fair deal in Frisker, if any
one should ride up on a bike and ask you, dear. We were doing very good
last fall when little Mister Man here decided to join the party--after
that I was simply no good! The box receipts have fell off steadily
since we put that awful girl in. Don't leave that heavy child paralyze
your limbs--she'll set there forever like an immidge, if you go on
telling her stories!"

"I am amused--genuinely amused at the circumstances under which you
find us, Miss Monroe," said Jesse Cluett with a dignified laugh. "And
my friends in the East would be equally surprised. Professional pride
brought me West, the pride of a man whose public demands one or two
favoured parts from him, year after year. My three or four successes
were a great gratification to me; not only the public, but my fellow
actors at the Lambs, assured me that my future was MADE. 'Made?--no,' I
said. 'No. I have no wish to become a one-part man.' To John Drew I
said--I met him going into the Club-'H'ar you, Jesse?' he said. ... Oh,
yes; we are warm friends, old friends. I played for two years with John
Drew. Very brilliant actor--in some ways. And that is only one instance
of the enthusiastic appreciation to which I am accustomed. ... Are we
going to eat, my dear?" For Mrs. Cluett, who in her hospitable
enthusiasm over Martie had taken a little spirit lamp from the
washstand and placed a full kettle over the flame, was now looking
about her in a vague, distressed sort of way.

"It's going out," said she blankly. Philosophically, Jesse put his
wide-brimmed hat over his loose curls and, straightening his shoulders,
walked mincingly out for alcohol with the younger men. Mrs. Cluett
spread a small, spotted fringed cloth on a trunk, setting on it a cut
and odorous lemon a trifle past its prime and a sticky jar of jam.
Martie continued to cuddle Leroy and tell Bernadette a fairy tale. She
found the crowded, tawdry bedroom delightfully cosy, especially when
the men came back with graham crackers and cheese and spongy, greasy
bakery doughnuts.

They all laughed when Wallace asked for the rat-trap's delight; and
when Lloyd dropped a cruller on the floor and thumped his heel to show
its weight; and when Wallace said: "Don't jam or jar Miss Monroe,
Jesse!" But when, in retort for this latest witticism, Martie said:
"Put your hand where it hurts, Wallace, and show Mama"; the laughter
changed to actual shrieks of mirth; Jesse indulging in a deep
"ha-