time. Perhaps Clarke was reading the play for him. He did not remember having written it. But he probably had fallen sick after its completion. What strange pranks our memories will play us! But no! He was not dreaming, and he had not been ill.

He could endure the horrible uncertainty no longer. His overstrung nerves must find relaxation in some way or break with a twang. He turned to his friend who was listening with rapt attention.

"Jack, Jack!" he whispered.

"What is it?"

"That is my play!"

"You mean that you inspired it?"

"No, I have written it, or rather, was going to write it."

"Wake up, Ernest! You are mad!"

"No, in all seriousness. It is mine. I told you—don't you remember—when we returned [Pg 61]from Coney Island—that I was writing a play."

[Pg 61]

"Ah, but not this play."

"Yes, this play. I conceived it, I practically wrote it."

"The more's the pity that Clarke had preconceived it."

"But it is mine!"

"Did you tell him a word about it?"

"No, to be sure."

"Did you leave the manuscript in your room?"

"I had, in fact, not written a line of it. No, I had not begun the actual writing."

"Why should a man of Clarke's reputation plagiarise your plays, written or unwritten?"

"I can see no reason. But—"

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