finally interrupted him, saying he wanted to see
the manager. The fat man glared at him.

"Sit down until I get through!" he shouted. "I'm the manager."

Jarvis took a chair and looked at the man closely. What would such a
creature find in his play, with its roots in a modern condition, no more
grasped by this man than by Professor Parkhurst? The absurdity of the
idea struck Jarvis so forcibly that he laughed out loud.

"Let's have it, if it's any good," said the fat man.

"I beg your pardon," Jarvis replied.

The manager dismissed the stenographer, took up Jarvis's card, looked at
it, and then at his victim.

"Jarvis Jocelyn," he read. "Good stage name. What's your line, Jarvis?"

[Illustration: "WELL, BELIEVE ME, THAT HIGH-BROW STUFF IS ON THE
TOBOGGAN."]

"I've come to see you about a play."

"Oh, you're a writer? What have you done?"

"Several plays, and some poetry."

"Nix on the poetry. Who brought out the plays?"

"Nobody yet. I am just beginning to offer them."

"What sort of stuff is it?"

"It's a dramatic handling of the feminist movement."

"What's that?"

"The emancipation of woman."

"I hadn't heard about it. Is your stuff funny?"

"No. It is a serious presentation of an unique revolution----"

"Well, believe me, that high-brow stuff is on the toboggan. I knew it
couldn't last. I gave it to them when they demanded it, but I am cutting
it out now. Haven't you got a good melodrama, or a funny show?"

"I have not," superbly.

"Say, do you know any Jews? I got a great idea for a Jew play that would
take like the measles if some fellow would work it up. Pile of money
in it."

Jarvis rose, furious.

"It is so apparent that we have nothing to say to each other that I'll
bid you good morning."

"If you fellows who come in here from the country to run Broadway could
put _yourselves_ in a show, it would be the scream of the town," said
the fat man in Jarvis's wake.

"I'd rather starve than endure a pig like you!" cried Jarvis, as he
fled.

The fat man's laugh followed him to the street. He hated himself, and
the whole situation. It galled him to think he had deliberately
submitted himself to such treatment. Even Bambi could not expect it of
him,--to set him to sell his dreams in such a market. He charged down
Broadway, clearing a wake as wide as a battleship in action. He saw red.
He was unconscious of people. He only felt the animus of the atmosphere,
the sense of things tugging at