An old man sat by me and I got to talking to him and he seemed to want to be friendly and talk of his early life. He said his name was Coogan. “Jackie Coogan,” I think he said, and that he used to be in some old fashioned things called moving pictures, and that he could remember as a child when this started that men used to be wakened up and have to call out the numbers when their States were called. But now they have little phonographs and every time a State is called, why the phonograph says “Two and nine eighths for Smith Jr. and one and sixty-five fifths for McAdoo Jr.” and so on. A man has a hammer and he couldn’t keep them awake with it any longer so they adjourned, and the attendants wheeled them all out. It was only about three o’clock in the afternoon and they were to be back again at nine. I went home to tell Pop what had happened and to write my story. He said, “It’s looking better, son; they are adjourning earlier and starting later. Maybe the miracle will happen,” and his old eyes began to gleam as he seemed to vision the end of his glorious dream. Then I told him very enthusiastically, “Oh, yes, Pop, it looks great because a man with a family name of Brennan got up, and one named Cramer, and said they would adjourn and hold a conference of leaders and would have something to report by tonight.” Well, I wish you could have seen my poor old Dad. He went into spasms. He pulled his hair. He raved. None of us could do anything with him. He had been all right before I had mentioned this leader and conference business. He then said: “Son, those same men’s fathers started holding those conferences forty years ago. Going to report something to the convention tonight? That is exactly what is the matter with this convention now, it’s those conferences. If they had let the delegates confer instead of the leaders, why, your poor old father could have spent a life of usefulness instead of one listening to a man read off numbers, which we all knew better than he did. “Son, if it’s the Taggarts and Rockwells and Macks and Cramers and all of them that are conferring, you will die, like your poor old father, right at your post, listening for something to happen.” So please, Mr. Editor, take this story, and tomorrow, when I come home to dear old Dad, I will make him feel good. I won’t tell him they are going to hold another conference. ROPING A CRITIC ROPING A CRITIC Prologue--These critics have been interviewing Actors (and us other people that appear on the stage) for years. And none of the interviews have ever been right, cause they never told the truth. Course they couldn’t tell the truth about a lot of us, if they had he would have put us out of business. But they tried to be so kind to us and tell all the noble deeds that at the finish we had lost more friends than we had gained by the interview.