"Well, it did seem to tickle the folks. I was about to kindle the fire with it one day when I happened to think that if it would make a high-school commencement laugh it ought to raise a laugh out of 'most anybody. So I touched it up and put in a few new dogs I've got the boys in Landers's livery-stable taking care of, and sent it to three magazines. The first two regretted, but the third fell for it. They want pictures of the dogs, though, and will give me twenty more round iron dollars for a full set, so if you see me on the hike with the camera in the morning, don't ring up the town marshal." "Well, well," said Amzi; "it sounds like easy money. Going to keep it up?" "I have said nothing," replied Phil, holding up her cardcase and swinging it by its short chain. "Just credit me with the fifty and I'll bring in my book the next time I find it." In front of the theater she ran into her Uncle Lawrence, gloomily posed before the entrance with his astrakhan collar drawn up about his ears. He had once seen Richard Mansfield in just such a coat and had been moved to imitation. "Divinity!" breathed Hastings tragically, noting Phil's glowing cheeks and satisfying raiment. "Forget it!" said Phil. "How about a box for the Saturday matinee? I think I'll pull off a party for a bunch of girls at your expense. What is that on the boards? You don't mean that 'Her Long Road Home' threatens this town again? Why rub it in, Lawr_i_nce?" "They've canceled," said Hastings with a sigh. "That booking-office is a den of thieves. No honor, no feeling, no ideals of art!" His tones were unusually abysmal. He stood with his back to the door of his theater as though shielding it from Philistine assaults upon the drama's divine temple. "By the way, Lawr_i_nce--" Her Aunt Kate had rebuked her at least a thousand times for calling him "Lawr_i_nce." He had asked her to call him "Uncle Larry," which was her main reason for not doing so. Her standard of uncles was high. She had never admitted her aunts' husbands to a share in a relationship that was ennobled by Amzi Montgomery. Fosdick was usually "Paul" to Phil; Waterman she always called "Judge," which he hated. "Lawr_i_nce, what became of that play you wrote yourself and put on in Chicago? Why don't you bring it here and give the town a treat?" Hastings bent upon her the grieved look of a man who suffers mutely the most unkindest cut of all. _Et tu, Brute!_ was in his reproachful glance. "I didn't think this of you, Phil. Of course you knew the piece closed Saturday night at Peoria."