age-villain could well wear. Then I cheerfully remarked: "I'm
looking for Mr. Daly; can you tell me where I am likely to find him?"

"You want Mr. Daly?" he repeated. "Who are you?"

"I'll tell Mr. Daly that, please," I answered.

He smiled and said: "Well, then, tell _me_--I'm Mr. Daly--are you----"

"Yes," I answered, "I'm the girl come out of the West, to be inspected.
I'm Clara Morris."

He frowned quickly, though he held out his hand and shook mine heartily
enough, and asked me to come into his office.

It was a cranny in the wall. It held a very small desk and one chair,
behind which was a folding stool. As he entered, I laughingly said: "I
think I'll lean here, I'm not used to sitting on the floor," but to my
surprise, as he brought forth the stool, he curtly replied: "I was not
going to ask you to sit on the floor," which so amused me that I could
not resist asking: "Are you from Scotland, by chance, Mr. Daly?" and he
had frowningly said "No!" before the old, old joke about Scotch density
came to him.

Then he said, with severity: "Miss Morris, I'm afraid your bump of
reverence is not well developed."

And I laughed and said: "There's a hole there, Mr. Daly, and no bump at
all," and though the words were jestingly spoken, there was truth and to
spare in them, and there, too, was the cause of all the jolts and jars
and friction between us in our early days together. Mr. Daly was as a god
in his wee theatre, and was always taken seriously. I knew not gods and
took nothing under heaven seriously. No wonder we jarred. Every word I
spoke that morning rubbed Mr. Daly's fur the wrong way. I offended him
again and again. He wished to show me the theatre, and, striking a match,
lit a wax taper and held it up in the auditorium, at which I exclaimed:
"Oh, the pretty little match-box! Why, it's just a little toy
play-house--is it not?"

Which vexed him so I was quite crushed for a minute or two. One thing
only pleased him: I could not tear myself away from the pictures, and I
praised, rapturously, a beautiful velvety-shadowed old engraving. We grew
quite friendly over that, but when we came to business he informed me I
was a comedy woman, root and branch.

"But," I said, "ask Mr. Edwin Booth, or Mr. Davenport, or Mr. Adams!"

He waved me down. "I won't ask anyone," he cried; "I never made a mistake
in my life. You couldn't speak a line of sentiment to save your soul!"

"Why, sentiment is my line of business--I