"

"Every cent!" said Wally firmly. "And the young Greek brigand who
stole my hat at the door is going to get a dollar! That, as our
ascetic and honourable friend Goble would say, is the sort of little
guy _I_ am!"

* * * * *

The red-faced man at the next table eyed them as they went out,
leaving behind them a waiter who clutched totteringly for support at
the back of a chair.

"Had a row," he decided, "but made it up."

He called for a toothpick.

CHAPTER XVI

MR. GOBLE PLAYS WITH FATE

I

On the boardwalk at Atlantic City, that much-enduring seashore resort
which has been the birthplace of so many musical plays, there stands
an all-day and all-night restaurant, under the same management and
offering the same hospitality as the one in Columbus Circle at which
Jill had taken her first meal on arriving in New York. At least, its
hospitality is noisy during the waking and working hours of the day;
but there are moments when it has an almost cloistral peace, and the
customer, abashed by the cold calm of its snowy marble and the silent
gravity of the white-robed attendants, unconsciously lowers his voice
and tries to keep his feet from shuffling, like one in a temple. The
members of the chorus of "The Rose of America," dropping in by ones
and twos at six o'clock in the morning about two weeks after the
events recorded in the last chapter, spoke in whispers and gave their
orders for breakfast in a subdued undertone.

The dress-rehearsal had just dragged its weary length to a close. It
is the custom of the dwellers in Atlantic City, who seem to live
entirely by pleasure, to attend a species of vaudeville
performances--incorrectly termed a sacred concert--on Sunday nights,
and it had been one o'clock in the morning before the concert scenery
could be moved out of the theatre and the first act set of "The Rose
of America" moved in. And, as by some unwritten law of the drama no
dress-rehearsal can begin without a delay of at least an hour and a
half, the curtain had not gone up on Mr. Miller's opening chorus till
half-past two. There had been dress-parades, conferences, interminable
arguments between the stage-director and a mysterious man in
shirt-sleeves about the lights, more dress-parades, further
conferences, hitches with regard to the sets, and another outbreak of
debate on the subject of blues, ambers, and the management of the
"spot," which was worked by a plaintive