ding at the
corner of Broadway and Forty-fourth Street, and looking at my own name
in electric letters on the Criterion Theatre. First time I'd ever
seen it in electric letters on Broadway. It was the first night of
'Overheard.' Florance was playing at the Hudson Theatre, which is
a bit higher up Forty-fourth Street, and _his_ name was in electric
letters too, but further off Broadway than mine. I strolled up, just
out of idle curiosity, and there the old man was standing in the porch
of the theatre, all alone! 'Hullo, Sachs,' he said, 'I'm glad I've
seen you. It's saved me twenty-five cents.' I asked how. He said, 'I
was just going to send you a telegram of congratulations.' He liked
me, old Archibald did. He still does. But I hadn't done with him.
I went to stay with him at his house on Long Island in the spring.
'Excuse me, Mr. Florance,' I says to him. 'How many companies have
you got on the road?' He said, 'Oh! I haven't got many now. Five, I
think.' 'Well,' I says, 'I've got six here in the United States, two
in England, three in Austria, and one in Italy.' He said, 'Have a
cigar, Sachs; you've got the goods on me!' He was living in that
magnificent house all alone, with a whole regiment of servants!"

V

"Well," said Edward Henry, "you're a great man!"

"No, I'm not," said Mr. Seven Sachs. "But my income is four hundred
thousand dollars a year, and rising. I'm out after the stuff, that's
all."

"I say you are a great man!" Edward Henry repeated. Mr. Sachs's
recital had inspired him. He kept saying to himself: "And I'm a great
man, too. And I'll show 'em."

Mr. Sachs, having delivered himself of his load, had now lapsed
comfortably back into his original silence, and was prepared to
listen. But Edward Henry, somehow, had lost the desire to enlarge on
his own variegated past. He was absorbed in the greater future.

At length he said very distinctly:

"You honestly think I could run a theatre?"

"You were born to run a theatre," said Seven Sachs.

Thrilled, Edward Henry responded:

"Then I'll write to those lawyer people, Slossons, and tell 'em I'll
be around with the brass about eleven to-morrow."

Mr. Sachs rose. A clock had delicately chimed two.

"If ever you come to New York, and I can do anything for you--" said
Mr. Sachs, heartily.

"Thanks," said Edward Henry. They were shaking hands. "I say," Edward
Henry went on. "There's one thing I want to ask you. Why _did_ you
promise to back Ro