rom that to the still more narrow alley at its rear,
that the zest of adventure began to make amends to Agnes for certain
disagreeable moments of the ride. At the stage door a particularly
bewildered-looking man with a rolling eye and a weak jaw, rendered
limp and helpless by the polyglot aliens who had flocked upon him,
strickenly let them in, to grope their way, amid what seemed an
inextricable confusion, but was in reality the perfection of
orderliness, upon the dim stage, beyond which stretched, in vast
emptiness, the big, black auditorium. Upon the stage, chattering in
shrill voices, were the forty members of the company, still in their
queer clothing, while down in front, where shaded lights--seeming dull
and discouraged amid all the surrounding darkness--streamed upon the
music, were the members of the orchestra, chattering just as volubly.
The general note was quite different in pitch from the one Bobby had
heard that morning, for since he had seen them the members of the
organization had been fed, and life looked cheerful.

Wandering at a loss among these people, and trying in the dim twilight
to find some face that he knew, the ears of Bobby and his party were
suddenly assailed by an extremely harsh and penetrating voice which
shouted:

"Clear!"

This was accompanied by a sharp clap from a pair of very broad hands.
The chattering suddenly took on a rapid crescendo, ascending a full
third in the scale and then dying abruptly in a little high falsetto
shriek; and Bobby, with a lady upon either arm, found his little trio
immediately alone in the center of the stage, a row of dim footlights
cutting off effectually any view into the vast emptiness of the
auditorium.

"Hey, you; _clear_!" came the harsh voice again, accompanied by
another sharp clap of the hands, and a bundle of intense fighting
energy bounced out from the right tormentor wing, in the shape of a
gaunt, fiercely-mustached and entirely bald man of about forty-five,
who appeared perpetually to be in the last stages of distraction.

"Who do you weesh to see?" demanded the gaunt man, in a very decided
foreign accent. He had made a very evident attempt to be quite polite
indeed, and forgiving of people who did not know enough to spring for
the wings at the sound of that magic word, "Clear!"

Any explanations that Bobby might have tried to make were happily
prevented by a voice from the yawning blackness--a quiet voice, a
voice of authority, the vo