fact he had signed
Rossmore for the new show that very morning after an all-night
discussion in Sam's, the only restaurant enjoying the confidence of the
last municipal administration.

"Then how about the guy that wrote the music, Oskar Schottlaender?" he
protested weakly. "That poor come-on don't draw down only ten thousand
dollars a week royalties from England, France, and America alone!"

"Of course if you ain't going to give me any credit for what I've
done----" Miss Raymond began.

"Ain't I telling you you're the first one I spoke to about this?"
Fieldstone interrupted.

"Oh, is that so?" Miss Raymond said. "I wonder you didn't offer that
Vivian Haig the part, which before I called myself after a highball I'd
use my real name, even if it was Katzberger."

"I told you before, kid, Vivian Haig goes with the Rudolph Number Two
Company next month to play the same part as she does now; and you know
as well as I do it ain't no better than walking on and off in the
second act--that's all."

"Then you'd oughter learn her to walk, Mont," Miss Raymond said as she
rose from her chair. "She fell all over herself last night."

"I know it," Fieldstone said, without shifting from his desk. "She
ain't got nothing to do and she can't do that!"

Miss Raymond attempted what a professional producer had told her was a
bitter laugh. It turned out to be a snort.

"Well, I can't stay here all day talking about people like Haig," she
announced. "I got a date with my dressmaker in a quarter of an hour."

"All right, Goldie," Fieldstone said, still seated. "Take care of
yourself, kid, and I'll see you after the show to-night."

He watched her as she disappeared through the doorway and sighed
heavily--but not for love, because the domestic habits of a lifetime in
the waist business are not to be so easily overcome. Indeed, theatrical
beauty, with all its allurements, reposed in Fieldstone's office as
free from temptation to the occupant as thousand dollar bills in a
paying-teller's cage.

What if he did call Miss Goldie Raymond "kid"? He meant nothing by it.
In common with all other theatrical managers he meant nothing by
anything he ever said to actors or playwrights, unless it appeared
afterward that he ought to have meant it and would stand to lose money
by not meaning it.

The telephone bell rang and he lifted the receiver from its hook.

"Who d'ye say?" he said after a pause. "Well, see if Raymond is gone
down the ele