"I'd like to see a place full of atmosphere," suggested Lethbridge. "I've seen almost everything--the Cafe Jaune, and Chinatown, and--you remember that joint at Tangier? But I've never seen atmosphere. I don't care how thin it is; I just want to say that I've seen it when the next girl throws it all over me." And as Harrow remained timid, he added: "We won't have to climb across the footlights and steal a curl from the author, because he's already being sheared in England. There's nothing to scare you." Normally, however, they were intensely afraid of Art except at their barbers', and they had heard, in various ways as vague as Broad Street rumors, something concerning these gatherings of the elect at the New Arts Theater on Saturday afternoons, where unselfish reformers produced plays for Art's sake as a rebuke to managers who declined to produce that sort of play for anybody's sake. "I'll bet," said Harrow, "that some thrifty genius sent Stanley West those tickets in a desperate endeavor to amalgamate the aristocracies of wealth and intellect!--as though you could shake 'em up as you shake a cocktail! As though you'd catch your Uncle Stanley wearing his richest Burgundy flush, sitting in the orchestra and talking _Arr Noovo_ to a young thing with cheek-bones who'd pinch him into a cocked hat for a contribution between the acts!" "Still," said Lethbridge, "even Art requires a wad to pay its license. Isn't West the foxy Freddie! Do you suppose, if we go, they'll sting us for ten?" "They'll probably take up a collection for the professor," said Harrow gloomily. "Better come to the club and give the tickets to the janitor." "Oh, that's putting it all over Art! If anybody with earnest eyes tries to speak to us we can call a policeman." "Well," said Harrow, "on your promise to keep your mouth shut I'll go with you. If you open it they'll discover you're an appraiser and I'm a broker, and then they'll think we're wealthy, because there'd be no other reason for our being there, and they'll touch us both for a brace of come-ons, and----" "Perhaps," interrupted the other, "we'll be fortunate enough to sit next to a peach! And as it's the proper thing there to talk to your neighbor, the prospect--er--needn't jar you." There was a silence as they walked up-town, which lasted until they entered their lodgings. And by that time they had concluded to go. [Illustration] VII [Illustration] So they went, having nothing better on hand, and at two o'clock they sidled into the squatty little theater, shyly sought their reserved seats and sat very still, abashed in the presence of the massed intellects of Manhattan. When Clarence Guilford, the Poet of Simplicity, followed by six healthy, vigorous young daughters, entered the middle aisle of the New Arts Theater, a number of people whispered in reverent recognition: "Guilford, the poet! Those are his daughters. They wear nothing but pink pajamas at home. Sh-sh-h-h!"