rote, "I would willingly produce good work if I could get it, but I
can't. Come and see me, and I'll show you a pile of plays that have
arrived within the last fortnight. I know quite well, without reading
them, that not one of them will be of the slightest worth!" And Gilbert
had gone to see him, and had been received very charmingly and told how
clever he was, and then the manager had offered to appoint him reader of
plays at a pleasant fee!... Following that attempt at bribery came the
anger of an actor-knight who declined to admit Gilbert to his theatre, a
piece of petulance which delighted him.

"The great big balloon," he said to his editor when he was told of what
the actor-knight had said over the telephone. "My Lord, when I hear him
spouting blank verse through his nose!..."

"That's all very fine," the editor retorted ruefully, "but your
criticism's doing us a lot of harm. Jefferson of the Torch Theatre
cancelled his advertisement the day after your notice of his new play
appeared!"

"Ridiculous ass!" said Gilbert.

"Well, if you say his play's the worst that's ever been put on any
stage, what do you expect him to do? Fall on your neck and say, 'Bless
you, brother!'? You might try to be kinder to them, Farlow, and do for
the love of God remember the advertisement manager. If you could get the
human note in your stuff!..."

"The what?"

"The human note. I'm a great believer in the human note."

Gilbert left the office as quickly as he could and went home. He came
into the dining-room where the others were already seated at their meal.

"You're late again, Gilbert," said Roger. "Hand over your sixpence!"

Roger, who was never late for anything, had instituted a system of fines
for those who were late for meals. The fine for unpunctuality at dinner
was sixpence.

"I haven't got a tanner, damn it," Gilbert snapped, "and I'm looking for
the human note. That's why I'm late. My heavenly father, I'm hungry!
What is there?"

"Sixpence for being late for dinner," said Roger quietly, "and tuppence
for blasphemy!"

He entered the amounts in the "Ledger," and then returned to his seat.
"You already owe six and threepence," he said, as he sat down, "and this
evening's fines bring it up to six and elevenpence. You ought to pay
something on account, Gilbert!..."

"Pass the potatoes and don't bleat so much!" said Gilbert. "Look here,
Quinny," he said as he helped himself to the potatoes, "what's the human
note