"No paper-knife?"

"No paper-knife. And it's no good picking on me. I'm the star, not the
assistant stage manager. If you're going to pick on anybody, pick on
him."

The advice appeared to strike Mr. Bunbury as good. He threw back his
head and bayed like a bloodhound.

There was a momentary pause, and then from the wings on the prompt side
there shambled out a stout and shrinking figure, in whose hand was a
script of the play and on whose face, lit up by the footlights, there
shone a look of apprehension. It was Fillmore, the Man of Destiny.



3



Alas, poor Fillmore! He stood in the middle of the stage with the
lightning of Mr. Bunbury's wrath playing about his defenceless head, and
Sally, recovering from her first astonishment, sent a wave of sisterly
commiseration floating across the theatre to him. She did not often pity
Fillmore. His was a nature which in the sunshine of prosperity had a
tendency to grow a trifle lush; and such of the minor ills of life as
had afflicted him during the past three years, had, she considered, been
wholesome and educative and a matter not for concern but for
congratulation. Unmoved, she had watched him through that lean period
lunching on coffee and buckwheat cakes, and curbing from motives of