Meyerfield’s office boy dumped a big pile of Boston Sunday papers on his desk the following Monday morning. The manager opened the Press and turned to the theatrical page. He skimmed it hurriedly and then uttered a low moan. Staring him in the face was a double column picture of Leona Le Claire. Over it was a headline which read: PRIMA DONNA’S ILLNESS GIVES CHORUS GIRL A BIG OPPORTUNITY –––– A story detailing the facts about Bessie Bellairs’ threatened breakdown followed, together with some account of the stage beginnings of the understudy. Meyerfield frantically looked through the other papers and found the photograph of the Le Claire girl featured in each one of them with practically the same story. He called his stenographer and angrily dictated this telegram: JAMES MARTIN, AGENT MEYERFIELD’S FROLICS, STAR THEATRE, BOSTON, MASS. WHY DID YOU PRINT THAT BONE-HEAD STORY ABOUT UNDERSTUDY AFTER MY INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CON- TRARY—YOU’RE RUINING MY BUSINESS —WIRE IMMEDIATELY. MEYERFIELD. This answer came back—collect—in an hour and a half: MAURICE MEYERFIELD, 1426 BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY. GO OUT AND PLAY WITH THE CHIPPY BIRDS. IF YOU WANT TO PUT ANYTHING OVER ON ME YOU’LL HAVE TO SET YOUR ALARM CLOCK EARLIER—I RESIGN—I’M OFF SONG AND DANCE SHOWS FOR LIFE—NOTHING BUT highbrow STUFF FOR MINE FROM NOW ON—HAVE SIGNED TO GO AHEAD OF OLGA STEPHANO IN HEDDA GABLER, BY HENRI K. IBSEN. MARTIN. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter Eighteen A letter from Lolita, received in Cleveland a few weeks later while Jimmy was on the first lap of his transcontinental journey as press agent extraordinary for Madame Olga Stephano, the noted exponent of Ibsen, sent the dark clouds which had given him an extremely low visibility scurrying like mist before the sun and shot his blood pressure up almost to the danger point. Lolita admitted the justice of Jimmy’s objection to “Ursula’s Undies,” and sent word that she had finally ceased her connection with that organization and was “doing bits” with a stock company in Mt. Vernon. If Jimmy would only forgive her she’d heed his advice on all occasions in the future. Jimmy, in a mood of extreme jubilation, had sent her a seventy-three word night letter and had retired early.