that was ennobled by Amzi Montgomery.
Fosdick was usually "Paul" to Phil; Waterman she always called "Judge,"
which he hated. "Lawr_i_nce, what became of that play you wrote
yourself and put on in Chicago? Why don't you bring it here and give the
town a treat?"

Hastings bent upon her the grieved look of a man who suffers mutely the
most unkindest cut of all. _Et tu, Brute!_ was in his reproachful
glance.

"I didn't think this of you, Phil. Of course you knew the piece closed
Saturday night at Peoria."

She had not known. Her aunt had spoken largely of the venture. The
theatrical powers of New York having frowned upon Hastings's play, he
had produced it himself, sending it forth from Chicago to enlighten the
West before carrying it to Broadway, there to put to rout and confusion
the lords of the drama who had rejected it. Five thousand dollars had
been spent and the play had failed dismally. Nor was this the first of
Hastings's misadventures of the same sort. Phil analyzed her uncle's
gloom and decided that it was sincere, and she was sorry for him as was
her way in the presence of affliction. Hastings was an absurd person,
intent upon shining in a sphere to which the gods had summoned him only
in mockery. Phil lingered to mitigate his grief as far as possible.

"I'm sorry; but I suppose if a play won't go, it won't."

"A play of merit won't! My aim was to advance the ideal of American
drama; that was all. The same money put into musical comedy would have
nailed S. R. O. on the door all winter."

"Lawr_i_nce," said Phil, glancing up at the facade of The Hastings,
"I'll tell you how you can make a barrel of money out of this brick
building."

He looked at her guardedly. Phil was a digger of pits, as he knew by
experience, and he was in no humor for trifling. His own balance at the
bank was negligible, and his wife had warned him that no more money
would be forthcoming for the encouragement of the American drama.

"Lawr_i_nce, what you ought to do is to hire that blind piano-pounder
who thumps for the fraternity dances, put a neat red-haired girl in a
box on the sidewalk, get one of the football team who's working his way
through college to turn the crank, and put on a fil-lum."

This was, indeed, rubbing salt in his wounds. He flinched at the
thought.

"Turn my house over to the 'movies'! Phil, I didn't think this of you.
After all I've tried to do to lift this dingy village to a realizing
sense of what dra