he returns to the stage, somewhat calmed, half an hour later, he finds that a furious fight is going on between the principal actor and the prompter. The principal actor asserts that the prompter failed to give him a certain cue, which the prompter naturally denies most violently, leaving his book as a sign of protest. The stage-manager now receives a few nice curses, which he proceeds to pass on to the curtain-man: whereupon the row proceeds into a labyrinth of theatrical corridors, fading away somewhere down in the boiler-room. Meanwhile the prompter has been persuaded to return to his little box; but he is so embittered that he does nothing but whisper. “Let us begin then,” cries the producer in broken tones, sitting down, firmly determined not to have anything more to do with the affair, for you must know that the last act has not been rehearsed on the stage at all yet. “Do you think that it will be possible to-morrow?” inquires the dramatist.
“Why, things are going splendidly,”
50
