o he began to play
with real ones, like God. But always kind.

No woman can resist making love to a man as indifferent as Sid Hahn
appeared to be. They all tried their wiles on him: the red-haired
ingenues, the blonde soubrettes, the stately leading ladies, the war
horses, the old-timers, the ponies, the prima donnas. He used to sit
there in his great, luxurious, book-lined inner office, smiling and
inscrutable as a plump joss-house idol while the fair ones burnt incense
and made offering of shew-bread. Figuratively, he kicked over the basket
of shew-bread, and of the incense said, "Take away that stuff! It
smells!"

Not that he hated women. He was afraid of them, at first. Then, from
years of experience with the femininity of the theatre, not nearly
afraid enough. So, early, he had locked that corner of his mind, and had
thrown away the key. When, years after, he broke in the door, lo! (as
they say when an elaborate figure of speech is being used) lo! the
treasures therein had turned to dust and ashes.

It was he who had brought over from Paris to the American stage the
famous Renee Paterne of the incorrigible eyes. She made a fortune and
swept the country with her song about those delinquent orbs. But when
she turned them on Hahn, in their first interview in his office, he
regarded her with what is known as a long, level look. She knew at that
time not a word of English. Sid Hahn was ignorant of French. He said,
very low, and with terrible calm to Wallie Ascher who was then acting as
a sort of secretary, "Wallie, can't you do something to make her stop
rolling her eyes around at me like that? It's awful! She makes me think
of those heads you shy balls at, out at Coney. Take away my ink-well."

Renee had turned swiftly to Wallie and had said something to him in
French. Sid Hahn cocked a quick ear. "What's that she said?"

"She says," translated the obliging and gifted Wallie, "that monsieur is
a woman-hater."

"My God! I thought she didn't understand English!"

"She doesn't. But she's a woman. Not only that, she's a French woman.
They don't need to know a language to understand it."

"Where did you get that, h'm? That wasn't included in your Berlitz
course, was it?"

Wallie Ascher had grinned--that winning flash lighting up his dark, keen
face. "No. I learned that in another school."

Wallie Ascher's early career in the theatre, if repeated here, might
almost be a tiresome repetition of Hahn's beginning. An