JAMES SHOONEKER. It is true. I have your place offered me. Now, I don’t want to seem arbitrary, but here’s my proposition: In the first place, cut out your infatuation for Madame Bonjoline. That’s the main condition, if you want me to leave Chicago. The second thing is perhaps more important to yourself, and that is that you promise to take a long course in counterpoint and musical history under some good authority, if you can find one in the United States. Perhaps you would do well to tap the boundless information of your friend, Bowowski. These are my only demands. I don’t want your job. I’ll drop a note to your editor and tell him he doesn’t appreciate you. But you will have to forget your aspirations for the Madame, and behave yourself with a dignity becoming your position. You mustn’t make yourself ridiculous over Frizza, and for her sake— DONALD WORCESTER. Shooneker, you certainly are a brick! You certainly are! I can’t help being a bit dazed with Madame, but I’ll keep it all to myself. You’re a peach! MADAME BONJOLINE. See, James, how perfectly American he is! I told you he would be. Isn’t he a dear boy? JAMES SHOONEKER. You like the conditions, then? DONALD WORCESTER. Bully! I appreciate them. And say, didn’t you write a book once called _The Insane Melons_? JAMES SHOONEKER. Yes, I have a book with a title something like that. Why do you ask? DONALD WORCESTER. If you’ve got one with you, I’d like a signed copy. JAMES SHOONEKER. I’m very sorry, but I didn’t bring any with me. Perhaps I can send you one later. DONALD WORCESTER. Fine! I wish you would. That’s treating me mighty good. MADAME BONJOLINE. You deserve it, my boy. In a confusion of thanks, apologies, and compliments, Worcester leaves the room and returns to the office, where an article is written which harbors no doubt that Madame Frizza is a great pianist. About the same hour, Mr. Morless is passing in a copy of his own criticism, stating that the Madame is a fairly promising amateur. The menacing cloud of Shooneker seems to hang over him; it has nearly prevented his passing in the article. And Ben Dullard Krupp, without a regular post, mails his lengthy and scathing opinion of the Madame to a weekly paper, in the hope of securing a steady allotment of their space. To him, also, the thought of an “outside” critic in their midst is irritating and, at times, threatening. What was HE going to say about her? His word might have weight. Suppose ... and Krupp wishes now he could reach into the mail-box and pull out his article. But the panic passes; he recalls several of his pet phrases, and this restores full confidence in his own finality. Again—the same dining-room in the “Cave Dwellers,” with three of the critics disposing of an early lunch, almost early enough to be called breakfast. BOWOWSKI. They can’t print more than a couple hundred.