hin lady with the
golden hair. "I'm told that she really had a voice once."

"When poor young Bond first came to London," said the massive gentleman
who was sitting on my left, "I remember his telling me he applied to
Lord Barrymore's 'tiger,' Alexander Lee, I mean, of course, who was then
running the Strand Theatre, for a place in the chorus. Lee heard him
sing two lines, and then jumped up. 'Thanks, that'll do; good morning,'
says Lee. Bond knew he had got a good voice, so he asked Lee what was
wrong. 'What's wrong?' shouts Lee. 'Do you think I hire a chorus to show
up my principals?'"

"Having regard to the company present," commented the fishy-eyed
gentleman, "I consider that anecdote as distinctly lacking in tact."

The feeling of the company appeared to be with the fish-eyed young man.

For the next half hour the door at the further end of the room continued
to open and close, devouring, ogre-fashion, each time some dainty human
morsel, now chorus gentleman, now chorus lady. Conversation among our
thinning ranks became more fitful, a growing anxiety making for silence.

At length, "Mr. Horace Moncrieff" called the voice of the unseen Charon.
In common with the rest, I glanced round languidly to see what sort of
man "Mr. Horace Moncrieff" might be. The door was pushed open further.
Charon, now revealed as a pale-faced young man with a drooping
moustache, put his head into the room and repeated impatiently his
invitation to the apparently coy Moncrieff. It suddenly occurred to me
that I was Mr. Horace Moncrieff.

"So glad you've found yourself," said the pale-faced young man, as I
joined him at the door. "Please don't lose yourself again; we're rather
pressed for time."

I crossed with him through a deserted refreshment bar--one of the
saddest of sights--into a room beyond. A melancholy-looking gentleman
was seated at the piano. Beside him stood a tall, handsome man, who
was opening and reading rapidly from a bundle of letters he held in his
hand. A big, burly, bored-looking gentleman was making desperate
efforts to be amused at the staccato conversation of a sharp-faced,
restless-eyed gentleman, whose peculiarity was that he never by any
chance looked at the person to whom he was talking, but always at
something or somebody else.

"Moncrieff?" enquired the tall, handsome man--whom I later discovered to
be Mr. Hodgson, the manager--without raising his eyes from his letters.

The pale-faced gentleman respon