s stocky shoulders and rose to his feet. His brown eyes
were below the level of his chum's black ones, but the two glances met
sharply and a flash passed between them. Under the force of his rising
excitement the voice of Rodney shook.

"The reason I've been a damned nuisance," he said curtly, "is because
you've been acting like an infernal fool, and I'm sick of it."

Laurie's lips tightened, but the other rushed on without giving him a
chance to reply. The moment was his. He must crowd into it all he had
not dared to say before and might not be given a chance to say again.

"Oh, I know what you'll say!" he cried. "It's none of my business, and
you're your own master, and all that sort of rot. And I know you're not
drinking, and God knows I'm not ass enough to take on any high moral
tone and try to preach to you, whatever you do. What gets my goat,
Devon, and the only thing I'm worrying about, is this damnable waste of
your time and mine."

Laurie grinned, and the grin infuriated Bangs. He whirled away from it.
A footstool impeded his progress, and he kicked it out of his way with
large abandon. It was his habit to rush about a room when he was talking
excitedly. He rushed about now; and Laurie lit a cigarette and watched
him, at first angrily, then with a growing tolerance born of memories of
scenes in their plays which Bangs had threshed out in much this same
manner. The world could never be wholly uninteresting while Rodney
pranced about in it, cutting the air with gestures like that.

"Here I am," snapped Rodney, "ready with my play, the best plot I've had
yet. You won't let me even mention it to you. Here's the new season.
Here's Epstein, sitting on our door-mat with a check-book in each hand,
waiting to put on anything we give him. You know he's lost a small
fortune this fall. You know it's up to us to give him a play that will
pull him out of the hole he's in. Here's Haxon, the best director in
town, marking time and holding off other managers in the hope that you
and I will get down to business. And here you are, the fellow we're all
counting on--" He stopped for breath and adjectives.

"Yes," Laurie politely prompted him. "Here I am. What about it? What am
I doing?"

"You know damned well what you're doing. You're loafing!" Bangs fired
the word at him as if it were a shell from a Big Bertha. "You're loafing
till it makes us all sick to look at you. We thought a week or two of it
would be enough, when you