A charming manner it was--gracious, graceful, sincere. And as one takes a certain simple base for a sauce, and, by adding various flavors or acids, produces innumerable different sauces, so to that natural manner he, by adding a touch of dignity or sternness or jollity or deprecation, came very near making himself all things to all men. His closely cropped hair was black--not the blue-black of the Latins, but that darkest brown that is America's black--and his eyes were those Irish blue ones that are "smudged in" with black lashes, luminous, quick sparkling, softly darkening, wooing, winning, faithless eyes--an actor's eyes par excellence, but with a droop of the heavily fringed lids that played sad havoc with the dreams of the romantic girl patrons of the theatre. Stewart Thrall was a popular idol. His stroll down the sweet sunny side of Broadway was a triumphal progress. Glances, smiles, turning heads, and flattering remarks trailed after him like a tail to the kite of his vogue. He had earned his popularity--it had not been thrust upon him. He had been shrewd and clever and determined. He had acted up to the motto of his choice: "To be agreeable." He made everything serve him. If he had a friend in a high place he never forgot it or allowed anyone else to forget it either. If he went occasionally to church on a fine Sunday, where wealthy pewholders vied with one another in courteous hospitality, he saw to it that that was the church attended by his banker. "The recollection will do him no harm and may do me a service," he would say to himself with a laugh. When he went to a dance he never failed to bestow attentions upon any homely girl or woman who wore jewels, and in more than one instance the effects of such a one's gratitude had been distinctly felt in the box-office. But these wealthy wall-flowers were never waltzed with. The very prettiest girl in the room could be relied upon to arrange her card to favor this man with the speaking eyes. And so, with drooping lids in full evidence, he swayed and whirled, reversed and backed, apparently by instinct, since his challenging glance never left his partner's face. He would think triumphantly of the two birds he had brought down with one stone, winning gratitude from one and a flirtation from another.