dn't sign up until I had signed too. She's got a hunch for
me. If you fail, their show goes in in your place; if you win, Weiner
shunts John Drew or Arliss out to one of his other theaters on the road,
and puts in 'The Rosie Posie Girl.' Good business, eh?" And Mr. Rooney
rolled his cigar from east to west and questioned Mr. Vandeford, with a
new fire for a new undertaking beginning to burn in his little black
eyes.

"Fine," answered Mr. Vandeford, with all cordiality, and not even
thinking of his lost thousands. "It will go big, Rooney, and I'll be
glad--none gladder."

"Sure," answered Mr. Rooney. "It's all in the business. Everybody on
Broadway is out to stab everybody else--but mostly it's paper daggers if
you take it right."

"A tissue-paper world sewed together with tinsel thread," Mr. Vandeford
murmured, as he fell asleep with his cheek pillowed on the wrist that
Miss Adair had marked in the struggle for her own.

A week from that night "The Purple Slipper" had its first night on
Broadway, and opened the New Carnival Theater in a blaze of glory,
publicity, and electric lights. The talented young press-agent had done
his work well, and the audience assembled was the most brilliant
possible, made up of the usual blase critics, eager theatrical people
who were not on the boards themselves, and interested and distinguished
men and women from many outer worlds. In the box facing the one occupied
by Mrs. Justus Farraday, in a blaze of both the Farraday and Justus
jewels and prestige, and the beautiful young author of the play, with
her son Mr. Dennis Farraday, and the producer, Mr. Godfrey Vandeford,
sat Miss Violet Hawtry with Mr. Weiner, the owner of the beautiful new
theater which was opening its doors for the first time on Broadway. When
the curtain fell upon the new Lindsey star after its eighth elevation,
the Violet rushed behind the scenes and took that astonished young woman
in her arms, with the real tears of emotion, with which one genuine
artist greets another, in her great blue eyes.

"You were wonderful, my dear, perfectly wonderful," she exclaimed. "You
see, Van, I never could have done it like that. Good luck to both of
you, and the little author--oh, there you are, my dear! All of you shake
hands with Mr. Weiner. He's so pleased that he is speechless, but he's
going to give you a big banquet on your fiftieth performance. He's
promised me."

Which demonstration was perfectly in keeping with Miss H