But besides these distractions there was a tall thin man who kept nudging away at Dick's elbow, begging of him to come over to his place, and saying that he would give him as good a glass of whisky as he had ever tasted. Nobody knew who the man was, but Dick thought he had met him somewhere up in the North.

'I've been about, gentlemen, in America, and in France, and I lead a bachelor life. My house is across the way, and if you'll do me the honour to come in and have a glass with me, I shall feel highly honoured. If there's one thing I do enjoy more than another, it's the conversation of intellectual men, and after the performance of to-night I don't see how I can do better than to come to you for it. But,' he continued gallantly, 'if I said just now that I was a bachelor, it is, I assure you, not because I dislike the sex. My solitary state is my misfortune, not my fault, and if these ladies will accompany you, gentlemen, need I say that I shall be charmed and honoured?'

'We'll do the honouring and the ladies will do the charming,' Mortimer said, and on these words the whole party followed the tall thin man to his house, a small affair with a porch and green blinds such as might be rented by a well-to-do commercial traveller.

The furniture was mahogany and leather, and when the sideboard was opened, the acrid odour of tea and the sickly smells of stale bread and rank butter were diffused through the room; but these were quickly dominated by the fumes of the malt. A bottle of port was decanted for the ladies. To the host nothing was too much trouble; his guests must eat as well as drink, and he went down to the kitchen and helped the maid-servant to bring up all the eatables that were in the house—some cold beef and cheese—and after having partaken of these the company stretched themselves in their chairs. Hayes drank his whisky in silence, while Montgomery, his legs thrown over the arm of his chair, tried to get in a word concerning the refrain of a comic song he had just finished scoring; but as the song was not going to be sung in any of the pieces they were touring with, no one was interested, and Mortimer's talk about the regeneration of the theatre was becoming so boring that Leslie and Beaumont had begun to think of bedtime, and might have taken their departure if Dubois had not said that all the great French actresses had lovers and that the English would do well to follow their examples. A variety of opinions broke forth, and everyone seemed to wake up; anecdotes were told that brought the colour to Kate's cheeks and made her feel uncomfortable. Dubois had lived a great deal in France; it was not certain that he had not acted in French, and sitting with his bishop's hat tilted on the back of his head, he related that Agar had described George Sand as a sort of pouncing disease that had affected her health more than all her other lovers put together. Dubois was declared to have insulted the profession; Dick agreed that Dubois did not know what he was talking about—George Sand was a woman, not a man—and Montgomery, who had a sister-in-law starring in Scotland, refused to be appeased until he was asked to accompany Leslie and Bret in a duet. The thin man, as everybody now called him, said he had never been so much touched in his life, a statement which Beaumont did her best to justify by going to the piano and singing three songs one after another. The third was a signal for departure, and while Montgomery vowed under his breath that it was quite enough to have to listen to Beaumont during business hours, Dick tried to awaken Hayes. He had fallen fast asleep. Their kind host said that he would put him up for the night, but the mummers thought they would be able to get him home. So, bidding the kindest of farewells to their host, whom they hoped they would see the following evening at the theatre, they stumbled into the street, pushing and carrying the drunken man between them. It was very hard to get Hayes along; every ten or a dozen yards he would insist on stopping in the middle of the roadway to argue the value and the sincerity of the friendship his comrades bore for him. Mortimer strove to pacify him, saying that he would stand in a puddle all night if by doing so he might prove that he loved him, and Dubois entreated him to believe him when he said that to sit with him under a cold September moon talking of the dear dead days would be a bliss that he could not forego. But the comedian's jokes soon began to seem idle and flat, and the ladies proposed to walk on in front, leaving the gentlemen to get their friend home as best they could.

'You're thinking of your beds,' Dick cried, and that reminded him that the hotel-keeper had told him that he shut his doors at eleven and would open them for no one before morning.

'What are we to do?' asked Leslie; 'it's very cold.'

'We'll ring him up,' said Dubois.

'But if he doesn't answer?' suggested Bret.

'I'll jolly soon make him answer,' said Dick. 'Now then, Hayes, wake up, old man, and push along.'

'Pou-sh-al-long! How can—you—talk to me like that? Yer—yer—shunting me—me—for one of those other fellows.'

'We'll talk about that in the morning, old man. Now, Mortimer, you get hold of his other arm and we'll run him along.'

Mr. Hayes struggled, declaring the while he would no longer believe in the world's friendship; but with Montgomery pushing from behind, the last hundred yards were soon accomplished, and the drunken burden deposited against the wall of the passage.

Dick pulled the bell; the whole party listened to the distant tinkling, and after a minute or two of suspense, Mortimer said:

'That won't do, Dick; ring again. We shall be here all night.'

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, went the bell, and a husky voice, issuing from the dark shadow of the wall, said:

'I rang for another whisky, waiter, that's all.'

'The still-room maid has gone to sleep, sir,' Mortimer answered; and the bell was rung again and again, and whilst one of the company was pulling at the wire, another was hammering away with the knocker. All the same, no answer could be obtained, and the mummers consulted Leslie and Bret, who proposed that they should seek admittance at another hotel; Dubois, that they should beg hospitality of the other members of the company; Montgomery, that they should go back to the theatre. But the hotel-keeper had no right to lock them out, and they had a perfect right to break into his house, and the chances they ran of 'doing a week' were anxiously debated as they searched for a piece of wood to serve as a ram. None of sufficient size could be found, much to the relief of the ladies and Dubois, who strongly advised Dick to renounce this door-smashing experiment.

'Oh, Dick, pray don't,' whispered Kate. 'What does it matter; it will be daylight in a few hours.'

'That's all very well, but I tell you he has no right to lock us out; he's a licensed hotel-keeper. Are you game, Mortimer? We can burst in the door with our shoulders.'

'Game!' said Mortimer, in a nasal note that echoed down the courtyard; 'partridges are in season in September. Here goes!' and taking a run, he jumped with his full weight against the door.

'Out of the way,' cried Dick, breaking away from Kate, and hurling his huge frame a little closer to the lock than the comedian had done.

The excitement being now at boiling pitch, the work was begun in real earnest, and as they darted in regular succession out of the shadow of the buttress across the clear stream of moonlight flowing down the flagstones, they appeared like a procession of figures thrown on a cloth by a magic-lantern. Mr.