extremely that tears wriggled down the spread of seams in his yellow face. Life was an iniquity contrived for his torture. Carlson deeply enjoyed his woe for five minutes. Then Mr. Fitch came in to urge that Cora Boyle be corrected before her present entrance. “What’s the good, Clyde? She ain’t any sense. She’s a actress, ain’t she?” “She’ll spoil the act if she carries on too much,” said Mr. Fitch and at once Carlson thrilled with an automatic anxiety; the act mustn’t be spoiled. He hurried up the iron stairs to the platform, wiping his face. Cora Boyle was standing ten feet back from the canvas arch that was, for the audience, the street door of the Café Printemps. She patted the vast sleeves of her gaudy frock and whispered to a fellow in blue clothes. Carlson had to pull her from these occupations and gave his orders in a hiss. “Don’t you laugh too loud when Miss Leslie’s tellin’ about her mother or talk as loud as you’ve been doin’, neither. This ain’t a camp meetin’, hear?” The black haired girl grinned at him, nodding. She spat out a fold of chewing gum and patted her pink sleeves again. She said, “All right, boss, but, say, don’t the folks like me, though?” Fitch chuckled behind the manager. Carlson wouldn’t be bested by an impudent hussy who was paid thirty-five dollars a week and didn’t earn it. He stared at Cora Boyle, biting his lips and hunting words wherewith to blast her. She let him stare unchecked. A false diamond on its thin chain glittered and slid when she breathed into the cleft of her breasts. She was excellently made and highly perfumed. Her black eyes caught a vague point of red from the rim of a jaunty hat that slanted its flowers on the mass of her hair. She had rouged her chin to offset a wide mouth. Carlson jeered, “Better get somebody to show you a good makeup, sister, and quit talkin’ through your nose. You sound like you’re out of New Jersey!” Cora Boyle giggled. She glanced at the fellow in blue and said, “I was boardin’ at Fayettesville, New Jersey, all summer. Wasn’t I, Mark?” The fellow bobbed his head, shuffling his feet. His feet were bare and by that sign Carlson knew him for the supposed peasant lad who would bring the heroine news of her dear mother’s death at the end of the act. Cora Boyle gave this unimportant creature a long, amorous look, then told Carlson, “I was boardin’ with Mark’s folks. He--” “Your cue,” said Mr. Fitch and the girl, with a splendid swagger, marched into the lit scene beyond this nervous shadow. Her finery shimmered and directly the women outside the hedge of footlights laughed. The audience tittered at her first line and Mr. Fitch, a hand on his moustache, smiled at Carlson.