ad
been raised to prevent his ingress.

'Never mind!' he said. 'I'll walk to the Circus and back again, and then
I'll go in.'

He walked to the Circus and back again, and once more failed to get
himself inside Prince's Theatre.

'This is the most curious thing that ever happened to me,' he thought,
as he stood for the second time in Piccadilly Circus. 'Why the devil
can't I go into that theatre? I'm not nervous. I'm not a bit nervous.'
It was so curious that he felt an impulse to confide to someone how
curious it was.

Then he went into the Criterion bar and sat down. The clock showed
seventeen minutes to nine. His piece was advertised to start at
eight-thirty precisely. The Criterion Bar is never empty, but it has its
moments of lassitude, and seventeen minutes to nine is one of them.
After an interval a waiter slackly approached him.

'Brandy-and-soda!' Henry ordered, well knowing that brandy-and-soda
never suited him.

He glanced away from the clock, repeated 'Punch, brothers, punch with
care,' twenty times, recited 'God save the Queen,' took six small sips
at the brandy-and-soda, and then looked at the clock again, and it was
only fourteen minutes to nine. He had guessed it might be fourteen
minutes to ten.

He caught the eye of a barmaid, and she seemed to be saying to him
sternly: 'If you think you can occupy this place all night on a
ninepenny drink, you are mistaken. Either you ought to order another or
hook it.' He braved it for several more ages, then paid, and went; and
still it was only ten minutes to nine. All mundane phenomena were
inexplicably contorted that night. As he was passing the end of the
short street which contains the stage-door of Prince's Theatre, a man,
standing at the door on the lookout, hailed him loudly. He hesitated,
and the man--it was the doorkeeper--flew forward and seized him and
dragged him in.

'Drink this, Mr. Knight,' commanded the doorkeeper.

'I'm all right,' said Henry. 'What's up?'

'Yes, I know you're all right. Drink it.'

And he drank a whisky-and-soda.

'Come upstairs,' said the doorkeeper. 'You'll be wanted, Mr. Knight.'

As he approached the wings of the stage, under the traction of the
breathless doorkeeper, he was conscious of the falling of the curtain,
and of the noisiest noise beyond the curtain that he had ever heard.

'Here, Mr. Knight, drink this,' said someone in his ear. 'Keep steady.
It's nothing.'

And he drank a glass of port.

His o