"In New York or on the road?" questioned Mr. Kent, with an assurance that he tried to make bold. "To the devil if I send you there," was the answer he got straight off the bat. "A hundred with costumes?" "With costumes." "Done." "See Dolph; but not over ten-dollar advance to save your hide." "He's giving fifty." "To whom?" "Bebe." "He did that because he knew that you'd get half of what he gave her. Ten's your limit." "All right. Good-morning!" "Barrett on Monday morning." "All right!" With which Mr. Kent rapidly made his exit. "Old reprobate! But he does feed the lines to his opposite, and Bebe happy is worth twice Bebe in a grouch. You see what the whole blamed thing is like and--" Mr. Vandeford was interrupted by the tinkle of the telephone at his elbow. . . . . . . "Godfrey Vandeford speaking." . . . . . . "When did you get in?" . . . . . . "Not busy at all." . . . . . . "The Claridge?" . . . . . . "Right away." . . . . . . "Haven't seen or heard from him in two days." . . . . . . "Right over. By!" . . . . . . From overhearing, as he was forced to do, this one-sided conversation, how could Mr. Dennis Farraday imagine that Violet Hawtry had come into sultry New York seeking him to devour and that his keeper was rushing away from his presence to his defense? "You and Pops engage the rest, Denny. You see the trick now. Nothing left important but what Dolph puts down on this paper as 'woman support for character parts with looks.' Try your hand, old man, and if you pick a flivver there are plenty more to cast in and her out. By!" And before Mr. Farraday could protest he was left alone in the inquisition-room. And as Mr. Godfrey Vandeford went down in an elevator on his way to the Claridge to deliver the next instalment of the spanking of Miss Violet Hawtry, he passed a live wire going up opposite him and met one walking down Forty-second Street, neither of which he could be expected to recognize, as he had never seen either. The first of the two dynamos walked into the office of the Vandeford Producing Company and failed to thrill Mr. Adolph Meyers in the least, a fact for which he could never afterward account. He motioned her into the inner office, and left her to her fate and Mr. Dennis Farraday. "Good-morning, Mr. Vandeford," she said in a queer, throaty kind of voice that had in it a "come hither" of unusual quality, which suggested that in her production a Romney woman might have loved a Greek dancer well. She stood at ease before the long desk with a grace that was unmistakably that of complete assurance. "I'm not Mr. Vandeford, but his--his partner, Dennis Farraday. Er--er, won't you be seated?" and with the happy, considerate manner of his that he had always used to all women, he offered her his own chair and appropriated the one of authority that Mr. Vandeford always occupied.