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
that he was backing the piece, that he was the "Angel," as those weak
and wealthy individuals are called who allow themselves to be led into
supplying the finances for theatrical experiments. But as he never
peered through the curtain-hole to count the house, nor made frequent
trips to the front of it to look at the box sheet, but was, on the
contrary, just as undisturbed on a rainy night as on those when the
"standing room only" sign blocked the front entrance, this supposition
was discarded as untenable. Nor did he show the least interest in the
prima donna, or in any of the othe