hat marvelous mixture. Your early successes, Miss Olden,
in another profession that I needn't name, would encourage the idea
that you're not all heart and no head. I think, Nance, I shall have
you mimic the artists during working hours and the business men when
you're at play. I fancy apartment houses. They appeal to me. We'll
call one 'The Nancy' and another 'Olden Hall' and another..."

"What'll I call the third apartment house, Mr. O?" I asked aloud, as I
heard the rings on the portiere behind me click.

He didn't answer.

Without turning my head I repeated the question. And
yet--suddenly--before he could have answered, I knew something was
wrong.

I turned. And in that moment a man took the seat beside me and another
stood facing me, with his back against the portieres.

"Miss Olden?" the man beside me asked.

"Yes."

"Nance Olden, the mimic, who entertains at private houses?"

I nodded.

"You--you were at Mrs. Paul Gates' just a week ago, and you gave your
specialties there?"

"Yes--yes, what is it you want?"

He was a little man, but very muscular. I could note the play of his
muscles even in the slight motion he made as he turned his body so as
to get between me and the audience, while he leaned toward me, watching
me intently with his small, quick, blue eyes.

"We don't want to make any scene here," he said very low. "We want to
do it up as quietly as we can. There might be some mistake, you know,
and then you'd be sorry. So should we. I hope you'll be reasonable
and it'll be all the better for you because--"

"What are you talk--what--" I looked from him to the other fellow
behind us.

He leaned a bit farther forward then, and pulling his coat partly open,
he showed me a detective's badge. And the other man quickly did the
same.

I sat back in my chair. The fat star on the stage, with her big mouth
and big baby-face, was doing a cake-walk up and down close to the
footlights, yelling the chorus of her song.

I'll never mimic that song, Mag, although I can see her and hear it as
plain as though I'd listened and watched her all my life. But there's
no fun in it for me. I hate the very bars the orchestra plays before
she begins to sing. I can't bear even to think of the words. The
whole of it is full of horrible things--it smells of the jail--it looks
like stripes--it ...

"You're not going to faint?" asked the man, moving closer to me.

"Me? I never fainted in my life...