up soon, and the cleverest manager will be the one who does most to
make them amusing. But that's another matter. My scheme for you is
to provide more than mere amusement, it is to enable your theatre to
partake of some of the quality and some of the success of the great
picture newspapers."

"How do you mean?" the manager asked, leaning forward. The word
"success" galvanised him.

"Like this," said the enthusiast. "You grant that the proper study
of mankind is man--as the POPE recently said? You grant an intense
curiosity as to everybody else being implanted in the human breast?
Very well. This, then, is my scheme. You must have each stall legibly
numbered so that the whole house behind it and above it can see the
number. The boxes must be numbered too. You then instal a printer with
a little press somewhere behind the scenes, and to him is brought soon
after the curtain rises a list of the names of all the box and stall
holders, which he will print off in time for the assistants to sell
them all over the house after Act I. This distribution will dispose of
the first interval, and incidentally bring in a nice little sum for
cigars and champagne for your business visitors, a new hat for your
leading lady, and so forth."

"By the way," said the manager, "won't you smoke? These are mild."

"Thank you," said the other. "Very well," he continued, "the next
interval will be wholly spent in the exciting and delightful task of
identifying the nobs, in which the nobs themselves will take a part.
And if there is still a third interval it will be equally amusingly
filled by conversation as to the pasts or costumes of the more famous