“Things began to change, however, when the panto. rehearsals began next year. Old Jack began to look unhappy, and didn’t take no interest in his work. Loo—that was Mrs. Haliday’s name—didn’t seem over fond of him now, and was generally impatient when he was by. Nobody said anything about this, however, to us men; but the married women smiled and nodded their heads and whispered that perhaps there were reasons. One day on the stage, when the harlequinade rehearsal was beginning, someone mentioned as how perhaps Mrs. Haliday wouldn’t be dancing that year, and they smiled as if they was all in the secret. Then Mrs. Jack ups and gives them Johnny-up-the-orchard for not minding their own business and telling a pack of lies, and such like as you Ladies like to express in your own ways when you get your back hair down. The rest of us tried to soothe her all we could, and she went off home.

“It wasn’t long after that that she and Henry Mortimer left together after rehearsal was over, he saying he’d leave her at home. She didn’t make no objections—I told you he was a very handsome man.

“Well, from that on she never seemed to take her eyes from him during every rehearsal, right up to the night of the last rehearsal, which, of course, was full dress—‘Everybody and Everything.’

“Jack Haliday never seemed to notice anything that was going on, like the rest of them did. True, his time was taken up with his own work, for I’m telling you that a Master Machinist hasn’t got no loose time on his hands at the first dress rehearsal of a panto. And, of course, none of the company ever said a word or gave a look that would call his attention to it. Men and women are queer beings. They will be blind and deaf whilst danger is being run; and it’s only after the scandal is beyond repair that they begin to talk—just the very time when most of all they should be silent.

“I saw all that went on, but I didn’t understand it. I liked Mortimer myself and admired him—like I did Mrs. Haliday, too—and I thought he was a very fine fellow. I was only a boy, you know, and Haliday’s apprentice, so naturally I wasn’t looking for any trouble I could help, even if I’d seen it coming. It was when I looked back afterwards at the whole thing that I began to comprehend; so you will all understand now, I hope, that what I tell you is the result of much knowledge of what I saw and heard and was told of afterwards—all morticed and clamped up by thinking.

“The panto. had been on about three weeks when one Saturday, between the shows, I heard two of our company talking. Both of them was among the extra girls that both sang and danced and had to make theirselves useful. I don’t think either of them was better than she should be; they went out to too many champagne suppers with young men that had money to burn. That part doesn’t matter in this affair—except that they was naturally enough jealous of women who was married—which was what they was aiming at—and what lived straighter than they did. Women of that kind like to see a good woman tumble down; it seems to make them all more even. Now real bad girls what have gone under altogether will try to save a decent one from following their road. That is, so long as they’re young; for a bad one what is long in the tooth is the limit. They’ll help anyone down hill—so long as they get anything out of it.