e publicity which their father enjoyed without any apparent
direct effort of his own.

He had declined to be interviewed; but one day, late in September, his
good-nature forced him to yield to the pressure of a journalist. That
journalist was Alfred Doxey, who had married on the success of _Love in
Babylon_, and was already in financial difficulties. He said he could
get twenty-five pounds for an interview with Henry, and Henry gave him
the interview. The interview accomplished, he asked Henry whether he
cared to acquire for cash his, Doxey's, share of the amateur rights of
_Love in Babylon_. Doxey demanded fifty pounds, and Henry amiably wrote
out the cheque on the spot and received Doxey's lavish gratitude. _Love
in Babylon_ is played on the average a hundred and fifty times a year by
the amateur dramatic societies of Great Britain and Ireland, and for
each performance Henry touches a guinea. The piece had run for two
hundred nights at Prince's, so that the authors got a hundred pounds
each from John Pilgrim.

On the morning of the tenth of October Henry strolled incognito round
London. Every bookseller's shop displayed piles upon piles of _The
Plague-Spot_. Every newspaper had a long review of it. The _Whitehall
Gazette_ was satirical as usual, but most people felt that it was the
_Whitehall Gazette_, and not Henry, that thereby looked ridiculous.
Nearly every other omnibus carried the legend of _The Plague-Spot_;
every hoarding had it. At noon Henry passed by Prince's Theatre. Two
small crowds had already taken up positions in front of the entrances to
the pit and the gallery; and several women, seated on campstools, were
diligently reading the book in order the better to appreciate the play.

Twelve hours later John Pilgrim was thanking his kind patrons for a
success unique even in his rich and gorgeous annals. He stated that he
should cable the verdict of London to the Madison Square Theatre, New
York, where the representation of the noble work of art which he had had
the honour of interpreting to them was about to begin.

'It was a lucky day for you when you met me, young man,' he whispered
grandiosely and mysteriously, yet genially, to Henry.

On the facade of Prince's there still blazed the fiery sign, which an
excited electrician had forgotten to extinguish:

THE PLAGUE-SPOT.

SHAKSPERE KNIGHT.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE PRESIDENT

Prince's Theatr