me, and fairly soon after that the curtain went down. The chappie at
the piano whacked out a well-meant bar or two, and the curtain went up
again.

I can't quite recall what the plot of "Ask Dad" was about, but I do
know that it seemed able to jog along all right without much help from
Cyril. I was rather puzzled at first. What I mean is, through brooding
on Cyril and hearing him in his part and listening to his views on what
ought and what ought not to be done, I suppose I had got a sort of
impression rooted in the old bean that he was pretty well the backbone
of the show, and that the rest of the company didn't do much except go
on and fill in when he happened to be off the stage. I sat there for
nearly half an hour, waiting for him to make his entrance, until I
suddenly discovered he had been on from the start. He was, in fact, the
rummy-looking plug-ugly who was now leaning against a potted palm a
couple of feet from the O.P. side, trying to appear intelligent while
the heroine sang a song about Love being like something which for the
moment has slipped my memory. After the second refrain he began to
dance in company with a dozen other equally weird birds. A painful
spectacle for one who could see a vision of Aunt Agatha reaching for
the hatchet and old Bassington-Bassington senior putting on his
strongest pair of hob-nailed boots. Absolutely!

The dance had just finished, and Cyril and his pals had shuffled off
into the wings when a voice spoke from the darkness on my right.

"Pop!"

Old Blumenfield clapped his hands, and the hero, who had just been
about to get the next line off his diaphragm, cheesed it. I peered into