"But do you always do that?" "Yes. _Now!_" "Why _now_?" "Well, I'm a little older than I was when I began this business, and yer legs git stiff, ye know. I remember when I could tie a knot in either leg without cracking a joint, but now I am four-flushing until I can get enough to retire." "Four-flushing?" "Yes, doin' my turn one card shy. You understand." And the striped bundle folded in and out on itself and tied itself in bows, ascots, and four-in-hands until every joint in the actor's body was cracking in sympathy. Meanwhile his partner was standing apart with one foot touching the low ceiling, and his hands clutching two of the clothes-hooks, striving for the fifth card to redeem _his_ four-flush. "Number fourteen!" shouts the call-boy through the door. "That's us!" And the four-flushers unwound and, gathering their heads and tails under their arms, glided away for the stage. Presently they were back panting and perspiring, with the information that there was a man in one of the boxes who never turned his head to look at their act; that there was a pretty girl in another box fascinated by it; that the audience had relatives in the ice business and were incapable of a proper appreciation of the double split and the great brother double tie and slide—whatever that may be; and the two athletes passed the alcohol bottle, and slipped gracefully back into their clothes and private life. [Illustration: Rag-time Dance.] This unique and original world has its conventions, too, quite as hard and fast as elsewhere. The vaudeville dude always bears an enormous cane with a spike in the end of it even though the style in canes may be a bamboo switch. The comedian will black his face, though he never makes the lightest pretence to negro characterization, under the delusion that the black face and kinky hair and short trousers are necessary badges of the funny man. The vaudeville "artist" and his partner will "slang" each other and indulge in brutal personalities under the theory that they are guilty of repartee; and with a few brilliant exceptions, they all steal from each other jokes and gags and songs and "business," absolutely without conscience. So that if a comedian has originated a funny story that makes a hit in New York, by the time he reaches Philadelphia he finds that another comedian has filched it and told it in Philadelphia, and the originator finds himself a dealer in second-hand goods.