, reflecting how
little one knew about them. Whether he really did possess a charm of
manner, or whether the sense of his superiority with which he had imbued
me it was that made any condescension he paid me a thing to grasp at, I
am unable to say. Certain it is that when he suggested I should throw
up chorus singing and accompany him into the provinces as manager of a
theatrical company he was then engaging to run a wonderful drama that
was going to revolutionise the English stage and educate the English
public, I allowed myself not a moment for consideration, but accepted
his proposal with grateful delight.

"Who is he?" asked Dan. Somehow he had never impressed Dan; but then Dan
was a fellow to impress whom was slow work. As he himself confessed, he
had no instinct for character. "I judge," he would explain, "purely by
observation."

"What does that matter?" was my reply.

"What does he know about the business?"

"That's why he wants me."

"What do you know about it?"

"There's not much to know. I can find out."

"Take care you don't find out that there's more to know than you think.
What is this wonderful play of his?"

"I haven't seen it yet; I don't think it's finished. It's something from
the Spanish or the Russian, I'm not sure. I'm to put it into shape
when he's done the translation. He wants me to put my name to it as the
adaptor."

"Wonder he hasn't asked you to wear his clothes. Has he got any money?"

"Of course he has money. How can you run a theatrical company without
money?"

"Have you seen the money?"

"He doesn't carry it about with him in a bag."

"I should have thought your ambition to be to act, not to manage.
Managers are to be had cheap enough. Why should he want some one who
knows nothing about it?"

"I'm going to act. I'm going to play a leading part."

"Great Scott!"

"He'll do the management really himself; I shall simply advise him. But
he doesn't want his own name to appear.

"Why not?"

"His people might object."

"Who are his people?"

"How do I know? What a suspicious chap you are."

Dan shrugged his shoulders. "You are not an actor, you never will be;
you are not a business man. You've made a start at writing, that's your
proper work. Why not go on with it?"

"I can't get on with it. That one thing was accepted, and never paid
for; everything else comes back regularly, just as before. Besides, I
can go on writing wherever I am."

"You've got friends here