e posed. Could tradesmen descend to a
lower level, I ask you?"

"I'll have one for twelve fifty to-morrow night," said Mrs. Montague,
not too dismally. "I got to do a duchess at a reception, and I certainly
hope my feet don't hurt me again."

"Cheer up, old dears! Pretty soon you can both pick your parts," chirped
their daughter. "Jeff's going to give me a contract, and then you can
loaf forever for all I care. Only I know you won't, and you know you
won't. Both of you'd act for nothing if you couldn't do it for money.
What's the use of pretending?"

"The chit may be right, she may be right," conceded Mr. Montague sadly.

Later, while the ladies were again in the kitchen, Mr. Montague, after
suggesting, "Something in the nature of an after-dinner cordial,"
quaffed one for himself and followed it with the one he had poured
out for a declining guest who still treasured the flavour of his one
aperitif.

He then led the way to the small parlour where he placed in action on
the phonograph a record said to contain the ravings of John McCullough
in his last hours. He listened to this emotionally.

"That's the sort of technique," he said, "that the so--called silver
screen has made but a memory." He lighted his pipe, and identified
various framed photographs that enlivened the walls of the little room.
Many of them were of himself at an earlier age.

"My dear mother-in-law," he said, pointing to another. "A sterling
artist, and in her time an ornament of the speaking stage. I was on tour
when her last days came. She idolized me, and passed away with my name
on her lips. Her last request was that a photograph of me should be
placed in her casket before it went to its final resting place."

He paused, his emotion threatening to overcome him. Presently he brushed
a hand across his eyes and continued, "I discovered later that they had
picked out the most wretched of all my photographs--an atrocious thing I
had supposed was destroyed. Can you imagine it?"

Apparently it was but the entrance of his daughter that saved him
from an affecting collapse. His daughter removed the record of John
McCullough's ravings, sniffed at it, and put a fox-trot in its place.

"He's got to learn to dance," she explained, laying hands upon the
guest.

"Dancing--dancing!" murmured Mr. Montague, as if the very word recalled
bitter memories.

With brimming eyes he sat beating time to the fox-trot measure while
Merton Gill proved to all obser