. "I know that is his game, but I'll put
across this 'Purple Slipper' with Hawtry and keep my 'Rosie Posie Girl'
until I get good and ready to let her play it. Then I'll produce it to
the tune of a half-million dollars and not Mr. Weiner. I've never been
squeezed, and I'm not going to have this rotten game beat me. I'll go
over and see Breit and he'll jockey me a corner on Broadway, somehow.
Back at three." And Mr. Vandeford walked out of his office as coolly as
though not sizzling inwardly with anxiety.

"I've got you next on the booking of about four-fifths of the theaters
on Broadway, Van," said Mr. Breit, the booking king, as he and Mr.
Vandeford smoked leisurely cigars in his big, cool office. "You should
worry! E. and K. and S. and Z. are bound to pick some flivvers and in
you go. Loaf on the road and lose money like a little man."

"My contract expires with Hawtry if I don't present her on Broadway by
September fifteenth."

"That _is_ a bit of a pickle! But she won't have any show to jump into,
and she'll compromise with you; won't she?"

"She'll have to," Mr. Vandeford declared. "Coming down to Atlantic City
to see 'The Purple Slipper' open two weeks from Monday, September
twenty-third?"

"I'll be there. Rooney says it is a go; says little genius amateur wrote
it and Grant Howard 'pepped' it. That right?"

"Yes. By!"

An hour later, in the coolness and seclusion of the grill room of The
Monks, Mr. Vandeford was imparting his predicament to his partner in
the venture and adventures of "The Purple Slipper."

"And you are worrying about whether Miss Hawtry will stay by us for the
few weeks we'll have to loaf on the road or even close while waiting for
the New York opening?" questioned Mr. Farraday. "Say, aren't you a bit
unjust in your judgment of her, Van?"

"I know the whole tribe of actors, and you don't, Denny," answered Mr.
Vandeford, over a tall glass of iced tea he was drinking; he didn't know
exactly why, but the habit had grown on him lately.

"Then why not try to put her under contract for those few indefinite
weeks?" suggested Mr. Farraday, over his cup of hot coffee.

"You talk as though we were dealing with sane people," answered Mr.
Vandeford. "She's got us and she'll keep us guessing up to the last
minute, and then put some kind of screws on. I have got to figure out
the likely ones, to see what I can do to jam them."

"Well, anyway, ask her. I think she'll stand by us. I know she will,