iner after I've spent five nice, good
years in building her into a little twinkle star, but I don't think it
will be good for her to let her do it. I'll have to use the slipper on
her, I'm afraid. I believe in hunches and I believe I'll just use that
purple manuscript you're chewing to let her set her teeth in. She needs
one good failure to tone her up. What's the name of the effusion in
ribbons?"

"The Renunciation of Rosalind," murmured Mr. Meyers, as he bent once
more to the pages which he had been reading with eagerness when
interrupted by his chief.

"We could call it 'The Purple Slipper.' About what will the cast
figure?"

"Three thousand per week if you use Gerald Height at five hundred as per
contract with him. But, Mr. Vandeford, sir, I would say for a play this
is--"

"That's not much money to waste on a purple hunch. A nice, judicious,
little second-hand staging out of the warehouse and a few weeks' road
try-out for the failure will cost about ten thousand. I'll let Denny
have five thousand worth of fun mussing around with it to cut his eye
teeth, and then we'll clap Violet into 'The Rosie Posie Girl,' weeping
with gratitude to have her face saved after being slapped first. Get the
parts out to-morrow and you and Chambers begin to cast it. I'll see
actors here from three to five Friday. I'll open it September tenth. Now
I've got to go and chase those confounded marrons. The last I took were
put up in maraschino and were not welcomed. I'll be in the office--"

"And about the author, Mr. Vandeford, and the contracts?" questioned Mr.
Meyers, with both dismay and energy in his voice.

"Oh, I forgot about the author. She won't amount to much. A woman, I
judge, from the ribbons. Offer the usual five, rising to seven and a
half royalties, and explain carefully that you mean five per cent. on
the box office receipts under five thousand, and seven and a half on all
over that. Also go into the moving picture rights and second companies
with your usual honesty, but offer her only a two hundred and fifty
advance to cover a two years' option. She won't know that it ought to be
five hundred for six months, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her.
Besides, it will all be over for her and her play before October."

"She says in the letter which was pinned to the first page of the play,
that the article about you in the 'Times Magazine' made her know that
you were the one producer to whom she could trust her play," s