u led me on, that's what
you did," he continued to the absent culprit. "Led me on to make a
laughing-stock of myself, that's what you did. Made a fool of me, that's
what you did."

"All the same, I can't help thinking he's a harm to the industry,"
came the crisp tones of Henshaw from an adjoining table. The rehearsing
orator glanced up to discover that the director and the sunny-faced
brown and gray man he called Governor were smoking above the plates of
their finished luncheon.

"I wouldn't worry too much," suggested the cheerful governor.

"But see what he does: he takes the good old reliable, sure-fire stuff
and makes fun of it. I admit it's funny to start with, but what'll
happen to us if the picture public ever finds that out? What'll we do
then for drama--after they've learned to laugh at the old stuff?"

"Tush, tush, my boy!" The Governor waved a half--consumed cigarette
until its ash fell. "Never fear. Do you think a thousand Jeff Bairds
could make the picture public laugh at the old stuff when it's played
straight? They laughed last night, yes; but not so much at the really
fine burlesque; they guffawed at the slap-stick stuff that went with it.
Baird's shrewd. He knows if he played straight burlesque he'd never make
a dollar, so notice how he'll give a bit of straight that is genuine
art, then a bit of slap-stick that any one can get. The slap-stick is
what carries the show. Real burlesque is criticism, my boy; sometimes
the very high-browest sort. It demands sophistication, a pretty high
intelligence in the man that gets it.

"All right. Now take your picture public. Twenty million people every
day; not the same ones every day, but with same average cranial index,
which is low for all but about seven out of every hundred. That's
natural because there aren't twenty million people in the world with
taste or real intelligence--probably not five million. Well, you take
this twenty million bunch that we sell to every day, and suppose they
saw that lovely thing last night--don't you know they'd all be back
to-night to see a real mopping mother with a real son falsely accused of
crime--sure they'd be back, their heads bloody but unbowed. Don't worry;
that reliable field marshal, old General Hokum, leads an unbeatable
army."

Merton Gill had listened to the beginning of this harangue, but now he
savagely devoured food. He thought this so--called Governor was too much
like Baird.

"Well, Governor, I hope you'