"Say, me and Feist speak the same language. We ain't entertaining a lot of motion-picture stars to-night." "I want Mr. Feist to come over some night to sup--dinner when we have a few of them over. We're great friends, Mr. Feist, with Norma Beautiful and Allan Hunt and Lester Spencer and all that crowd. We entertain them a good deal. My daughter is quite chums with them all. Elsie Love sleeps here some nights. Honest, Mr. Feist, you never saw a more unassuming girl for her salary." "Yes, especially is she unassuming when she spoils ninety feet of film yesterday in a row with Spencer over who should have one-half inch nearer to the center of the picture." "My husband, Mr. Feist, has got no patience with temperament." "Honey, a little supper wouldn't hurt." "I'll send and see if Bleema is ready yet. She's been out, taking Lester Spencer in her new runabout her papa bought her. I wish you could see, Mr. Feist, the way the traffic policemen smile after that girl the way she handles a car. If I do say it, she's a picture." "If you ask me, Mrs. Pelz, the finest of the objects in this room of fine things, it won't take me long to tell you," said Mr. Feist, leaning forward to lift for closer gaze the framed photograph. "Now you're shouting, Feist!" "That picture don't half do her justice. If I do say it, Mr. Feist--if that child had to make her living, she'd be a fortune in pictures. 'No, mamma,' she always says; 'God forbid if I have to make my living some day, I want to be a famous writer.' I want you to read sometime, Mr. Feist, some of that girl's poetry. I cry like a baby over the sad ones. And stories! There's one about a poor little girl who could look out of her window into the house of a rich girl and--" "Feist, her mother just hates that child!" "Say, old man, I don't see any medals on you for hating her." "He's worse than I am, Mr. Feist; only, he hides it behind making fun of me. I always say if Bleema Pelz wanted the moon, her father would see to it that his property-man got the real one for her." "You--you've got a beautiful, sweet little girl there, Pelz. I don't blame you." "Feist, if I didn't know it, I'd be an ungrateful dog." "Her papa can't realize, Mr. Feist, we haven't got a baby any more." "I--realize it, Mrs. Pelz." "You--you see, Roody?" "I--I--guess I'm the old-fashioned kind of a fellow, Pelz, when it comes to girls. I--I guess I do it the way they used to do it--the parents first--but--but--now that we--we're on the subject--I--I like your daughter, Pelz--my God! Pelz, but--but I like your little daughter!" An Augsburg clock ticked into a suddenly shaped silence, Mr. Pelz rising, Mr. Feist already risen. "I haven't got much besides a clean record and all that love or money can buy her, Pelz, but--well--you know me for what I am, and--" "Indeed we do, Mr. Feist! I always say to my husband my favorite of all the young men who come here is--"