unobtrusively.

"Twelve-fifty, you old dollar-skinner!" averred the vaudeville star,
with a nasty little laugh.

"Don't try to pull off a hold-up, Mazie. It won't work. It's Grant's
money," said Mr. Vandeford, with an icy calmness in his voice. And as
she spoke he looked at Mr. Adolph Meyers, who answered the look with
perfect comprehension.

"Then you'll get the manuscript when hell freezes over or your wad
loosens," she again laughed, and this time turned toward the door with
the square manila portfolio under her arm.

An interested spectator could not have said afterward just how it did
happen that in half a second the manila portfolio was in the hands of
Mr. Adolph Meyers, who also bore upon his left cheek a long and
profusely bleeding scratch.

"Here's your check, child, and keep a good grip on Grant, so he can't
get started toward East River as he did last time," Mr. Vandeford said
as he handed an already prepared check to the enraged girl. She was dumb
for a second, no longer.

"I was going to leave it for five hundred, you old white-skinned bluffer
with your goose-grease, strong arm," she finally blurted out, and in a
twinkling of her bright eyes her good-nature had returned. "Say, that is
some play now, and I wish you'd let me play a dance girl at that
dinner-party. I'd do it refined." There was a queer little appeal in the
mobile young face. "I'd like to doll up like a lady."

"I'll think that over, Mazie," answered Mr. Vandeford. "A song and dance
from you might go all right."

"Gimme a call, will you? I'll be on the job with my guzzler for a week
now. I got to get him past, for he's some meal-ticket when times is
dull." As Mazie disposed of the check in her stocking, a degree of
affectionate anxiety for the condition of Mr. Grant Howard showed in her
face for the fraction of a second, then disappeared as she looked at Mr.
Adolph Meyers.

"Come on and get my wad from where I've put it, if you dare, Dolph," she
challenged, then laughed, as the imperturbable Mr. Meyers both ignored
and showed her to the door with all courtesy.

And as he lay on his bed reading over the Howard manuscript of "The
Purple Slipper," which had just returned to him after a twenty-four hour
overhauling and annotation for action by Mr. William Rooney, the stage
director with the top price, Mr. Vandeford said to Mr. Adolph Meyers,
who sat at a table beside the bed, taking down and inserting notes into
the manuscript as they