The actor, mellowed by good food and good wine,—and more by the confidence this new Croesus seemed to have in him,—discoursed almost tearfully of aspirations and ambitions suppressed through long years that were now within the possibility of realization. He had always wished to devote his life to Ibsen and the great classics, he declared, but the box office had prevented the fulfillment of his artistic ideals. “I’m the box office now,” Brainard laughed, “and I am here to fulfill ideals!” He picked up the note book again. “I had forgotten the college of actors, for both sexes, which we must run in connection with the enterprise. It will give free tuition, of course, and there will be scholarships for promising pupils. You will have to look after that, too, Mac.” “Haven’t I been training lads and lassies who couldn’t speak the language all my life?” the old Scotsman burred. “We should recruit our road companies from the college,” Brainard suggested. “It will take a good deal of time to do all that,” Farson remarked. “We’ve all the time in the world,” Brainard retorted confidently. “Make a note of that, Mr. Secretary!” So they talked on as men will talk, when it is still a matter of words and not actions. Late in the evening, or rather early in the morning, Brainard developed his plan for an outdoor theater in some beautiful mountain spot, or on an island along the seacoast. It was a bit of fairy fancy which he called the “Summer Festival.” Every summer, for a few weeks in August, in some sylvan spot of great natural beauty, with a background of lofty trees and cliffs, there would be held a dramatic festival, where lovers of the art could resort to live for a time in the atmosphere of Sophocles, Calderon, Molière, Goethe, Shakespeare. “A kind of theatrical camp meeting,” the secretary jokingly named it. “Exactly. Imagine an open-air theater built upon a cliff, with the blue sea below, backed by thick trees and a wild forest park, where the audience might stroll between the acts and after the performance. Think what could be made of such a place!” It was the final flash of Brainard’s vision, and they sat for some time in silent contemplation of what was before them. At last the old actor spoke in a husky voice: “My boy, it is sublime! It has come almost too late for me. I cannot walk your great stage and triumph in your triumph. My days are nearly over, spent in miserable efforts to exist and not debase my noble art. But I can help, and I pledge to you and to the People’s Theater all the strength that is left in me.” The old Scotsman’s eyes were moist with tears. Here was another whom the great idea had touched and lifted to unexpected heights, Brainard thought happily. “You’ll have your chance to act, too,” Brainard remarked consolingly. “What do you mean to do first?” the secretary demanded impatiently. “Incorporate, and find an architect,” Brainard replied concisely. “Another trust!” “A beneficent trust.”