"Eho yes!" exclaimed Mr. Marrier. "I began life as a lawyah's clerk,
but--"

"So did I," Edward Henry interjected.

"How interesting!" Rose Euclid murmured with fervency, after puffing
forth a long shaft of smoke.

"However, I threw it up," Marrier went on.

"I didn't," said Edward Henry. "I got thrown out!"

Strange that in that moment he was positively proud of having been
dismissed from his first situation! Strange that all the company,
too, thought the better of him for having been dismissed! Strange that
Marrier regretted that he also had not been dismissed! But so it was.
The possession of much ready money emits a peculiar effluence in both
directions--back to the past, forward into the future.

"I threw it up," said Marrier, "because the stage had an irresistible
attraction for me. I'd been stage-manajah for an amateur company, you
knaoo. I found a shop as stage-manajah of a company touring 'Uncle
Tom's Cabin.' I stuck to that for six years, and then I threw that
up too. Then I've managed one of Miss Euclid's provincial tours. And
since I met our friend Trent I've had the chance to show what my ideas
about play-producing really are. I fancy my production of Trent's
one-act play won't be forgotten in a hurry.... You know--'The Nymph'?
You read about it, didn't you?"

"I did not," said Edward Henry. "How long did it run?"

"Oh! It didn't run. It wasn't put on for a run. It was part of one
of the Sunday night shows of the Play-Producing Society, at the
Court Theatre. Most intellectual people in London, you know. No such
audience anywhere else in the wahld!" His rather chubby face glistened
and shimmered with enthusiasm. "You bet!" he added. "But that was
only by the way. My real game is management--general management. And I
think I may say I know what it is?"

"Evidently!" Edward Henry concurred. "But shall you have to give up
any other engagement in order to take charge of The Muses' Theatre?
Because if so--"

Mr. Marrier replied:

"No."

Edward Henry observed:

"Oh!"

"But," said Marrier, reassuringly, "if necessary I would throw up
any engagement--you understand me, any--in favour of The Intellectual
Theatah--as I prefer to call it. You see, as I own part of the
option--"

By these last words Edward Henry was confounded, even to muteness.

"I forgot to mention, Mr. Machin," said Rose Euclid, very quickly.
"I've disposed of a quarter of my half of the option to Mr. Marrier.
He fully agree