manager was thinking up souvenirs for the one hundred and
fiftieth, and the prima donna had, as usual, begun to hint for
a new set of costumes. The stage-door keeper hesitated and
was lost, and Van Bibber stepped into the unsuppressed
excitement of the place with a pleased sniff at the familiar
smell of paint and burning gas, and the dusty odor that came
from the scene-lofts above.

For a moment he hesitated in the cross-lights and
confusion about him, failing to recognize in their new
costumes his old acquaintances of the company; but he saw
Kripps, the stage-manager, in the centre of the stage,
perspiring and in his shirt-sleeves as always, wildly waving
an arm to some one in the flies, and beckoning with the other
to the gasman in the front entrance. The stage hands were
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---"