Unimportant personages—­such as those whose boast in the universe was that they had never missed a first night in the West End for twenty, thirty, or even fifty years—­had tried to buy seats at abnormal prices, and had failed:  which was in itself a tragedy.  Edward Henry at the final moment had yielded his wife’s stall to the instances of a Minister of the Crown, and at Lady Woldo’s urgent request had put her into Lady Woldo’s private landowner’s-box, where also was Miss Elsie April, who “had already had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Machin.”  Edward Henry’s first night was an event of magnitude.  And he alone was responsible for it.  His volition alone had brought into being that grand edifice whose light yellow walls now gleamed in nocturnal mystery under the shimmer of countless electric bulbs.

“There goes pretty nigh forty thousand pounds of my money!” he reflected excitedly.

And he reflected: 

“After all, I’m somebody.”

Then he glanced down Lower Regent Street and saw Sir John Pilgrim’s much larger theatre, now sub-let to a tenant who was also lavish with displays of radiance.  And he reflected that on first nights Sir John Pilgrim, in addition to doing all that he himself had done, would hold the great role on the stage throughout the evening.  And he admired the astounding, dazzling energy of such a being, and admitted ungrudgingly: 

“He’s somebody too!  I wonder what part of the world he’s illuminating just now!”

Edward Henry did not deny to his soul that he was extremely nervous.  He would not and could not face even the bare possibility that the first play presented at the new theatre might be a failure.  He had meant to witness the production incognito among the crowd in the pit or in the gallery.  But, after visiting the pit a few moments before the curtain went up, he had been appalled by the hard-hearted levity of the pit’s remarks on things in general.  The pit did not seem to be in any way chastened or softened by the fact that a fortune, that reputations, that careers were at stake.  He had fled from the packed pit. (As for the gallery, he decided that he had already had enough of the gallery.) He had wandered about corridors, and to and fro in his own room and in the wings, and even in the basement, as nervous as a lost cat or an author, and as self-conscious as a criminal who knows himself to be on the edge of discovery.  It was a fact that he could not look people in the eyes.  The reception of the first act had been fairly amiable, and he had suffered horribly as he listened for the applause.  Catching sight of Carlo Trent in the distance of a passage, he had positively run away from Carlo Trent.  The first entr’acte had seemed to last for about three months.  Its nightmarish length had driven him almost to lunacy.  The “feel” of the second act—­so far as it mystically communicated itself to him in his place of concealment—­had been better.  And at the second fall of the curtain the applause had been enthusiastic.  Yes, enthusiastic!  Curiously, it was the revulsion caused by this new birth of hope that, while the third act was being played, had driven him out of the theatre.  His wild hope needed ozone.  His breast had to expand in the boundless prairie of Piccadilly Circus.  His legs had to walk.  His arms had to swing.