'ab--what I said
before--drawn in somewhat and above all not protruded.' Now, have you
got all that? Yes, you look all right. Carry on, laddie, carry on. Let's
have two-penn'orth of the Dynamic Voice and the Tone of Authority--some
of the full, rich, round stuff we hear so much about!"

Bill fastened a gimlet eye upon his brother-in-law and drew a deep
breath.

"Father!" he said. "Father!"

"You'll have to brighten up Bill's dialogue a lot," said Lucille,
critically, "or you will never get bookings."

"Father!"

"I mean, it's all right as far as it goes, but it's sort of monotonous.
Besides, one of you ought to be asking questions and the other
answering. Mill ought to be saying, 'Who was that lady I saw you coming
down the street with?' so that you would be able to say, 'That wasn't a
lady. That was my wife.' I KNOW! I've been to lots of vaudeville shows."

Bill relaxed his attitude. He deflated his chest, spread his heels, and
ceased to draw in his abdomen.

"We'd better try this another time, when we're alone," he said,
frigidly. "I can't do myself justice."

"Why do you want to do yourself justice?" asked Lucille.

"Right-o!" said Archie, affably, casting off his forbidding expression
like a garment. "Rehearsal postponed. I was just putting old Bill
through it," he explained, "with a view to getting him into mid-season
form for the jolly old pater."

"Oh!" Lucille's voice was the voice of one who sees light in darkness.
"When Bill walked in like a cat on hot bricks and stood there looking
stuffed, that was just the Personality That Wins!"

"That was it."

"Well, you couldn't blame me for not recognising it, could you?"

Archie patted her head paternally.

"A little less of the caustic critic stuff," he said. "Bill will be
all right on the night. If you hadn't come in then and put him off his
stroke, he'd have shot out some amazing stuff, full of authority and
dynamic accents and what not. I tell you, light of my soul, old Bill is
all right! He's got the winning personality up a tree, ready whenever
he wants to go and get it. Speaking as his backer and trainer, I think
he'll twist your father round his little finger. Absolutely! It wouldn't
surprise me if at the end of five minutes the good old dad started
pumping through hoops and sitting up for lumps of sugar."

"It would surprise ME."

"Ah, that's because you haven't seen old Bill in action. You crabbed his
act before he had begun to spread hi