No woman can resist making love to a man as indifferent as Sid Hahn appeared to be. They all tried their wiles on him; the red-haired ingénues, the blonde soubrettes, the stately leading ladies, the war horses, the old-timers, the ponies, the prima donnas. He used to sit there in his great, luxurious, book-lined inner office, smiling and inscrutable as a plump joss-house idol, while the fair ones burnt incense and made offering of shewbread. Figuratively he kicked over the basket of shewbread and of the incense said, “Take away that stuff! It smells!” Not that he hated women. He was afraid of them, at first. Then, from years of experience with the femininity of the theatre, not nearly afraid enough. So, early, he had locked that corner of his mind, and had thrown away the key. When, years after, he broke in the door, lo! (as they say when an elaborate figure of speech is being used) lo! the treasures therein had turned to dust and ashes. * * * * * It was he who had brought over from Paris to the American stage the famous Renée Paterne, of the incorrigible eyes. She made a fortune and swept the country with her song about those delinquent orbs. But when she turned them on Hahn, in their first interview in his office, he regarded her with what is known as a long level look. She knew at that time not a word of English. Sid Hahn was ignorant of French. He said, very low, and with terrible calm to Wallie Ascher who was then acting as a sort of secretary, “Wallie, can’t you do something to make her stop rolling her eyes around at me like that? It’s awful! She makes me think of those heads you shy balls at, out at Coney. Take away my inkwell.” Renée had turned swiftly to Wallie and had said something to him in French. Sid Hahn cocked a quick ear. “What’s that she said?” “She says,” translated the obliging and gifted Wallie, “that monsieur is a woman-hater.” “My God! I thought she didn’t understand English!” “She doesn’t. But she’s a woman. Not only that, she’s a Frenchwoman. They don’t need to know a language to understand it.” “Where did you get that, h’m? That wasn’t included in your Berlitz course, was it?” Wallie Ascher had grinned--that winning flash lighting up his dark, keen face. “No, I learned that in another school.” Wallie Ascher’s early career in the theatre, if repeated here, might almost be a tiresome repetition of Hahn’s beginning. And what Augustin Daly had been to Sid Hahn’s imagination and ambition, Sid Hahn was to Wallie’s. Wallie, though, had been born to the theatre--if having a tumbler for a father and a prestidigitator’s foil for a mother can be said to be a legitimate entrance into the world of the theatre.