all the tremendous force of the
breaker behind it. She doubled up ridiculously, and went down like a
shot. Those on the beach laughed again. When she came up, and they saw
her distorted face they stopped laughing, and fished her out. Her leg
was broken in two places, and mashed in a dozen.

Jose Fyfer's dramatic career was over. (This is not the cheery portion
of the story.)

When she came out of the hospital, three months later, she did very
well indeed with her crutches. But the merry-eyed woman had
vanished--she of the Wapello colouring that had persisted during
all these years. In her place limped a wan, shrunken, tragic little
figure whose humour had soured to a caustic wit. The near-seal coat and
the turquoise-and-crushed-diamond ring had vanished too.

During those agonized months she had received from the others in
the company such kindness and generosity as only stage folk can
show--flowers, candy, dainties, magazines, sent by every one from the
prima donna to the call boy. Then the show left town. There came a few
letters of kind inquiry, then an occasional post card, signed by half a
dozen members of the company. Then these ceased. Josie Fifer, in her
cast and splints and bandages and pain, dragged out long hospital days
and interminable hospital nights. She took a dreary pleasure in
following the tour of her erstwhile company via the pages of the
theatrical magazines.

"They're playing Detroit this week," she would announce to the aloof and
spectacled nurse. Or: "One-night stands, and they're due in Muncie,
Ind., to-night. I don't know which is worse--playing Muncie for one
night or this moan factory for a three month's run."

When she was able to crawl out as far as the long corridor she spoke to
every one she met. As she grew stronger she visited here and there, and
on the slightest provocation she would give a scene ranging all the way
from "Romeo and Juliet" to "The Black Crook." It was thus she first met
Sid Hahn, and felt the warming, healing glow of his friendship.

Some said that Sid Hahn's brilliant success as a manager at thirty-five
was due to his ability to pick winners. Others thought it was his
refusal to be discouraged when he found he had picked a failure. Still
others, who knew him better, were likely to say: "Why, I don't know.
It's a sort of--well, you might call it charm--and yet--. Did you ever see
him smile? He's got a million-dollar grin. You can't resist it."

None of them wa