omen in the profession," he
continued, as he turned to face his visitors. "My soul! Look at them!
Nothing but sawdust--sawdust--sawdust! Do you expect to go on acting
with sawdust? Making sawdust love with sawdust? Sawdust, I tell you!
Sawdust--sawdust--saw--"

"Oh, no," said Tinker easily. "Not all. Not by any means. No."

"Show me one that isn't sawdust!" the tragedian cried fiercely. "Show me
just one!"

"We-ll," said Tinker with extraordinary deliberation, "to start near
home: Wanda Malone."

Potter burst into terrible laughter. "All sawdust! That's why I
discharged her this afternoon."

"You what?" Canby shouted incredulously.

"I dismissed her from my company," said Potter with a startling change
to icy calmness. "I dismissed her from my company this afternoon."

Old Tinker leaned forward. "You didn't!"

Potter's iciness increased. "Shall I repeat it? I was obliged to dismiss
Miss Wanda Malone from my company, this afternoon, after rehearsal."

"Why?" Canby gasped.

"Because," said Potter, with the same calmness, "she has an utterly
commonplace mind."

Canby rose in agitation, quite unable, for that moment, to speak; but
Tinker, still leaning forward, gazing intently at the face of the
actor, made a low, long-drawn sound of wonder and affirmation, the slow
exclamation of a man comprehending what amazes him. "So that's it!"

"Besides being intensely ordinary," said Potter, with superiority, "I
discovered that she is deceitful. That had nothing whatever to do with
my decision to leave the stage." He whirled upon Tinker suddenly, and
shouted: "No matter what you think!"

"No," said Tinker. "No matter."

Potter laughed. "Talbot Potter leaves the stage because a little
'ingenue' understudy tries to break the rules of his company! Likely,
isn't it?"

"Looks so," said old Tinker.

"Does it?" retorted Potter with rising fury. "Then I'll tell you, since
you seem not to know it, that I'm not going to leave the stage! Can't a
man give vent to his feelings once in his life without being caught
up and held to it by every old school-teacher that's stumbled into the
'show-business' by mistake! We're going right on with this play, I tell
you; we rehearse it to-morrow morning just the same as if this hadn't
happened. Only there will be a new 'ingenue' in Miss Malone's place.
People can't break iron rules in my company. Maybe they could in
Mounet-Sully's, but they can't in mine!"

"What rule did she break?" C