"He might as well be--he's forgotten," said Verba, unconsciously coining all Broadway's epitaph for all Broadway's tribe. "I haven't seen him for fifteen years, but I understand he's still alive--that is, he hasn't quit breathing. Somebody was telling me not long ago they'd crossed his trail 'way downtown. "You see, Burt Bateman was a character in his way, just as old Nate Scudder was one in his way. I guess that's why they hung together so long. When the theatrical district started to move uptown Nate wouldn't move with it. It moved from Fourteenth Street to Twenty-third, and from there to Thirty-fourth, and from there to Forty-second--and it's still headed north. But Scudder stayed where he was. And it broke him--broke his heart, too, I guess. Anyhow, he died and his organisation scattered--all but Bateman. He wouldn't scatter. The heirs fell out and the estate--what was left of it--got tied up in litigation; and it's been tied up ever since." He turned and waved a long arm at a passing taxi. The driver curved his machine up to the curb. "Come on!" said Verba, making to cross the sidewalk. "Come on where?" asked Offutt. "We're going to University Place--you and me," said Verba, quickened and alive all over with his inspiration. "We're going down to Scudder's Theatre. Didn't know there was such a theatre as Scudder's, did you? Well, there is--what's left of it. We're going down there to find Old Bird Bateman. That's where he was, last accounts. And if the booze hasn't got him he's going to play that damn grandfather in this show of yours." "Can he do it?" Verba halted with one foot in the taxi. "Can he do it? Watch him, boy--that's all! Just watch him. Say, it's a notion--digging that old boy out of the graveyard. "You never heard of him and I'd forgotten him; but you take a lot of these old-timers who don't think there've been any actors since Fanny Davenport and Billy Florence--they'll remember him. And you bet they'll come to see him. We'll give this town a sensation--and that's what it loves, this town--sensations."