"Either you are crazy, Barbara Archibald, or you think I am. You've been stuffing me for about a week, and I don't believe a word of it. And you'll apologize to me or I'll never speak to you again." She said this loudly, and then went away, And Mr. Beecher said, through the door. "What the devil's the row about?" Perhaps my nerves were going, or possibly it was no luncheon and probably no dinner. But I said, just as if he had been an ordinary person: "Go on and write and get through. I can't stew on these steps all day." "I thought you were an amiable child." "I'm not amiable and I'm not a child." "Don't spoil your pretty face with frowns." "It's MY face. And you can't see it anyhow," I replied, venting in feminine fashion, my anger at Jane on the nearest object. "Look here," he said, through the door, "you've been my good angel. I'm doing more work than I've done in two months, although it was a dirty, low-down way to make me do it. You're not going back on me now, are you?" Well, I was mollified, as who would not be? So I said: "Well?" "What did Patten do with my clothes?" "He took them with him." He was silent, except for a muttered word. "You might throw those keys back again," he said. "Let me know first, however. You're the most accurate thrower I've ever seen." So I threw them through the window and I believe hit the ink bottle. But no matter. And he tried them, but none availed. So he gave up, and went back to work, having saved enough ink to finish with. But a few minutes later he called to me again, and I moved to the doorstep, where I sat listening, while apparently admiring the sea. He explained that having been thus forced, he had almost finished the last act, and it was a corker. And he said if he had his clothes and some money, and a key to get out, he'd go right back to town with it and put it in rehearsal. And at the same time he would give the Pattens something to worry about over night. Because, play or no play, it was a rotten thing to lock a man in a bath-house and take his clothes away. "But of course I can't get my clothes," he said. "They'll take cussed good care of that. And there's the key too. We're up against it, little sister." Although excited by his calling me thus, I retained my faculties, and said: "I have a suit of clothes you can have." "Thanks awfully," he said. "But from the slight acquaintance we have had, I don't believe they would fit me." "Gentleman's clothes," I said frigidly. "You have?" "In my studio," I said. "I can bring them, if you like. They look quite good, although creased." "You know" he said, after a moment's silence, "I can't quite believe this is really happening to me! Go and bring the suit of clothes, and--you don't happen to have a cigar, I suppose?" "I have a large box of cigarettes."