, "will be on the loose among that audience. And if
anybody can speak to anybody there, we'll get spoken to just as if we
were sitting for company, and first we know somebody will ask us what
Art really is."

"I'd like to see a place full of atmosphere," suggested Lethbridge.
"I've seen almost everything--the Cafe Jaune, and Chinatown, and--you
remember that joint at Tangier? But I've never seen atmosphere. I don't
care how thin it is; I just want to say that I've seen it when the next
girl throws it all over me." And as Harrow remained timid, he added: "We
won't have to climb across the footlights and steal a curl from the
author, because he's already being sheared in England. There's nothing
to scare you."

Normally, however, they were intensely afraid of Art except at their
barbers', and they had heard, in various ways as vague as Broad Street
rumors, something concerning these gatherings of the elect at the New
Arts Theater on Saturday afternoons, where unselfish reformers produced
plays for Art's sake as a rebuke to managers who declined to produce
that sort of play for anybody's sake.

"I'll bet," said Harrow, "that some thrifty genius sent Stanley West
those tickets in a desperate endeavor to amalgamate the aristocracies of
wealth and intellect!--as though you could shake 'em up as you shake a
cocktail! As though you'd catch your Uncle Stanley wearing his richest
Burgundy flush, sitting in the orchestra and talking _Arr Noovo_ to a
young thing with cheek-bones who'd pinch him into a cocked hat for a
contribution between the acts!"

"Still," said Lethbridge, "even Art requires a wad to pay its license.
Isn't West the foxy Freddie! Do you suppose, if we go, they'll sting us
for ten?"

"They'll probably take up a collection for the professor," said Harrow
gloomily. "Better come to the club and give the tickets to the janitor."

"Oh, that's putting it all over Art! If anybody with earnest eyes tries
to speak to us we can call a policeman."

"Well," said Harrow, "on your promise to keep your mouth shut I'll go
with you. If you open it they'll discover you're an appraiser and I'm a
broker, and then they'll think we're wealthy, because there'd be no
other reason for our being there, and they'll touch us both for a brace
of come-ons, and----"

"Perhaps," interrupted the other, "we'll be fortunate enough to sit next
to a peach! And as it's the proper thing there to talk to your neighbor,
the prospect--er--needn'