“Freeze out everybody and put Sue across himself. What's that guy's is his. Findings is keepings.” “But will Sue let him freeze Zanin out?” “That's a point.... But if she won't, he'll he wise in a minute. Trust Silverstone! He'll let Zanin _think_ he's in, then.” “Things look worse, I take it.” “A lot.” Hy was undressing. He sat now, caught by a sudden fragrant memory, holding a shoe in midair, and chuckled again. “Stop that cackle!” growled Peter. “You said you fixed it.” “I did. Quit abusing me and you'll realize that I'm coming through with all you could ask. We leave at eleven, Hudson Tunnel, for the Jersey hills--we four. I bring the girls; you meet us at the Tunnel. Zanin is safe at Long Beach. We eat at a country road house. We walk miles in the open country. We drift home in the evening, God knows when!... Here I hand you, in one neat parcel, pleasant hillsides, purling brooks, twelve mortal hours of the blessed damosel, and”--he caught up the evening paper--“'fair and warmer'--and perfect weather. And what do I get? Abuse. Nothing but abuse!” With this, he deftly juggled his two shoes, caught both in a final flourish, looked across at the abject Peter and grinned. “Shut up,” muttered Peter wearily. “Very good, sir. And you go to bed. Your nerves are a mess.” Into Peter's brain as he hurried toward the Tunnel Station, the next morning, darted an uninvited, startling thought. Here was Zanin, idealist in the drama, prophet of the new Russianism, deserting the stage for the screen! What was it the Worm had represented him as saying to Sue... that she would be enabled to express her ideals to millions where Isadora Duncan could reach only thousands? Millions in place of thousands! His imagination pounced on the thought. He stopped short on the street to consider it--until a small boy laughed; then he hurried on. He looked with new eyes at the bill-boards he passed. Two-thirds of them flaunted moving-picture features.... He had been passing such posters for a year or more without once reading out of them a meaning personal to himself. He had been sticking blindly, doggedly to plays--ninety per cent, of which, of all plays, failed utterly. It suddenly came home to him that the greatest dramatists, like the greatest actors and actresses, were working for the camera. All but himself, apparently!... The theaters were fighting for the barest existence where they were not surrendering outright. Why, he himself patronized movies more often than plays! Yet he had stupidly refused to catch the significance of it.... _The Truffler_ would fail, of course; just as the two before it had failed. Still he had, until this actual minute, clung to it as his one hope. Millions for thousands! He was thinking now not of persons but of dollars. Millions for thousands.