One day Geraldine needed a doctor. Henry was startled, frightened, almost shocked. But when the doctor, having seen Geraldine, came into the study to chat with Geraldine's husband, Henry put on a calm demeanour, said he had been expecting the doctor's news, said also that he saw no cause for anxiety or excitement, and generally gave the doctor to understand that he was in no way disturbed by the work of Nature to secure a continuance of the British Empire. The conversation shifted to Henry's self, and soon Henry was engaged in a detailed¹ description of his symptoms.  
'Purely² nervous,' remarked the doctor—'purely nervous.'
 
'You think so?'
 
'I am sure of it.'
 
'Then, of course, there is no cure for it. I must put up with it.'
 
'Pardon me,' said the doctor, 'there is an absolutely certain cure for nervous dyspepsia—at any rate, in such a case as yours.'
 
'What is it?'
 
'Go without breakfast'
 
'But I don't eat too much, doctor,' Henry said plaintively³.
 
'Yes, you do,' said the doctor. 'We all do.'
 
'And I'm always hungry at meal-times. If a meal is late it makes me quite ill.'
 
'You'll feel somewhat uncomfortable for a few days,' the doctor blandly⁴ continued. 'But in a month you'll be cured.'
 
'You say that professionally?'
 
'I guarantee it.'
 
The doctor shook hands, departed, and then returned. 'And eat rather less lunch than usual,' said he. 'Mind that.'
 
Within three days Henry was informing his friends: 'I never have any breakfast. No, none. Two meals a day.' It was astonishing how frequently the talk approached the great food topic. He never sought an opportunity to discuss the various methods and processes of sustaining life, yet, somehow, he seemed to be always discussing them. Some of his acquaintances annoyed him excessively—for example, Doxey.
 
'That won't last long, old chap,' said Doxey, who had called about finance. 'I've known other men try that. Give me the good old English breakfast. Nothing like making a good start.'
 
'Ass⁵!' thought Henry, and determined⁶ once again, and more decisively, that Doxey should pass out of his life.
 
His preoccupation with this matter had the happy effect of preventing him from worrying too much about the perils⁷ which lay before Geraldine. Discovering the existence of an Anti-Breakfast League, he joined it, and in less than a week every newspaper in the land announced that the ranks of the Anti-Breakfasters had secured a notable recruit in the person of Mr. Henry Shakspere Knight⁸. It was widely felt that the Anti-Breakfast Movement had come to stay.
 
Still, he was profoundly interested in Geraldine, too. And between his solicitude⁹ for her and his scientific curiosity concerning the secret recesses¹⁰ of himself the flat soon overflowed¹¹ with medical literature.
 
The entire world of the theatre woke up suddenly and simultaneously¹² to the colossal¹³ fact of Henry's genius. One day they had never thought of him; the next they could think of nothing else. Every West End manager, except two, wrote to him to express pleasure at the prospect¹⁴ of producing a play by him; the exceptional two telegraphed. Henry, however, had decided¹⁵ upon his arrangements. He had grasped the important truth that there was only one John Pilgrim in the world.
 
He threw the twenty-five chapters of The Plague-Spot into a scheme of four acts, and began to write a drama without the aid of Mr. Alfred Doxey. It travelled fast, did the drama; and the author himself was astonished at the ease with which he put it together out of little pieces of the novel. The scene of the third act was laid in the gaming-saloons of Monte Carlo; the scene of the fourth disclosed the deck of a luxurious¹⁶ private yacht at sea under a full Mediterranean¹⁷ moon. Such flights of imagination had hitherto been unknown in the serious drama of London. When Henry, after three months' labour, showed the play to John Pilgrim, John Pilgrim said:
 
'This is the play I have waited twenty years for!'
 
'You think it will do, then?' said Henry.
 
'It will enable me,' observed John Pilgrim, 'to show the British public what acting¹⁸ is.'
 
Henry insisted on an agreement which gave him ten per cent. of the gross receipts. Soon after the news of the signed contract had reached the press, Mr. Louis Lewis, the English agent of Lionel Belmont, of the United States Theatrical¹⁹ Trust, came unostentatiously round to Ashley Gardens, and obtained the American rights on the same terms.
 
Then Pilgrim said that he must run through the manuscript with Henry, and teach him those things about the theatre which he did not know. Henry arrived at Prince's at eleven o'clock, by appointment; Mr. Pilgrim came at a quarter to twelve.
 
'You have the sense du théâtre, my friend,' said Pilgrim, turning over the leaves of the manuscript. 'That precious and incommunicable gift—you have it. But you are too fond of explanations. Now, the public won't stand explanations. No long speeches. And so whenever I glance through a play I can tell instantly whether it is an acting play. If I see a lot of speeches over four lines long, I say, Dull! Useless! Won't do! For instance, here. That speech of Veronica's while she's at the piano. Dull! I see it. I feel it. It must go! The last two lines must go!'
 
So saying, he obliterated²⁰ the last two lines with a large and imperial blue pencil.
 
'But it's impossible,' Henry protested. 'You've not read them.'
 
'I don't need to read them,' said John Pilgrim. 'I know they won't do. I know the public won't have them. It must be give and take—give and take between the characters. The ball must be kept in the air. Ah! The theatre!' He paused, and gave Henry a piercing glance. 'Do you know how I came to be du théâtre—of the theatre, young man?' he demanded. 'No? I will tell you. My father was an old fox-hunting squire²¹ in the Quorn country. One of the best English families, the Pilgrims, related to the Earls of Waverley. Poor, unfortunately. My eldest²² brother was brought up to inherit the paternal²³ mortgages. My second brother went into the army. And they wanted me to go into the Church. I refused. "Well," said my old father, "damn it, Jack²⁴! if you won't go to heaven, you may as well ride straight to hell. Go on the stage." And I did, sir. I did. Idea for a book there, isn't there?'
 
The blue-pencilling of the play proceeded. But whenever John Pilgrim came to a long speech by Hubert, the part which he destined²⁵ for himself, he hesitated to shorten it. 'It's too long! It's too long!' he whispered. 'I feel it's ............