t out. Art being elimination, I fined it down to two words (one too
many, as it proved)--'The Gubby!' in red, at which our manager
protested; but by five o'clock he told me that I was _the_ Napoleon of
Fleet Street. Ollyett's account in _The Bun_ of the Geoplanarians'
Exercises and Love Feast lacked the supreme shock of his version in _The
Cake_, but it bruised more; while the photos of 'The Gubby' (which, with
Winnie's left leg, was why I had set the doubtful press to work so
early) were beyond praise and, next day, beyond price. But even then I
did not understand.

A week later, I think it was, Bat Masquerier telephoned to me to come to
the Trefoil.

'It's your turn now,' he said. 'I'm not asking Ollyett. Come to the
stage-box.'

I went, and, as Bat's guest, was received as Royalty is not. We sat well
back and looked out on the packed thousands. It was _Morgiana and
Drexel_, that fluid and electric review which Bat--though he gave Lafone
the credit--really created.

'Ye-es,' said Bat dreamily, after Morgiana had given 'the nasty jar' to
the Forty Thieves in their forty oil 'combinations.' 'As you say, I've
got 'em and I can hold 'em. What a man does doesn't matter much; and how
he does it don't matter either. It's the _when_--the psychological
moment. 'Press can't make up for it; money can't; brains can't. A lot's
luck, but all the rest is genius. I'm not speaking about My people now.
I'm talking of Myself.'

Then 'Dal--she was the only one who dared--knocked at the door and stood
behind us all alive and panting as Morgiana. Lafone was carrying the
police-court scene, and the house was ripped up crossways with laughter.

'Ah! Tell a fellow now,' she asked me for the twentieth time, 'did you
love Nellie Farren when you were young?'

'Did we love her?' I answered. '"If the earth and the sky and the
sea"--There were three million of us, 'Dal, and we worshipped her.'

'How did she get it across?' Dal went on.

'She was Nellie. The houses used to coo over her when she came on.'

'I've had a good deal, but I've never been cooed over yet,' said 'Dal
wistfully.

'It isn't the how, it's the when,' Bat repeated. 'Ah!'

He leaned forward as the house began to rock and peal full-throatedly.
'Dal fled. A sinuous and silent procession was filing into the
police-court to a scarcely audible accompaniment. It was dressed--but
the world and all its picture-palaces know how it was dressed. It
danced and it danced, and it