's words of dismissal
as he and Fido followed the company in their hurried exit toward the
stage-door, with not so much as a glance at the box in which sat the
stricken author.

And there alone, off the dismal and dismantled stage in the cool dusk of
the box, producer and author faced each other and the situation.

"If my grandfather were not--not--dying, I'd take it right home and burn
it all up!" were the first words the author of "The Purple Slipper" gave
utterance to, after the last echo of the last footstep had died off the
stage.

"You couldn't, you've sold it to--to me," Mr. Vandeford answered with a
coolness in his voice that restored her mental balance, as he had
intended it should. "Now answer me truly; is it or is it not a good
play?"

"It's not my play; it's horrid and vulgar!" the author stormed, with
lightning burning up the tears in her gray eyes.

"That whole situation is exactly as you wrote it, and about a third of
the lines are yours, or will be yours by the time it is at the first
night, if you play the game. I have not decided whether I think it is a
good play or not. If I think it isn't, you may have it and burn it up. I
don't know what Rooney thinks yet. If he doesn't want to go on, I
won't." Mr. Vandeford had known the women of many climes, and he found
himself using that experience on Miss Adair with great skill, though it
hurt him to do so.

"Part of it I don't even understand," Miss Adair continued to storm, and
Mr. Vandeford was about to discover that either a Blue-grass woman or
horse, with the bit in their respective mouths, is mighty apt to go a
pace before curbed. "What was that scene in the last act just before the
dinner-party? She read so fast and he had his back to me, so I suppose
that is the reason I didn't get it." Miss Adair was alluding to the
scene whose vulgarity Mr. Vandeford had wished to sacrifice, but which
Mr. Meyers had pleaded for on account of its extra dash of "pep" exactly
suited to the Hawtry style.

"You won't be able to judge the Hawtry scenes at all until the opening
night," Mr. Vandeford answered, positively quaking in his boots for fear
that Miss Adair would force him to an elucidation of the scene, which
was mostly of the cleverest innuendo. "She is a miserable study, and she
and Height rehearse the big scenes alone. She just walks through with
the company. Truly, you can hardly judge anything of what a play will be
from just a reading or from any rehe