various one-night stands in the Northwest, preparatory
to bringing it to Chicago and putting it on for a week, and he asked if
Maxwell could not come out and see it there. He believed they were all
gradually getting down to it, and the author's presence at the
rehearsals would be invaluable. He felt more and more that they had a
fortune in it, and it only needed careful working to realize a bonanza.
He renewed his promises, in view of his success so far, to play it
exclusively if the triumph could be clinched by a week's run in such a
place as Chicago. He wrote from Grand Rapids, and asked Maxwell to reply
to him at Oshkosh.

"Tell him you'll come, of course," said his wife.

Maxwell shook his head. "He doesn't mean this any more than he meant to
revise the thing himself. He probably finds that he can't do that, and
wants me to do it. But if I did it he might take it off after the first
night in Chicago if the notices were unfavorable."

"But they won't be," she argued. "I _know_ they won't."

"I should simply break him up from the form he's got into, if I went to
the rehearsals. He must keep on doing it in his own way till he comes to
New York."

"But think of the effect it will have in New York if you should happen
to make it go in Chicago."

"It won't have the slightest effect. When he brings it East, it will
have to make its way just as if it had never been played anywhere
before."

A bright thought occurred to Louise. "Then tell him that if he will
bring it on to Boston you will superintend all the rehearsals. And I
will go with you to them."

Maxwell only laughed at this. "Boston wouldn't serve any better than
Chicago, as far as New York is concerned. We shall have to build a
success from the ground up there, if we get one. It might run a whole
winter in Boston, and then we should probably begin with half a house in
New York, or a third. The only advantage of trying it anywhere before,
is that the actors will be warm in their parts. Besides, do you suppose
Godolphin could get a theatre in Boston out of the order of his
engagement there next spring?"

"Why not?"

"Simply because every night at every house is taken six months
beforehand."

"Who would ever have dreamt," said Louise, ruefully, "that simply
writing a play would involve any one in all these exasperating business
details."

"Nobody can get free of business," Maxwell returned.

"Then I will tell you," she brightened up to say. "Why not s