Hardly had the curtain fallen on the act than he darted through the iron door that led from the rear of the box to the stage, jostling the cursing carpenters, and pushed aside by the perspiring principals, on whom the curtain was rising and re-rising in a continuous roar. At last he found himself in the little bureau and dressing-room in which Goldwater was angrily changing his trousers. Kloot, the actor-manager's factotum, a big-nosed insolent youth, sat on the table beside the telephone, a peaked cap on his head, his legs swinging. 'Son of a witch! You come and disturb all my house. What do you want?' cried Goldwater. 'I want to talk to you about rehearsals.' 'I told you I would let you know when rehearsals began.' 'But you forgot to take my address.' 'As if I don't know where to find you!' Kloot grinned. 'Pinchas gets drinks from all the cafe,' he put in. 'They drink to the health of "Hamlet,"' said Pinchas proudly. 'All right; Kloot's gotten your address. Good-evening.' 'But when will it be? I must know.' 'We can't fix it to a day. There's plenty of money in this piece yet.' 'Money--bah! But merit?' 'You fellows are as jealous as the devil.' 'Me jealous of kangaroos! In Central Park you see giraffes--and tortoises too. Central Park has more talent than this scribbler of yours.' 'I doubt if there's a bigger peacock than here,' murmured Goldwater. 'I'll write you about rehearsals,' said Kloot, winking at Goldwater. 'But I must know weeks ahead--I may go lecturing. The great continent calls for me. In Chicago, in Cincinnati----' 'Go, by all means,' said Goldwater. 'We can do without you.' 'Do without me? A nice mess you will make of it! I must teach you how to say every line.' 'Teach _me_?' Goldwater could hardly believe his ears. Pinchas wavered. 'I--I mean the company. I will show them the accent--the gesture. I'm a great stage-manager as well as a great poet. There shall be no more prompter.' 'Indeed!' Goldwater raised the eyebrow he was pencilling. 'And how are you going to get on without a prompter?' 'Very simple--a month's rehearsals.' Goldwater turned an apoplectic hue deeper than his rouge. Kloot broke in impishly: 'It is very good of you to give us a month of your valuable time.' But Goldwater was too irate for irony. 'A month!' he gasped at last. 'I could put on six melodramas in a month.' 'But "Hamlet" is not a melodrama!' said Pinchas, shocked. 'Quite so; there is not half the scenery. It's the scenery that takes time rehearsing, not the scenes.' The poet was now as purple as the player. 'You would profane my divine work by gabbling through it with your pack of parrots!' 'Here, just _you_ come off your perch!' said Kloot. 'You've written the piece; we do the rest.' Kloot, though only nineteen and at a few dollars a week, had a fine, careless equality not only with the whole world, but even with his employer. He was now, to his amaze, confronted by a superior.