ully. "If I'm going to explain this thing, I
guess I'd best start at the beginning. You remember that revue of
Fillmore's--the one we both begged him not to put on. It flopped!"

"Oh!"

"Yes. It flopped on the road and died there. Never got to New York at
all. Ike Schumann wouldn't let Fillmore have a theatre. The book wanted
fixing and the numbers wanted fixing and the scenery wasn't right: and
while they were tinkering with all that there was trouble about the
cast and the Actors Equity closed the show. Best thing that could have
happened, really, and I was glad at the time, because going on with
it would only have meant wasting more money, and it had cost a fortune
already. After that Fillmore put on a play of Gerald Foster's and that
was a frost, too. It ran a week at the Booth. I hear the new piece he's
got in rehearsal now is no good either. It's called 'The Wild Rose,' or
something. But Fillmore's got nothing to do with that."

"But..." Sally tried to speak, but Mrs. Fillmore went on.

"Don't talk just yet, or I shall never get this thing straight. Well,
you know Fillmore, poor darling. Anyone else would have pulled in his
horns and gone slow for a spell, but he's one of those fellows whose
horse is always going to win the next race. The big killing is always
just round the corner with him. Funny how you can see what a chump a man
is and yet love him to death... I remember saying something like that to
you before... He thought he could get it all back by staging this fight
of his that came off in Jersey City last night. And if everything had
gone right he might have got afloat again. But it seems as if he can't
touch anything without it turning to mud. On the very day before the
fight was to come off, the poor mutt who was going against the champion
goes and lets a sparring-partner of his own knock him down and fool
around with him. With all the newspaper men there too! You probably
saw about it in the papers. It made a great story for them. Well, that
killed the whole thing. The public had never been any too sure that this
fellow Bugs Butler had a chance of putting up a scrap with the champion
that would be worth paying to see; and, when they read that he couldn't
even stop his sparring-partners slamming him all around the place they
simply decided to stay away. Poor old Fill! It was a finisher for
him. The house wasn't a quarter full, and after he'd paid these two
pluguglies their guarantees, which they insi