hardened scout as he was, Clarence felt his flesh creep--"only this time they'll be catcalls!"