sappeared out of the door. Joseph was leaving the sinking ship.

'Let him go, the fraud,' said Elizabeth bitterly. 'I shall never
believe in black cats again.'

But James was not of this opinion.

'Joseph has brought me all the luck I need.'

'But the play meant everything to you.'

'It did then.'

Elizabeth hesitated.

'Jimmy, dear, it's all right, you know. I know you will make a fortune
out of your next play, and I've heaps for us both to live on till you
make good. We can manage splendidly on my salary from the _Evening
Chronicle_.'

'What! Have you got a job on a New York paper?'

'Yes, I told you about it. I am doing Heloise Milton. Why, what's the
matter?'

He groaned hollowly.

'And I was thinking that you would come back to Chicago with me!'

'But I will. Of course I will. What did you think I meant to do?'

'What! Give up a real job in New York!' He blinked. 'This isn't really
happening. I'm dreaming.'

'But, Jimmy, are you sure you can get work in Chicago? Wouldn't it be
better to stay on here, where all the managers are, and--'

He shook his head.

'I think it's time I told you about myself,' he said. 'Am I sure I can
get work in Chicago? I am, worse luck. Darling, have you in your more
material moments ever toyed with a Boyd's Premier Breakfast-Sausage or
kept body and soul together with a slice off a Boyd's Excelsior
Home-Cured Ham? My father makes them, and the tragedy of my life is
that he wants me to help him at it. This was my position. I loathed the
family business as much as dad loved it. I had a notion--a fool notion,
as it has turned out--that I could make good in the literary line. I've
scribbled in a sort of way ever since I was in college. When the time
came for me to join the firm, I put it to dad straight. I said, "Give
me a chance, one good, square chance, to see if the divine fire is
really there, or if somebody has just turned on the alarm as a
practical joke." And we made a bargain. I had written this play, and we
made it a test-case. We fixed it up that dad should put up the money to
give it a Broadway production. If it succeeded, all right; I'm the
young Gus Thomas, and may go ahead in the literary game. If it's a
fizzle, off goes my coat, and I abandon pipe-dreams of literary
triumphs and start in as the guy who put the Co. in Boyd & Co. Well,
events have proved that I _am_ the guy, and now I'm going to keep
my part of the bargain just as squarely as dad kept his. I