recognised. The one that applauds the
oftenest wins the game in the pit."

At those words and their tone Mr. Prohack looked at Ozzie with a new
eye, as who should be thinking: "Is Sissie right about this fellow after
all?"

Sissie sat down modestly and calmly next to her mother. Nobody could
guess from her apparently ingenuous countenance that she knew that she,
and not the Terror of the departments and his wife, was the originating
cause of Mr. Morfey's grandiose hospitality.

"I suppose the stalls are full of celebrities?" said Eve.

"They're full of people who've paid twice the ordinary price for their
seats," answered Ozzie.

"Who's that extraordinary old red-haired woman in the box opposite?"
Eve demanded.

"That's Enid."

"Enid?"

"Yes. You know the Enid stove, don't you? All ladies know the Enid
stove. It's been a household word for forty years. That's the original
Enid. Her father invented the stove, and named it after her when she was
a girl. She never misses a first-night."

"How extraordinary! Is she what you call a celebrity?"

"Rather!"

"Now," said Mr. Prohack. "Now, at last I understand the real meaning of
fame."

"But that's Charlie down there!" exclaimed Eve, suddenly, pointing to
the stalls and then looking behind her to see if there was not another
Charlie in the box.

"Yes," Ozzie agreed. "Lady Massulam had an extra stall, and as five's a
bit of a crowd in this box.... I thought he'd told you."

"He had not," said Eve.

The curtain went up, and this simple gesture on the part of the curtain
evoked enormous applause. The audience could not control the expression
of its delight. A young lady under a sunshade appeared; the mere fact of
her existence threw the audience into a new ecstasy. An old man with a
red nose appeared: similar demonstrations from the audience. When these
two had talked to each other and sung to each other, the applause was
tripled, and when the scene changed from Piccadilly Circus at 4 a.m. to
the interior of a Spanish palace inhabited by illustrious French actors
and actresses who proceeded to play an act of a tragedy by Corneille,
the applause was quintupled. At the end of the tragedy the applause was
decupled. Then the Spanish palace dissolved into an Abyssinian harem,
and Eliza Fiddle in Abyssinian costume was discovered lying upon two
thousand cushions of two thousand colours, and the audience rose at
Eliza and Eliza rose at the audience, and the resultin