s nose. "How much do you stick
Obermuller for?"

"Clever little man," say I, bold as brass and through my own nose;
"none of your business."

"Hi--you, Olden!" roared Obermuller, as though I'd run away and he was
trying to get the bit from between my teeth. "Answer the gentleman
prettily. Don't you know a representative of the mighty T. T. when
you see him? Can't you see the Syndicate aureole about his noble brow?
This gentleman, Nance, is the great and only Max Tausig. He humbleth
the exalted and uplifteth the lowly--or, if there's more money in it,
he gives to him that hath and steals from him that hasn't, but would
mighty well like to have. He has no conscience, no bowels, no heart.
But he has got tin and nerve and power to beat the band. In short, and
for all practical purposes for one in your profession, Nancy Olden,
he's just God. Down on your knees and lick his boots--Trust gods wear
boots, patent leathers--and thank him for permitting it, you lucky
baggage!"

I looked at the little man; the angry red was just fading from the top
of his cocoanut-shaped bald head.

"You always were a fool, Obermuller," he said cordially. "And you were
always over-fond of your low-comedian jokes. If you hadn't been so
smart with your tongue, you'd had more friends and not so many enemies
in--"

"In the heavenly Syndicate, eh? Well, I have lived without--"

"You have lived, but--"

"But where do I expect to go when I die? Good theatrical managers,
Nance, when they die as individuals go to Heaven--they get into the
Trust. After that they just touch buttons; the Trust does the rest.
Bad ones--the kickers--the Fred Obermullers go to--a place where
salaries cease from troubling and royalties are at rest. It's a slow
place where--where, in short, there's nothing doing. And only one
thing's done--the kicker. It's that place Mr. Tausig thinks I'm bound
for. And it's that place he's come to rescue you from, from sheer
goodness of heart and a wary eye for all there's in it. Cinch him,
Olden, for all the traffic will bear!"

I looked from one to the other--Obermuller, big and savage underneath
all his gay talk, I knew him well enough to see that; the little man,
his mouth turned down at the corners and a sneer in his eye for the
fellow that wasn't clever enough to get in with the push.

"You must not give the young woman the big head, Obermuller. Her own
is big enough, I'll bet, as it is. I ain't prepared to m