any
minute if you need me."

"Great!" exclaimed Mr. Height. "Then I could let you know right away if
I thought I could do the part justice, Mr. Vandeford."

"Goes!" answered Mr. Vandeford, as he motioned them into the inner
office, which had been conferred upon the author of "The Purple
Slipper," and rang his buzzer for Mr. Meyers.

"Find Mr. Farraday and ask him to come around here immediately if he is
anywhere near, or to come at four if he can't get here in ten minutes,"
he commanded. "Heard from Mazie?"

"Mr. Howard is in a good working soak, is her report, Mr. Vandeford,
sir, and I have the wire that Mr. Farraday is on his way here," was the
double answer Mr. Meyers returned to Mr. Vandeford.

"Good! Give me my letters to sign," Mr. Vandeford answered.

Mr. Meyers brought in a sheaf of letters, and Mr. Vandeford was in the
act of setting pen to paper when the door of the inner office opened
after a gentle knock and Miss Adair entered, followed by Mr. Height.

Mr. Vandeford looked up quickly and found Miss Adair close beside his
chair, looking down upon him with her beautiful reverence and confidence
in him entirely unimpaired.

"Mr. Height wants me to go and have luncheon with him and tell him about
the play. He's hungry, and so am I. Can you spare me if I'm working
while I'm eating? May I go?"

Mr. Vandeford rose to his feet quickly, and a great Broadway star was in
closer danger of descending head-first from a six-story window upon that
thoroughfare than he ever knew. Then "The Purple Slipper" rose and
demanded its chance of success with Gerald Height as "drag" and the
tragedy was averted.

"Run along, children, and don't spill your milk on your bibs," he
answered them, with a dissembling smile that would have done credit to
Mr. Height himself when upon the boards with Miss Hawtry. They departed
in great spirits, and Mr. Vandeford noticed that Mr. Height had not
been at all concerned as to how his manager's inner man would be served.

Thereupon Mr. Vandeford propped his feet upon the desk, got out one of
the most evil of the cigars he kept in a drawer of his desk for just
such crises, and went into communion with himself for ten minutes. Upon
that communion broke Mr. Dennis Farraday, who got the full force of it.

"I came to pick up you and Miss Adair to go out in the park to luncheon.
It's cooler there. Where is she?" were the words with which Mr.
Vandeford's partner in the production of "The Purp