"I've been in his bad books," she went on. "I had a good thing, and I didn't know it. When I think how I got in wrong all on account of those two big stiffs--!" My inability to follow her was probably expressed in my face, for she immediately rattled on: "You see, it was like this. When Jack and I were married we were in the same Company. He was what they call the 'Acting Manager,' travelled on the road and represented the New York office--understand? Well, the next year we didn't get an engagement together; he went off on the road and I created a part in a New York production. It was simply--hell! We used to make the most God-forsaken jumps, just to be together over Sunday. Why, once I can remember I rode all night in the caboose of a freight train to some little dump of a town where Jack's Company had played on Saturday night. Can you beat it? Oh, I tell you, I had it bad." And Miss Burton buried her feeling and her face in the stein of beer. After a pause she continued: "Well, the same devilish luck followed us the next season; we couldn't dig up an engagement together for love or money--and we slipped a nice little roll to several of the agents, too. It just seemed as if managers were dead set against having a man and wife in the same company. Some of 'em acknowledge it right out loud, if you please! They claim a man and wife in the same company make trouble; either they want to share the same dressing-room, or the husband kicks if his wife gets the worst of it in the dressing-room line. Or, if the husband happens to be a manager, there's the temptation to favour his wife, and somebody else kicks up a row. Oh, they've got excuses enough, whether they're justifiable or not. Anyway, that's the kind of bunk you're up against when you marry in the profession.... Where was I?... Oh Well, after two seasons of separation, it dawned on me that Jacky wasn't so keen about making long jumps to see wifey; pretty soon I began to hear gossip--he was carrying some fairy's grip in the company he was with. Then I began to watch him ... I caught him with the goods all right.... Exit, hastily, Jacky!" and, with an expressive wave of her hands to indicate his departure, Miss Burton called for another stein. I fear I appeared a perfect idiot in the voluble little lady's eyes. I could not muster a comment of any description. Miss Burton, however, did not notice my omission, for she raced on with the same energy of expression.