It was at the end of the first act of the first night of "The Sultana,"and every member of the Lester Comic Opera Company, from Lester himselfdown to the wardrobe woman's son, who would have had to work if hismother lost her place, was sick with anxiety.
There is perhaps only one other place as feverish as it is behind thescenes on the first night of a comic opera, and that is a newspaperoffice on the last night of a Presidential campaign, when the returnsare being flashed on the canvas outside, and the mob is howling, andthe editor-in-chief is expecting to go to the Court of St. James if theelection comes his way, and the office-boy is betting his wages that itwon't.
Such nights as these try men's souls; but Van Bibber passed thestage-door man with as calmly polite a nod as though the piece had beenrunning a hundred nights, and the manager was thinking up souvenirs forthe one hundred and fiftieth, and the prima donna had, as usual, begunto hint for a new set of costumes. The stage-door keeper hesitated andwas lost, and Van Bibber stepped into the unsuppressed excitement ofthe place with a pleased sniff at the familiar smell of paint andburning 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 thecompany; but he saw Kripps, the stage-manager, in the centre of thestage, perspiring and in his shirt-sleeves as always, wildly waving anarm to some one in the flies, and beckoning with the other to thegasman in the front entrance. The stage hands were striking the scenefor the first act, and fighting with the set for the second, anddragging out a canvas floor of tessellated marble, and running a throneand a practical pair of steps over it, and aiming the high quakingwalls of a palace and abuse at whoever came in their way.
"Now then, Van Bibber," shouted Kripps, with a wild glance ofrecognition, as the white-and-black figure came towards him, "you knowyou're the only man in New York who gets behind here to-night. But youcan't stay. Lower it, lower it, can't you?" This to the man in theflies. "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 youmen—-"
Van Bibber dodged two stage hands who were steering a scene at him,stepped over the carpet as it unrolled, and brushed through a group ofanxious, whispering chorus people into the quiet of the star'sdressing-room.
The star saw him in the long mirror before which he sat, while hisdresser tugged at his boots, and threw up his hands desperately.
"Well," he cried, in mock resignation, "are we in it or are we not?Are they in their seats still or have they fled?"
"How are you, John?" said Van Bibber to the dresser. Then he droppedinto a big arm-chair in the corner, and got up again with a