"Yes. It's Miss Cunningham, you know."

"What salary does she get?"

"Ten pounds a week."

"What for?"

"Well--partly to understudy, I suppose."

"Let her earn it, then. Go on with the rehearsal. And let her play the
part to-morrow night. She'll be delighted, you bet."

"But--"

"Miss Lindop," Edward Henry interrupted, "will you please read to Mr.
Marrier what I've dictated?" He turned to Marrier. "It's an interview
with myself for one of to-morrow's papers."

Miss Lindop, with tears in her voice if not in her eyes, obeyed the
order and, drawing the paper from the machine, read its contents
aloud.

Mr. Marrier started back--not in the figurative but in the literal
sense--as he listened.

"But you'll never send that out!" he exclaimed.

"Why not?"

"No paper will print it!"

"My dear Marrier," said Edward Henry, "don't be a simpleton. You know
as well as I do that half-a-dozen papers will be delighted to print
it. And all the rest will copy the one that does print it. It'll
be the talk of London to-morrow, and Isabel Joy will be absolutely
snuffed out."

"Well," said Mr. Marrier, "I never heard of such a thing!"

"Pity you didn't, then!"

Mr. Marrier moved away.

"I say," he murmured at the door, "don't you think you ought to read
that to Rose first?"

"I'll read it to Rose like a bird," said Edward Henry.

Within two minutes--it was impossible to get from his room to the
dressing-rooms in less--he was knocking at Rose Euclid's door. "Who's
there?" said a voice. He entered and then replied: "I am."

Rose Euclid was smoking a cigarette and scratching the arm of an
easy-chair behind her. Her maid stood near by with a whisky-and-soda.

"Sorry you can't go on with the rehearsal, Miss Euclid," said Edward
Henry very quickly. "However, we must do the best we can. But Mr.
Marrier thought you'd like to hear this. It's part of an interview
with me that's going to appear to-morrow in the press."

Without pausing, he went on to read: "I found Mr. Alderman Machin, the
hero of the Five Towns and the proprietor and initiator of London's
newest and most up-to-date and most intellectual theatre, surrounded
by a complicated apparatus of telephones and typewriters in his
managerial room at the Regent. He received me very courteously. "Yes,"
he said in response to my question, "the rumour is quite true. The
principal part in 'The Orient Pearl' will be played on the first night
by Miss Euclid's understudy, Mi