Gurdy pushed scornfully through the gapers and trotted into the white vestibule of the theatre where men were arranging flowers--horseshoes of orchids, ugly and damp, roses in all tints, lumps of unknown bloom on standards wrapped in silver foil. A redhaired, hatless youth listed the cards dangling from these treasures and told Gurdy to go to hell when Gurdy asked for his uncle but another man nodded to stairs of yellow, slick marble. On the landing Gurdy found a door stencilled in gold, “Carlson & Walling.” The door opened into a room hung with photographs where Gurdy saw Mark sitting on a table, surrounded by men. Mr. Carlson, already sheathed in winter furs, bullied a carpenter who corrected the lower shelf of a bookcase. Gurdy stood wondering at the furious shades of neckties and the grey hard hats which Miss Converse thought vulgar. “My God,” said Carlson, “Mark, look at that comin’ in!” Mark groaned. He had a compact with Mrs. Bernamer that the borrowed boy shouldn’t enter a theatre until he was twelve. He was tall enough for twelve but he was only nine. He stayed in the doorway, studying the red walls of the room, his white socks far apart and his hands thrust into the pockets of his short, loose breeches. The callers stared at the tough legs brown from summer on the farm. The boy’s one patent beauty, his soft, pale hair, was hidden by his English sailor cap and his white blouse was spotted with ink stains. But the men grinned and chuckled, admiringly. Gurdy made no sound when Carlson set him on the top of the bookcase but gazed contemptuously at the crowding men and let himself be petted. “When d’you inaugurate, Mark?” “Eight fifteen, when you’ll be in bed, sonny.” Gurdy drawled, “I don’t get to bed till quarter of nine and you ought to know that by this time.” He frowned, partly closing his dark blue eyes, as the men laughed. “What are all those flowers for?”