don't like your being on the stage."

"I shouldn't have thought you would have been so"--Jill sought for a
devastating adjective--"so mid-Victorian!"

"As far as you are concerned, I'm the middest Victorian in existence.
Mid is my middle name." Wally met her indignant gaze squarely.
"I--do--not--like--your--being--on--the--stage! Especially in any
company which Ike Goble is running."

"Why Mr. Goble particularly?"

"Because he is not the sort of man you ought to be coming in contact
with."

"What nonsense!"

"It isn't nonsense at all. I suppose you've read a lot about the
morals of theatrical managers...."

"Yes. And it seemed to be exaggerated and silly."

"So it is. There's nothing wrong with most of them. As a general
thing, they are very decent fellows--extraordinarily decent if you
think of the position they are in. I don't say that in a business way
there's much they won't try to put over on you. In the theatre, when
it comes to business, everything goes except biting and gouging.
'There's never a law of God or man runs north of fifty-three.' If you
alter that to 'north of Forty-first Street' it doesn't scan as well,
but it's just as true. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that
the Golden Rule is suspended there. You get used to it after you have
been in the theatre for a while, and, except for leaving your watch
and pocket-book at home when you have to pay a call on a manager and
keeping your face to him so that he can't get away with your back
collar-stud, you don't take any notice of it. It's all a game. If a
manager swindles you, he wins the hole and takes the honour. If you
foil him, you are one up. In either case, it makes no difference to
the pleasantness of your relations. You go on calling him by his first
name, and he gives you a couple of cigars out of his waistcoat pocket
and says you're a good kid. There is nothing personal in it. He has
probably done his best friend out of a few thousand dollars the same
morning, and you see them lunching together after the ceremony as
happily as possible. You've got to make allowances for managers. They
are the victims of heredity. When a burglar marries a hat-check girl,
their offspring goes into the theatrical business automatically, and
he can't shake off the early teaching which he imbibed at his father's
knee. But morals...."

Wally broke off to allow the waiter to place a fried sole before him.
Waiters always select the moment when we are ta