"_Did_ it tratch its hand!"... Then, of course, the question of prospects had arisen, and Dorothy had had to tell Stanhope Tasker what was in her mind. "All right, if you think there's anything in it," Stan had agreed when Dorothy had unfolded her plan. "I don't quite see it, though." "Idiot!" Dorothy had chuckled, taking a butt at him with her face as if they had been two of the chaste animals at play. "You just wait and see if Mr. Miller doesn't see it, though!" "Hope he does, that's all," Stan had grunted over the glass of ginger-beer. "Then we'll clear out of this. I've got my eye on a job as secretary to a polo club. Just suit me. And I might get a game sometimes." Before Dorothy had allowed Mr. Miller either to "see it" or to know anything whatever about it, however, she had first taken good care of the receptivity of Mr. Miller's mind. At that time the Inauguration had occupied him day and night; ideas for cheap stunts had come to him plenty as blackberries; but no idea had occurred to him that combined the flashy and ephemeral attractions of these with that real dignity of which the Throne, the Royal Standard, and the Established Church stood as the outward and visible symbols. And Dorothy had let him fume and fret. The longer he fumed and fretted the higher her price was likely to rise. And presently, by the time Mr. Miller had fumed and fretted himself into a state of nerves lest, after all his vaunting Hallowell & Smith's Inauguration might turn out to be just like any other Inauguration, the price was likely to be very high indeed. Moreover, Dorothy had seen Mr. Miller's somewhat unscrupulous ways with the originators of other ideas. Mr. Miller was painfully subject to a weakness which might have been constitutional to himself or merely part of the general keenness of his job. This weakness was that he had sometimes been known to help himself to an idea, and to deny its real author as much as an acknowledgment. It was in vain that those authors screened themselves with elaborate and formal contracts drawn up in black and white. The law, by the one master-phrase that there is no copyright in idea, indemnified Mr. Miller. Dorothy knew that if she also did not want to be robbed, she must make herself more secure than any black and white could make her. Now there is only one way of doing this. It is by means of the free and flexible understanding of which agreements and contracts are but the rather clumsy letter. She had seen that, touch by touch, she must so prepare Mr. Miller's attitude that _any_ suggestion of hers would be more likely to appear valuable than not. That had meant such present sacrifices as the leaving of really quite passable "stunts" to others. Dorothy could not afford to suggest ordinary things. An imaginary red carpet, so to speak, was to be laid down before she approached Mr. Miller with a suggestion. And Mr. Miller would think the more highly of it in proportion as he paid highly for it.