“Go to it, my boy,” the manager said at the completion of an hour’s talk, “and remember that the azure dome of heaven is the limit and that in the bright lexicon of showmanship there are no such words as ‘it can’t be done.’ Do I make myself clear?” “Absolutely,” replied Jimmy cheerfully. “I’m to sit with my feet in a mustard bath and I’m to play my cards without regard to the feelin’s, digestions, general state of temperature or politics of anyone else in the game. I’m to see all raises and tilt it one for luck whenever I think the time is ripe for a killin’. Have I got the right combination?” Bartlett laughed heartily at the flavory idioms which flowed so freely from Jimmy’s lips. “Thou hast, most potent, grave and reverend signor,” he replied, bowing low in exaggerated mock courtesy. “By the way,” he continued, getting back to business again, “there’s another thing I completely forgot. I’ve engaged a literary chap for a special stunt, and I want you to figure out some way of getting it across so that it seems on the level. “The general idea is to have this fellow deliver a series of lectures on India about three weeks ahead of the play date. It’ll be a camouflaged boost for the show. Every once in a while he’ll make some casual remark about the play which he understands is shortly to be seen in this city, et cetera, but there won’t be enough of this stuff for anyone to consider it as being at all out of the way. “This gentleman will be under your direct and special control. It will be up to you to arrange to have lectures given in every city under the auspices of some literary society or social welfare group or under the patronage of the Daughters of the American Revolution—any kind of a crowd that’ll give the stunt prestige and distinction. I’ve written Mr. Denby to meet you at the theatre this evening.” “Denby, eh? It can’t possibly be little old J. Herbert Denby, the highbrow kid, can it?” “That’s the name. Know him?” A grin of delight spread over Jimmy’s features. “Fairly well,” he chuckled. “He tipped me off to a grand idea over in Baltimore a year or so ago. Old George B. Bookworm, eh? If he’s still doin’ his regular act I’ve got a lot of laughs comin’ to me on this trip. Say, you don’t know how good that bird’ll be for a stunt of this kind. When it comes to the uplift stuff and the literary bunk he’s there in seven separate and distinct languages. And innocent! Say, he could make a two year old baby look like an old offender with a Sing Sing past. They’ll fall for him on sight.” The guileless Mr. Denby greeted Jimmy in the lobby of the Hendrik Hudson that night in his best professorial manner and smiled benignantly through his tortoise shell glasses. “You will, I think, concede, Mr. Martin,” said he, proffering a rather limp hand, “that we give the lie direct to Mr. Kipling.” “Eh? What’s that?” mumbled the other. “I don’t get you.”