lost, and Van Bibber stepped into the
unsuppressed excitement of the place with a pleased sniff at the
familiar smell of paint and burning gas, and the dusty odor that came
from the scene-lofts above.

For a moment he hesitated in the cross-lights and confusion about him,
failing to recognize in their new costumes his old acquaintances of
the company; but he saw Kripps, the stage-manager, in the centre of
the stage, perspiring and in his shirt-sleeves as always, wildly
waving an arm to some one in the flies, and beckoning with the other
to the gas-man in the front entrance. The stage hands were striking
the scene for the first act, and fighting with the set for the second,
and dragging out a canvas floor of tessellated marble, and running a
throne and a practical pair of steps over it, and aiming the high
quaking walls of a palace and abuse at whoever came in their way.

"Now then, Van Bibber," shouted Kripps, with a wild glance of
recognition, as the white-and-black figure came towards him, "you know
you're the only man in New York who gets behind here to-night. But you
can't stay. Lower it, lower it, can't you?" This to the man in the
flies. "Any other night goes, but not this night. I can't have it.
I--Where is the backing for the centre entrance? Didn't I tell you
men--"

Van Bibber dodged two stage hands who were steering a scene at him,
stepped over the carpet as it unrolled, and brushed through a group of
anxious, whispering chorus people into the quiet of the star's
dressing-room.

The star saw him in the long mirror before which he sat, while his
dresser tugged at his boots, and threw up his hands desperately.

"Well," he cried, in mock resignation, "are we in it or are we not?
Are they in their seats still or have they fled?"

"How are you, John?" said Van Bibber to the dresser. Then he dropped
into a big arm-chair in the corner, and got up again with a protesting
sigh to light his cigar between the wires around the gas-burner. "Oh,
it's going very well. I wouldn't have come around if it wasn't. If the
rest of it is as good as the first act, you needn't worry."

Van Bibber's unchallenged freedom behind the scenes had been a source
of much comment and perplexity to the members of the Lester Comic
Opera Company. He had made his first appearance there during one hot
night of the long run of the previous summer, and had continued to be
an almost nightly visitor for several weeks. At first it was supposed