She went out, leaving her visitor alone. Elfie, left to herself, wandered about the room. Finding a candy box on the desk, she helped herself to the sugared contents. Aloud, she said: "Do you know, Laura, I think I'll go back on the stage?" "Yes?" came the answer from the inner room. "Yes," went on Elfie, "I'm afraid I'll have to. I think I need a sort of a boost to my popularity." "How a boost?" "I think Jerry is getting cold feet. He's seeing a little too much of me nowadays." "What makes you think that?" "I think he is getting a relapse of that front-row habit. There's no use in talking, Laura, it's a great thing for a girl's credit when a man like Jerry can take two or three friends to the theatre, and when you make your entrance delicately point to you with his forefinger, and say: 'The third one from the front on the left belongs to muh.' The old fool's hanging around some of these musical comedies lately, and I'm getting nervous every time rent day comes." Laura laughed incredulously. She had too high an opinion of her friend's business ability to believe the danger very serious. Pointedly, she said: "Oh, I guess you'll get along all right." Elfie rose, and, going to the mirror, gave her hat and hair a few deft little touches, after which she surveyed herself critically. With serene self-satisfaction, she said: "Oh, that's a cinch! But I like to leave well enough alone, and if I had to make a change right now it would require a whole lot of thought and attention, to say nothing of the inconvenience, and I'm so nicely settled in my flat." Suddenly her eye lighted on the pianola. Going to it, she exclaimed: "Say, dearie, when did you get the piano-player? I got one of them phonographs, but this has got that beat a city block. How does it work? What did it cost?" "I don't know," laughed Laura. "Well, Jerry's got to stake me to one of these." Looking over the rolls on top, she mumbled to herself: "Tannhauser, William Tell, Chopin." Louder, she said: "Listen, dear. Ain't you got anything else except all this high-brow stuff?" "What do you want?" "Oh, something with a regular tune to it." Looking at the empty box on the pianola, she exclaimed: "Oh, here's one; just watch me tear this off." The roll was the ragtime tune of "_Bon-Bon Buddy--My Chocolate Drop_." She started to play. Pushing wide open the _tempo_ lever she worked the pedals with the ingenuous delight and enthusiasm of a child. "Ain't it grand?" she cried. "Gracious, Elfie, don't play so loud!" exclaimed Laura, who reentered. "What's the matter?" Her visitor stopped playing. Smiling, she explained: