"'Squibs,' one penny weekly, buy it," it ran. All the mellowing effects
of a good dinner passed away from Roland. He was feverishly irritated.
He paid his bill and left the place.
A visit to a neighboring music-hall occurred to him as a suitable
sedative. Hardly had his nerves ceased to quiver sufficiently to allow
him to begin to enjoy the performance, when, in the interval between
two of the turns, a man rose in one of the side boxes.
"Is there a doctor in the house?"
There was a hush in the audience. All eyes were directed toward the
box. A man in the stalls rose, blushing, and cleared his throat.
"My wife has fainted," continued the speaker. "She has just discovered
that she has lost her copy of 'Squibs.'"
The audience received the statement with the bovine stolidity of an
English audience in the presence of the unusual.
Not so Roland. Even as the purposeful-looking chuckers-out wended their
leopard-like steps toward the box, he was rushing out into the street.
As he stood cooling his indignation in the pleasant breeze which had
sprung up, he was aware of a dense crowd proceeding toward him.
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