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 show that came along. Yes. Put it in your diary, Mac, and write it on your cuff, George Bevan’s all right. He’s an ace.”

Unconscious of these eulogies which, coming from one whose judgment he respected, might have cheered him up, George wandered down Shaftesbury Avenue, feeling more depressed than ever. The sun had gone in for the time being, and the east wind was frolicking round him like a playful puppy patting him with a cold paw, nuzzling his ankles, bounding away and bounding back again, and behaving generally as east winds do when they discover a victim who has come out without his spring overcoat. It was plain to George now that the sun and the wind were a couple of confidence tricksters, working together as a team. The sun had disarmed him with specious promises and an air of cheery goodfellowship and had delivered him into the hands of the wind which was now going through him with the swift thoroughness of the professional hold-up artist. He quickened his steps and began to wonder if he was so sunk in senile decay as to have acquired a liver.

He discarded the theory as repellent. And yet there must be a reason for his depression. To-day of all days, as Mac had pointed out, he had everything to make him happy. Popular as he was in America, this was the first piece of his to be produced in London, and there was no doubt that it was a success of unusual dimensions. And yet he felt no elation.

He reached Picadilly and turned westward. And then, as he passed the gates of the In and Out Club, he had a moment of clear vision and understood