Ophelia,' he told the cafe.

But a final blow awaited him. No ticket reached him for the premiere;
the boxes he had promised the cafe did not materialize, and the
necessity of avoiding that haunt of the invited cost him several
meals. But that he himself should be refused when he tried to pass in
'on his face'--that authors should be admitted neither at the stage
door nor at the public door--this had not occurred to him as within
the possibilities of even theatrical humanity.

'Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!' he shrieked into the box office. 'You and
Goldwater and Kloot! Pigs! Pigs! Pigs! I have indeed cast my pearls
before swine. But I will not be beholden to them--I will buy a
ticket.'

'We're sold out,' said the box-office man, adding recklessly: 'Get a
move on you; other people want to buy seats.'

'You can't keep me out! It's conspiracy!' He darted within, but was
hustled as rapidly without. He ran back to the stage-door, and hurled
himself against the burly figure. He rebounded from it into the
side-walk, and the stage-door closed upon his humiliation. He was left
cursing in choice Hebrew. It was like the maledictions in Deuteronomy,
only brought up to date by dynamite explosions and automobile
accidents. Wearying of the waste of an extensive vocabulary upon a
blank door, Pinchas returned to the front. The lobby was deserted save
for a few strangers; his play had begun. And he--he, the god who moved
all this machinery--he, whose divine fire was warming all that great
house, must pace out here in the cold and dark, not even permitted to
loiter in the corridors! But for the rumblings of applause that
reached him he could hardly have endured the situation.

Suddenly an idea struck him. He hied to the nearest drug-store, and
entering the telephone cabinet rang up Goldwater.

'Hello, there!' came the voice of Kloot. 'Who are you?'

Pinchas had a vivid vision of the big-nosed youth, in his peaked cap,
sitting on the table by the telephone, swinging his legs; but he
replied craftily, in a disguised voice: 'You, Goldwater?'

'No; Goldwater's on the stage.'

Pinchas groaned. But at that very instant Goldwater's voice returned
to the bureau, ejaculating complacently: 'They're loving it, Kloot;
they're swallowing it like ice-cream soda.'

Pinchas tingled with pleasure, but all Kloot replied was: 'You're
wanted on the 'phone.'

'Hello!' called Goldwater.

'Hello!' replied Pinchas in his natural voice. 'May a sudden death
s