ates should be
cold. Then, other evenings, alone, when he wanted to see no one--when,
in a silken lounging robe (over faultless dinner clothes, of course, and
wearing the kind of collar you see in the back of the magazines) he
would say, "That will do, Saki." Then, all evening, he would play softly
to himself those little, intimate, wistful Schumanny things in the
firelight with just one lamp glowing softly--almost sombrely--at the
side of the piano (grand).

His first real meeting with Sid Hahn had had much to do with the fixing
of this image. Of course he had seen Hahn hundreds of times in the
office and about the theatre. They had spoken, too, many times. Hahn
called him vaguely, "Heh, boy!" but he grew to know him later as Wallie.
From errand-boy, office-boy, call-boy he had become, by that time, a
sort of unofficial assistant stage manager. No one acknowledged that he
was invaluable about the place, but he was. When a new play was in
rehearsal at the Thalia, Wallie knew more about props, business, cues,
lights, and lines than the director himself. For a long time no one but
Wallie and the director were aware of this. The director never did admit
it. But that Hahn should find it out was inevitable.

He was nineteen or thereabouts when he was sent, one rainy November
evening, to deliver a play manuscript to Hahn at his apartment. Wallie
might have refused to perform an errand so menial, but his worship of
Hahn made him glad of any service, however humble. He buttoned his coat
over the manuscript, turned up his collar, and plunged into the cold
drizzle of the November evening.

Hahn's apartment--he lived alone--was in the early fifties, off Fifth
Avenue. For two days he had been ill with one of the heavy colds to
which he was subject. He was unable to leave the house. Hence Wallie's
errand.

It was Saki--or Saki's equivalent--who opened the door. A white-coated,
soft-stepping Jap, world-old looking like the room glimpsed just beyond.
Someone was playing the piano with one finger, horribly.

"You're to give this to Mr. Hahn. He's waiting for it."

"Genelmun come in," said the Jap, softly.

"No, he don't want to see me. Just give it to him, see?"

"Genelmun come in." Evidently orders.

"Oh, all right. But I know he doesn't want--"

Wallie turned down his collar with a quick flip, looked doubtfully at
his shoes, and passed through the glowing little foyer into the room
beyond. He stood in the doorway. He was