"The old man would smash your paper in six months."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody has ever taken a shot at him yet. He may be more vulnerable than he looks.... Speaking of money, I suppose I'd better take that apartment. God knows how I'll pay for it, especially if I lose my job."

"If you lose your job I'll get you a better one on Wall Street to-morrow."

"On the strength of Poultney Masters, Jr., shaking hands with me, I suppose."

"Practically. It may not get into your newspapers, but the Street will know all about it to-morrow."

"It's a queer city. And it's a queer way to get on in it, by being quick on the trigger. Well, I'm off for the theater."

Between acts, Banneker, walking out to get air, was conscious of being the object of comment and demonstration. He heard his name spoken in half whispers; saw nods and jerks of the head; was an involuntary eavesdropper upon a heated discussion; "That's the man."--"No; it ain't.

The paper says he's a big feller."--"This guy ain't a reporter. Pipe his clothes."--"Well, he's big if you size him right. Look at his shoulders."--"I'll betcha ten he ain't the man." And an apologetic young fellow ran after him to ask if he was not, in truth, Mr. Banneker of The Ledger. Being no more than human, he experienced a feeling of mild excitation over all this. But no sooner had the curtain risen on the second act than he quite forgot himself and his notoriety in the fresh charm of the comedy, and the delicious simplicity of Betty Raleigh as the heroine. That the piece was destined to success was plain, even so early. As the curtain fell again, and the star appeared, dragging after her a long, gaunt, exhausted, alarmed man in horn-rimmed spectacles, who had been lurking in a corner suffering from incipient nervous breakdown and illusions of catastrophe, he being the author, the body of the house rose and shouted. A hand fell on Banneker's shoulder.

"Come behind at the finish?" said a voice.

Turning, Banneker met the cynical and near-sighted eyes of Gurney, The Ledger's dramatic critic, with whom he had merely a nodding acquaintance, as Gurney seldom visited the office except at off-hours.

"Yes; I'd like to," he answered.

"Little Betty spotted you and has been demanding that the management bring you back for inspection."

"The play is a big success, isn't it?"

"I give it a year's run," returned the critic authoritatively. "Laurence has written it to fit Raleigh like a glove. She's all they said of her in London. And when she left here a year ago, she was just a fairly good _ingenue_. However, she's got brains, which is the next best thing in the theatrical game to marriage with the manager--or near-marriage."

Banneker, considering Gurney's crow-footed and tired leer, decided that he did not like the critic much.

Back-of-curtain after a successful opening provides a hectic and scrambled scene to the unaccustomed eye. Hastily presented to a few people, Banneker drifted to one side and, seating himself on a wire chair, contentedly assumed the role of onlooker. The air was full of laughter and greetings and kisses; light-hearted, offhand, gratulatory kisses which appeared to be the natural currency of felicitation. Betty Raleigh, lovely, flushed, and athrill with nervous exaltation, flung him a smile as she passed, one hand hooked in the arm of her leading man.

"You're coming to supper with us later," she called.

"Am I?" said Banneker.

"Of course. I've got something to ask you." She spoke as one expectant of unquestioning obedience: this was her night of glory and power.

Whether he had been previously bidden in through Gurney, or whether this chance word constituted his invitation, he did not know. Seeking enlightenment upon the point, he discovered that the critic had disappeared, to furnish his half-column for the morning issue. La Tarantina, hearing his inquiry, gave him the news in her broken English.

The dancer, lithe, powerful, with the hideous feet and knotty legs typical of her profession, turned her somber, questioning eyes on the stranger:

"You air Monsieur Ban-kerr, who shoot, n'est-ce-pas?" she inquired.

"My name is Banneker," he replied.

"Weel you be ver' good an' shoot sahmbody for me?"

"With pleasure," he said, laughing; "if you'll plead for me with the jury."

"Zen here he iss." She stretched a long and, as it seemed, blatantly naked arm into a group near by and drew forth the roundish man whom Cressey had pointed out at Marrineal's dinner party. "He would be unfaithful to me, ziss one."

"I? Never!" denied the accused. He set a kiss in the hollow of the dancer's wrist. "How d'ye do, Mr. Banneker," he added, holding out his hand. "My name is Eyre."

"But yess!" cried the dancer. "He--what you say it?--he r-r-r-rave over Miss R-r-raleigh. He make me jealous. He shall be shoot at sunrice an' I weel console me wiz his shooter."

"Charming programme!" commented the doomed man. It struck Banneker that he had probably been drinking a good deal, also that he was a very likeable person, indeed. "If you don't mind my asking, where the devil did you learn to shoot like that?"

"Oh, out West where I came from. I used to practice on the pine trees at a little water-tank station called Manzanita".

"Manzanita!" repeated the other. "By God!" He swore softly, and stared at the other.

Banneker was annoyed. Evidently the gossip of which Io's girl friend had hinted that other night at Sherry's had obtained wide currency. Before the conversation could go any further, even had it been likely to after that surprising check, one of the actors came over. He played the part of an ex-cowboy, who, in the bar-room scene, shot his way out of danger through a circle of gang-men, and he was now seeking from Banneker ostensibly pointers, actually praise.

"Say, old man," he began without introduction. "Gimme a tip or two. How do you get your hand over for your gun without giving yourself away?"

"Just dive for it, as you do in the play. You do it plenty quick enough.

You'd get the drop on me ten times out of ten," returned Banneker pleasantly, leaving the gratified actor with the conviction that he had been talking with the coming dramatic critic of the age.

For upwards of an hour there was carnival on the dismantling stage, mingled with the hurried toil of scene-shifters and the clean-up gang.

Then the impromptu party began to disperse, Eyre going away with the dancer, after coming to bid Banneker good-night, with a look of veiled curiosity and interest which its object could not interpret. Banneker was gathered into the _corps intime_ of Miss Raleigh's supper party, including the author of the play, an elderly first-nighter, two or three dramatic critics, Marrineal, who had drifted in, late, and half a dozen of the company. The men outnumbered the women, as is usual in such affairs, and Banneker found himself seated between the playwright and a handsome, silent girl who played with distinction the part of an elderly woman. There was wine in profusion, but he noticed that the player-folk drank sparingly. Condition, he correctly surmised, was part of their stock in trade. As it should be part of his also.

Late in the supper's course, there was a shifting of seats, and he was landed next to the star.

"I suppose you're bored stiff with talking about the shooting," she said, at once.

"I am, rather. Wouldn't you be?"

"I? Publicity is the breath of life to us," she laughed. "You deal in it, so you don't care for it."

"That's rather shrewd in you. I'm not sure that the logic is sound."

"Anyway, I'm not going to bore you with your fame. But I want you to do something for me."

"It is done," he said solemnly.

"How prettily you pay compliments! There is to be a police investigation, isn't there?"

"Probably."

"Could you get me in?"

"Yes, indeed!"

"Then I want to come when you're on the stand."

"Great goodness! Why?"

"Why, if you want a reason," she answered mischievously, "say that I want to bring good luck to your _premiere_, as you brought it to mine."

"I'll probably make a sorry showing. Perhaps you would give me some training."