eatre which was for some years a
gold-mine to one Morton Morrison, of whom you may never have heard; but
he was a public pet in his day, I can tell you, and his day was just
then at its high noon. Well, there stood Pharazyn, with his hands in his
pockets and a cutty-pipe sticking out between his ragged beard and
moustache, and his shoulders against the pit door, so that for once he
could not escape me. But he wouldn't take a hand out of his pocket to
shake mine; and when I asked him how he was, without thinking, he
laughed in my face, and it made me feel cruel. He was dreadfully
emaciated, and almost in rags. And as I wondered what I ought to do, and
what to say next, he gave a cough, and spat upon the pavement, and I
could see the blood.

[Illustration: "THERE STOOD PHARAZYN."]

"I don't know what you would have done for him--but for all I knew what
had brought him to this, I could think of nothing but a drink. It was
mid-winter, and I tell you the man was in rags. I felt that if I could
get him to a bar he might eat something, too, and that I should get a
hold of him this time which I would never again let go. Judge of my
surprise when he flatly refused to come with me even for a drink.

"'Can't you see? he said in his hollow voice. 'There'll be a crowd here
directly, and I want the best seat in the pit--the best in the house.
I've been going dry for it these two days, and I'm going dry till I've
seen the piece. No, I've been here an hour already, and there's three
hours more, I know; but I'm not going to risk it, thanks all the same.'

"By this I had remembered that Morton Morrison was to re-open that night
with a new piece. Indeed, I ought not to have forgotten that, seeing
that I had my order about me somewhere, and it meant a column from my
pen between twelve and one that night. But this sudden, sorry meeting
had put all other thoughts out of my head.

"'My dear fellow,' I said, with a sort of laugh, 'are you a
first-nighter, too?'

"'Only at this theatre.'

"He looked me queerly in the face.

"'You admire Morrison very much?'

"'I love him!'

"I suppose my eyes thawed him, though God knows how hard I was trying
not to hurt him with pitying looks. At all events he began to explain
himself of his own accord, very impetuously; indeed I rather think the
outburst was purely involuntary.

"'Look here,' he said, with his hoarse voice lowered: 'I hoped never to
see your face again. I hoped you'd never see m