point. After this preliminary canter is over, Facile thinks he may as well look up Mr. Flatting, the scene-painter, who has been at work for the last fortnight on the Archbishop's library, and who is about to begin the "behind the scenes" scene in the second act. Facile climbs into the tall, narrow, dingy shed called by courtesy a painting-room, and finds Flatting describing the "model" to the carpenter and machinist, who will have a good deal to do with it, as it is a set of a rather complicated description. Facile settles matters with Flatting, and goes home to dine, sleep, wake at eleven o'clock, and set to work till three in the morning, altering this scene, polishing up that dialogue, making it crisper here, and filling it out with business there, as the experience of the morning may have suggested. The next day is the first rehearsal proper. A table and three chairs are set in the middle of the stage against the footlights. One of these is for the stage-manager, one for the prompter, and one for the author. Very often the stage-manager and prompter are one and the same individual, but the three chairs (one on the "prompt" side of the table and two on the "opposite prompt ") are always there. Facile knows something of stage management, and invariably stage-manages his own pieces—an exceptional thing in England, but the common custom in France. He is nothing of an actor, and when he endeavours to show what he wants his actors to do, he makes himself rather ridiculous, and there is a good deal of tittering at the wings; but he contrives, nevertheless, to make himself understood, and takes particular good care that whatever his wishes are,
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