regular clients were the managers of various big provincial theatres, for
whom he provided the leading lights of pantomime, or, as he would call it,
panto. Panto was indeed the mainstay of his business; it was even the warp
and woof of his life. He lived for panto, he thought panto, and he talked
panto. No one, according to him, had a more abysmal knowledge of principal
boys with adequate legs, principal (if that is still the word) girls with
sufficient voices, contralto fairy queens with abundant bosoms, basso demon
kings, Prince Dandinis, Widow Twankays, Ugly Sisters, and all the other
personages of this strange grease-paint mythology of ours. Listening to
him, I learned--as those who are humble in spirit may learn of all men. I
learned, for example, that Ugly Sisters are at Christmas-time always Ugly
Sisters, and very often use again the same dialogue, merely transferring
themselves from, say, Glasgow to Wigan, or from Bristol to Dublin; and this
will be their destiny until they become such very old men that not even the
kindly British public will stand it any longer. England, it seems, is full
of performers who, touring the halls from March to December, are then
claimed for panto as her own, arriving a little before Christmas not less
regularly than the turkey; and the aim of all of them is as nearly as
possible to do the next Christmas what they did last Christmas.

Not only did my new acquaintance know all these people, their capabilities
and the lowest salary that could be offered to them with any chance of
acceptance, but he was also, it seemed, beloved by them all. Between agent
and client never in the history of the world had such charming relations
subsisted as between every pro. on his books and himself.

It was then that Ella Reeve came in.

Accompanied by two expensive-looking men, whose ancestors had beyond any
doubt crossed the Red Sea with Moses, this new and glittering star, who had