"I mean it. A stage manager has to take my stuff all hot even if he thinks some of it is cold. Get me?" . . . . . . "That's good. I'll give you the completed manuscript Saturday so you can pound and set it for Monday next." . . . . . . "That's good. By!" With which short, but sure, wire-pulling Mr. Vandeford opened his campaign to double-cross his own original plans. He had hardly stopped fixing Mr. William Rooney when Pops looked in upon him and announced Mr. Grant Howard, the eminent playwright. "Hello, Grant," was Mr. Vandeford's short and unenthusiastic greeting to the small, black-haired person with weak, pink-rimmed, blue eyes, who sauntered into the sanctum and dropped sadly into a chair with his back to the light. A cigarette hung from the left corner of his upper lip, and his hands trembled. "Been hitting 'em up?" "Yes," answered the playwright, laconically. "Broke?" "Pretty bad." "Want to doctor a play for Hawtry for me by Friday next for a thousand dollars cash?" "Cash now?" "Cash Friday." "Would have to lock myself up in my apartment to do it; but Mazie's been crying for gold-uns for a week." "Send Mazie to me, and I'll fix that, and hand you the thousand on Friday. Here, take this manuscript over in my other office and be ready to talk it over with me by ten o'clock. I'll see Mazie in the meantime." Mr. Vandeford placed the precious "Purple Slipper" in the hands of a man who at that very moment had two successful plays running on Broadway, his interest in both of which he had sold out for a mess of pottage to be consumed in the company of Miss Mazie Villines of the "Big Show." "Dolph had better order me up a little cold wine to start on," said Mr. Howard, as he rose languidly to incarcerate himself at the bidding of Mr. Vandeford. The same scene had been enacted between the two bright lights of American drama several times before with very good results. Mr. Howard's brain was of that peculiar caliber which does not originate an idea, but which inserts a solid bone construction as well as keen little sparklets into the fabric of another's labor, and makes the whole translucent where before it may have been opaque. On Broadway he was called a play doctor, and Mr. Vandeford was not the first manager who had shut him up with quarts of refreshment to tinker on the play of many a literary, dramatic, bright light. "Dolph will give you scotch and soda to your limit, no further," answered Mr. Vandeford, without graciousness. "I'll be here waiting for your talk-over at ten-thirty o'clock." "All right. Have Mazie come for me after her show?" "Yes."