you both!"

. . . . . .

"No, you don't interrupt me when you call me. You are to call me any
time you are willing to do it, if it is every five minutes."

. . . . . .

"No, I mean it."

. . . . . .

"Very well then--good-night and good dreams."

. . . . . .

"Can you beat it?" Mr. Vandeford smiled to himself as he hung up the
receiver. "Those two peachy girls washing each other's hair in the Y. W.
C. A., within ten blocks of the 'Follies' is to laugh--or cry. Good
little Lindsey! I wager she could have got 'em both forty-seven-eleven
dates." Then a thought delivered a blow just above his belt in the
region of his heart. "So it's Violet's game to use her as a decoy-duck
for Denny?" he questioned himself, then gave his own answer in a soft
voice under his breath. "Damn her!"

Furthermore he did not communicate with Miss Hawtry to give her Miss
Adair's answer to her invitation. He answered it in person, but only
after much had happened in the three hours intervening.

The hours from eight to nearly ten Mr. Vandeford spent in slowly
munching the refreshment retrieved from the automat by Mr. Adolph Meyers
and thinking out loud to that dignitary who took down his thoughts on
paper in cabalistic signs of shorthand. They were all notes of what
could and must be done in the next few days in the fight for the good
fate of "The Purple Slipper."

"I want to see that fellow Reid about that new lighting he provided for
the new Sauls show in May. I liked it in some ways and--" Mr. Vandeford
was saying when a banging on the door of the private office in which was
incarcerated the eminent playwright interrupted him.

"Did you give him the right amount of booze, Pops?" Mr. Vandeford asked.

"Entirely right," answered Mr. Meyers, with his pencil still poised over
his pad. The knocking continued.

"See what he wants, Pops, and give him a little more if you have to,"
decided Mr. Vandeford, as he lit a new cigar and turned to the whirlpool
of his desk while he waited for Mr. Meyers's return.

"Say, do you expect me to cast a Sunday School charade into a play in
six days, Vandeford?" was the storm of words hurled at him as the
released and infuriated doctor of plays hurled himself and his sheaf of
manuscript into the door ahead of Mr. Meyers.

"Is that what you think of it?" calmly questioned Mr. Vandeford, as he
swung around in his chair. "Sit down and tell me what you intend to do
for it."

"I'm going to rewr