I walked a great deal, musing over my play, and more than once in rebellion my feet wandered from their usual path to tread the sacred and forbidden ground that lay in the neighborhood of the Senator's home. Near the close of day, I sometimes saw him sitting on the portico, with his chair tipped back, his feet against a classic pillar, smoking his pipe--a vandalic American indulging a national posture to the shame of a Grecian memory. Once I saw his daughter standing near him, where the fading sunlight fell, gazing afar off, shading her eyes with her hand. And she might have seen me had I not bent behind a bush; had I been less a thief. One hot afternoon the Senator came into the office, fanning himself with his hat. "No dreaming now, Belford," said he. "It's too hot even to doze. What's all that you've got spread out there?" "Our play," I answered. "Oh, yes. And, by George, there seems to be enough of it. Let me hear a chapter or two. Isn't in chapters, though, is it? Fire away and let me hear what it sounds like. You look like a commissioner of deeds, with all this stuff scattered about you. But go ahead." "I'd rather wait, Senator, until it's completed. In fact, I'd rather you'd wait and see it played," I replied, remembering what he had said about elevating the stage and fearing that he might object to some of my characters. "All right. But just now you said _our_ play. What do you mean by that?" "I mean that a half interest belongs to you." "Why, Lord bless you, my boy, I don't want to rob you." "And I don't intend that you shall rob yourself. You have given me the opportunity to do the work, you have--" "Hold on, Belford. We are partners in this house. You are doing your share. Why, Sir, haven't you secured the Lamptons to play here a whole week during our county fair? And doesn't that newspaper notice they sent along say that they are the finest representation of dramatic talent now on the road? Haven't you signed a contract with Sanderson Hicks to give us the Lady of Lyons? And I want to tell you that a man who saw such opportunities and seized them by the forelock is doing his duty all right. Oh, it's no laughing matter, Sir." "That's all very well, Senator, but you are to own half the play. I want you to look after the business end of it." "All right, Sir; all right. Yes, it would be better to have some man take hold of that part of it--some man, you understand, who isn't afraid to insist upon his rights. And Belford," he added, putting his hand on my shoulder, "if I hadn't insisted on mine, they would have trampled me under foot long ago. Yes, Sir (stepping back and shaking his hat), long ago. Have you decided as to who shall have it?" "Well, it's easy enough for me to decide. But the decision of the other party might not be so easy to get."