He sat still after that for a while, staring into the open fire and rubbing his fine expressive hands together in a meditative way. It was good to me to see him, just touched mellowly with age, the delicate carving in his face of nobility and gentleness. There were men like that then, men who made by their mere being, something more than a shibboleth of the traditional dependability. He seemed to be far away from me, groping around the root of truth in respect to that gift with which he was so richly endowed. He rose presently and took a play-book which lay face downward on the table. "Could you do a bit of this with me?" he suggested. "It will help me get my lines." The play was "Magda," new then on the American stage. Eversley was getting up the part of Colonel Schwartz. He explained the story to me a little and I began reading and prompting him. Presently I felt the familiar click of myself sliding into the part. All my winter in Chicago rose up in the part of _Magda_ to protest against the judgment of Taylorville. I knew better too than to attempt any sort of staginess with Eversley; I said the words, trying to understand them, and let the part have its way with me. It was not until we had laid down the book that I remembered I was still waiting judgment, and did not feel to want it. "I won't take up any more of your time," I suggested. "You have been very good to me." I got up to go. After all what was there that Eversley could do for me. "Well," he said, "and is it to be musical comedy?" "No," I told him, "no, it may be starvation or the lake, but I'll not let myself down like that.... Was that why you asked me to do the part?" I said after a while, in which he had sat gazing into the fire without taking any note of my standing. "Sit down," he said. "Have you ever heard of Polatkin?" I shook my head and sat provisionally on the edge of my chair. "Polatkin is a speculator; he speculates in ability. I think on the whole the best thing I can do for you is to introduce you to Polatkin." Mr. Eversley thought of Morris Polatkin because he had met him the day before in Chicago. Before I left the hotel it was arranged that I was to see him the next day, and if he liked me--by the tone in which Mark Eversley spoke of him I knew that was foregone--he would take me on to New York with him and put my gift on a paying basis.