And he did. The dinner was excellent, the waiter was alert and extremely polite and his companion unbosomed himself of a flow of anecdotes that kept him in a constant state of merriment. “Mighty good dinner, Tom,” he remarked heartily near the end of the meal, “and mighty fine service.” The waiter cleared away the dishes and presented the menu to Jimmy. “If I may be permitted, sir,” he said deferentially, “I might suggest that the apple pie is excellent tonight.” Jimmy pushed his chair back from the table with such violence that he almost upset it. “You’ll be permitted to take a punch in the eye, Mr. Fresh,” he said bitterly and then hastened to apologize. His companion laughed uproariously. “Still on your mind, Jimmy?” he inquired. “Yes,” retorted the other; “seems like we’re hooked up to do a double act for life.” Jimmy had a sleepless night. Every time he dropped off into a fitful slumber he was bothered by a dream in which apple pie played a central part. Once he dreamt that he was chained to a pillar in a great room and that Madame Stephano was forcing him to devour an apparently inexhaustible pie which stood on a table and which she fed him with an enormous long handled spoon. He choked so hard on one spoonful that he awoke with a start. At the breakfast table he read Miss Slosson’s promised story in the Star. It was all that the most ambitious purveyor of publicity could desire. There was a four column headline reading: STEPHANO HURLS HER ROLLING PIN INTO THE RING –––– Russian-American Actress Soon to Visit This City Enters the Star’s Popular Pie Contest. –––– STAGE VERSUS THE HOME –––– Underneath was a big picture of a kitchen table on each side of which a woman was shown busily engaged in the culinary operations that usually accompany the creation of a pie. The bodies of these feminine figures had been sketched in by an artist, but the heads were excellent half-tone likenesses of Madame Stephano and Mrs. Jefferson Andrews, society leader. One look at the lay-out simply added to Jimmy’s misery. After that he just _had_ to make good. He strode out of the hotel determined to take a long walk to see if he couldn’t clarify his mental processes and get his imagination oiled up again. He was so busy with his thoughts that he paid little heed to the general direction he was taking and presently found himself in a corner of the city with which he was not familiar. It was a quiet residential section and rows of modest homes of the bungalow type lined both sides of the streets. There was a little group of shops in a stucco building on a corner and as Jimmy passed him he let his eyes drift toward them in a desultory fashion.