He knows exactly what she is and what she
has been, and their relations are those of pals. She has finished her
season in Denver, and he has come out there to accompany her home.
He has always told her, whenever she felt it inconsistent with her
happiness to continue her relations with him, it is her privilege to
quit, and he has reserved the same condition.

JIM WESTON, between forty-five and fifty years of age, is the type
of the semi-broken-down showman. In the evolution of the theatrical
business in America, the old circus and minstrel men have gradually
been pushed aside, while younger men, with more advanced methods, have
taken their place. The character is best realized by the way it is
drawn in the play.

ANNIE. The only particular attention that should be called to the
character of the negress, ANNIE, who is the servant of LAURA, is the
fact that she must not in any way represent the traditional smiling
coloured girl or "mammy" of the South. She is the cunning, crafty,
heartless, surly, sullen Northern negress, who, to the number of
thousands, are servants of women of easy morals, and who infest a
district of New York in which white and black people of the lower
classes mingle indiscriminately, and which is one of the most criminal
sections of the city. The actress who plays this part must keep in
mind its innate and brutal selfishness.

SYNOPSIS.

ACT I. Mrs. Williams' Ranch House or Country Home, perched on the side
of Ute Pass, near Colorado Springs, Colorado.

TIME. Late in an August afternoon.

ACT II. Laura Murdock's furnished Room, second story back, New York.

TIME. Six months later.

ACT III. Laura Murdock's Apartments in an expensive Hotel.

TIME. Two months later. In the morning.

ACT IV. Laura Murdock's Apartments. The same as Act III.

TIME. The afternoon of the same day.

THE EASIEST WAY

ACT I.

SCENE. _The scene is that of the summer country ranch house of_ MRS.
WILLIAMS, _a friend of_ LAURA MURDOCK'S, _and a prominent society
woman of Denver, perched on the side of Ute Pass, near Colorado
Springs. The house is one of unusual pretentiousness, and, to a person
not conversant with conditions as they exist in this part of Colorado,
the idea might be that such magnificence could not obtain in such
a locality. At the left of stage the house rises in the form of a
turret, built of rough stone of a brown hue, two stories high, and
projecting a quarter of the wa