y of hers, the
darlin'! What do you think, Mr. Canby?"

To Canby, who hardly noticed that this dead old man had come to life,
the speech was jargon. The playwright was preoccupied with the fact that
Talbot Potter was still on the stage, would continue there until the
rather distant end of the act, and that the "ingenue," after completing
the little run at her exit, had begun to study the manuscript of her
part, and in that absorption had disappeared through a door into the
rear passageway. Canby knew that she was not to be "on" again until the
next act, and he followed a desperate impulse.

"See a person," he mumbled, and went out through the lobby, turned south
to the cross-street, proceeded thereby to the stage-door of the theatre,
and resolutely crossed the path of the distrustful man who lounged
there.

"Here!" called the distrustful man.

"I'm with the show," said Canby, an expression foreign to his lips and a
clear case of inspiration. The distrustful man waved him on.

Wanda Malone was leaning against the wall at the other end of the
passageway, studying her manuscript. She did not look up until he paused
beside her.

"Miss Malone," he began. "I have come--I have come--I have-ah--"

These were his first words to her. She did nothing more than look at him
inquiringly, but with such radiance that he floundered to a stop. There
were only two things within his power to do: he had either to cough or
to speak much too sweetly.

"There's a draught here," she said, Christian anxiety roused by the
paroxysm which rescued him from the damning alternative. "You oughtn't
to stand here perhaps, Mr. Canby."

"'Canby?'" he repeated inquiringly, the name seeming new to him.
"Canby?"

"You're Mr. Canby, aren't you?"

"I meant where--who--" he stammered. "How did you know?"

"The stage-manager pointed you out to me yesterday at rehearsal. I was so
excited! You're the first author I ever saw, you see. I've been in stock
where we don't see authors."

"Do you--like it?" he said. "I mean stock. Do you like stock? How much
do you like stock? I ah--" Again he fell back upon the faithful old
device of nervous people since the world began.

"I'm sure you oughtn't to stand in this passageway," she urged.

"No, no!" he said hurriedly. "I love it! I love it! I haven't any
cold. It's the air. That's what does it." He nodded brightly, with the
expression of a man who knows the answer to everything. "It's bad for
me."

"The