," he said, "what do you think?"

"What do I think?" asked the startled girl. "What do I think about
what?"

"There's a part," said Bones--"there's one of the grandest parts that
was ever written since Shakespeare shut his little copybook."

"You're not suggesting that I should play it?" she asked, open-mouthed.

"Made for you, dear old typewriter, positively made for you, that
part," murmured Bones.

"Of course I shall do nothing so silly," said the girl, with a laugh.
"Oh, Mr. Tibbetts, you really didn't think that I'd do such a----"

She didn't finish the sentence, but Hamilton could have supplied the
three missing words without any difficulty.

Thereafter followed a discussion, which in the main consisted of joint
and several rejection of parts. Marguerite Whitland most resolutely
refused to play the part of the bad girl, even though Bones promised to
change the title to "The Good Girl," even though he wheedled his best,
even though he struck attitudes indicative of despair and utter ruin,
even though the gentle persuasiveness of Mr. Lew Becksteine was added
to his entreaties. And Hamilton as resolutely declined to have
anything to do with the bad man. Mr. Becksteine solved the difficulty
by undertaking to produce the necessary actors and actresses at the
minimum of cost.

"Of course you won't play, Bones?" said Hamilton.

"I don't know," said Bones. "I'm not so sure, dear old thing. I've
got a lot of acting talent in me, and I feel the part--that's a
technical term you won't understand."

"But surely, Mr. Tibbetts," said the girl reproachfully, "you won't
allow yourself to be photographed embracing a perfectly strange lady?"

Bones shrugged his shoulders.

"Art, my dear old typewriter," he said. "She'll be no more to me than
a bit of wood, dear old miss. I shall embrace her and forget all about
it the second after. You need have no cause for apprehension, really
and truly."

"I am not at all apprehensive," said the girl coldly, and Bones
followed her to her office, showering explanations of his meaning over
her shoulder.

On the third day Hamilton went back to Twickenham a very weary man.

"Bones is really indefatigable," he said irritably, but yet admiringly.
"He has had those unfortunate actors rehearsing in the open fields, on
the highways and byways. Really, old Bones has no sense of decency.
He's got one big scene which he insists upon taking in a private park.
I shudder to think w