“At half-past nine my boys [meaning some members of the technical staff of the Belasco Theatre and two actors] and I met at the stagedoor and left for Chinatown, where, by appointment, we met a very ardent admirer of yours--Mr. ‘Chuck’ Conners, no less! Perhaps one of the reasons why I like the man is because, in his unpicturesque, rough, human fashion, he felt and expressed your sweetness--the quality which will help you so much in this play, and in all parts. I shall tell you more particularly what he said about you presently, and if you will translate his primitive speech into the finer shaded meanings of a cultivated man, I am sure it will touch your heart as it did mine. But I must get to my story.... “First we sat in the Chatham Club, and had a few ‘rounds,’--which I had a hard time to avoid drinking. I don’t know what the others did with theirs--I was too busy with my own troubles to watch! While human beings put such stuff inside themselves I can’t wonder at anything they do. While there, the girls came and did some ‘ragtime’ for us. ‘Chuck,’ I must tell you, was dressed for the occasion,--‘to kill,’--with a white ’kerchief about his neck and _one_ shoe polished! The other was a characteristic contrast. We listened to the same old stories and ‘our hero’ sang the same old songs. Also, as aforetime, to punctuate his remarks he found it necessary to _punch_ me in the ribs, and so to-day I find myself more or less black and blue. The old pianola was set to the wildest airs, and they had a new one, for our especial benefit, called ‘In the Harem,’--which is so good that I am going to introduce it in our play. Do you remember the big, tall girl, with the flat nose and her poor teeth out? She was still sitting in her corner, more forlorn than ever, and with her sad ‘lamps’ looking into my very heart. I gave her another five dollars and told her that if I came again I should expect to see her wearing a new pair of shoes,--for her poor toes were peeping out of frayed stockings, through the impossible boots, and it was all very sad.