One is always extraordinarily polite to a person one meets for the first time. After three days the need for politeness goes. But on that first occasion the opinions of the other are treated with a laborious respect. Conversation takes a turn of, “Of course that’s quite true, but I must say that personally ...” and that was the way that Tarrant listened to my heresies on the first evening. Long before I had vanished from Karlsruhe, however, the respectful tone had degenerated into, “Won’t do, old man, won’t do,” and there have been times since, when I have emerged sadly tattered from some war of dialectic, that I have longed wistfully for those early days. The next afternoon Tarrant was in a chastened mood. “I’ve begun my fast,” he explained. “It was not so bad after breakfast. But by lunch time it got pretty awful, and by now....” “It gets better after the third day, I’m told,” Stone hazarded. “You know,” Tarrant went on, “before I began this fast, I made a whole pile of arguments in favour of it; but really at this moment, I can’t remember a single one.” “Shall I suggest a few?” said Stone. “No, thanks.” However, the resolution held good, and for the space of five complete days he did not eat a morsel of food. The moment it was over he declared it to be a capital scheme, and recommended it to all his friends. * * * * * It was at Karlsruhe that I met Milton Hayes. Off the stage he is in appearance very much like the remainder of humanity, but no one who has met him once could ever forget him. He is the one man who has accepted Popular Taste as a constant thing, has defined that thing, and found a theory on which to work. The majority of popular artists always adopt an attitude of, “Well, there must be something about my stuff, I don’t know what it is, a little trick, something that hits the popular fancy. I can’t explain it.” But Milton Hayes has his theory cut and dried. He has formed a vessel in which all his work can take shape. He has written two monologues, _The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God_, and _The Whitest Man I Know_, that have sold more than any other similar compositions, and he wrote them both, as it were, to scale. “The great thing,” he said, “is to appeal to the imagination. Don’t describe: suggest. All the best effects are got by placing the vital incident off the stage. Let your public imagine, don’t tell them anything; just strike chords. It’s no good describing a house; the person will always fix the scene in some spot that he himself knows. In as few words as possible you’ve got to recall that spot to him. He’ll do the rest.” About the “Green Eye” he made no pretence. He wove round it no air of mystery and cracker tinsel.