The harrowing details which followed were dressed up in such sarcastic verbiage that Mr. Denby’s soul went sick and his appetite for breakfast vanished. He paid his check and sought the seclusion of his room. He wished to hide his face from the public gaze and apply poultices to his wounded dignity.

Jimmy Martin, coming up unannounced, found him a half hour later gazing pensively out of the window—a picture of incarnate misery. Jimmy wasn’t in a particularly jaunty mood himself, but he assumed his best “cheery-oh” manner when he caught a glimpse of his associate’s face.

“What’s the matter, little song-bird?” he inquired breezily. “You look about as lonely as a bartender.”

Mr. Denby turned a pair of ineffably sad eyes on the press agent and sighed mournfully.

“I’m disgraced, Mr. Martin,” he said feebly, “irretrievably disgraced. I should never have gone into this masquerade—never. My saner judgment should have prevailed. I shall never recover from this. I’m the most miserable man in Chicago this morning—the most utterly miserable.”

“You’ve got another think coming, old popsy-wop,” replied Jimmy. “I’ve just seen his royal highness. You’re a care-free babe in arms compared to that bird. He’s passin’ on to New York on the twelve forty.”

“What I can’t understand,” said Mr. Denby, “is how the story got out. Have you any idea?”

“Yes, I have,” replied the press agent, slowly. “As a matter of fact I gave it out myself.”

“You gave it out yourself,” stammered the bewildered Mr. Denby. “I—I don’t understand. Why did you do such a thing as that?”

“Well, the low-down of it is that I had to. I was out to that Easton dame’s house yesterday afternoon with his royal jiblets and when I saw the way the poor nut was makin’ a fool out of herself over that little brown brother it just made me sick. He’d been milkin’ her for thousands and I could see he was layin’ lines to wish himself into an easy life at her expense. She’s a good-natured old gal, too, but she’d fallen for him so hard that she’d have believed him if he told her he was that Buddha party come back to earth for a little holiday.

“She told me about some fairy tale or other he’d pulled—something about a row with his father and how his allowance had been stopped and so forth and so on and when I took one last look at her at the front door and thought of that baby lollin’ around on sofas and lettin’ her wait on him and callin’ her a lot of flossy names so’s to keep his stock up I didn’t have the heart to let her go through with the marriage thing, story or no story. Somethin’ sort of caught hold of me and wouldn’t let me go on. I wonder what it was?”

“Some philosophers call it the categorical imperative,” replied Mr. Denby, thoughtfully.

“They do, eh? Well, maybe that’s a good name for it, but I’ve got a kind of a hunch that it was the little old Golden Rule that made me ashamed of myself. I thought the best of cramp Rajjy’s style would be to get word to that brother of the blushin’ bride so I got in to see him last night and coughed up everything. He’s a fine fellow. They don’t grow ’em better. He was mighty grateful, but he said it wouldn’t do any good for him to say anything to her. He figured that would make it worse. He said she wouldn’t believe him. The only thing that’d get to her, he said, would be to have some paper expose his royal job-lots and make him ridiculous in the eyes of all her friends.

“So I came down town and slipped an ear-full to Cunningham, a friend of mine on the Times, and he did the rest. I’m sorry, old boy, but I just couldn’t help it. It’d a been one of the best stories ever put over if we’d let it go through and it puts the kibosh on the lecture tour, but there just naturally wasn’t anythin’ else to do. Women and children first, as they say when the ship hits an iceberg. Am I right?”

Mr. Denby sprang up and grasped Jimmy by the hand.

“You certainly are,” he said enthusiastically. “I feel better already. I’m sure Mr. Bartlett will understand. Did you know he was coming to town today?”

“I did not,” returned Jimmy. “That’s a good exit cue, though. I haven’t the nerve to face him until this thing kind of blows over. I’ll duck under cover for twenty-four hours and let you break the news to mother. Slip him the real inside stuff. Maybe he’ll fall for it.”

Chester Bartlett was the maddest man in the entire state of Illinois when he read the story of the expose on the incoming train to Chicago that morning and the quips which were hurled at him by dozens of his friends in his club at luncheon gave substance and solidity to his rage. His interview with Mr. Denby was a stormy affair and his reaction to what Jimmy termed the “real inside stuff” was violent in the extreme. While still in the throes of his anger he wrote a brief message to the press agent which the erstwhile lecturer on far eastern affairs was requested to deliver in person to his friend.

Mr. Denby found Jimmy at his hotel immersed in the preparation of advertising copy. He looked up hopefully; Mr. Denby handed him the note in silence and he tore it open with a foreboding of disaster.

“No man can make me ridiculous and remain in my employ,” it ran. “You’re through the moment you receive this. You should never have encouraged such an affair as the romance Denby tells me about. As a matter of fact it was a foolhardy thing to try and palm that fellow off as a prince. You might have known you’d come a cropper sooner or later. You’ve got too many ideas for your own good and I’ll be satisfied to go along hereafter with someone who’s perhaps a little shy on brilliancy, but who’s long on balance.”

“Can you beat ’em,” inquired Jimmy, helplessly. “They’re all alike. No matter what you do you’re always in wrong.”

The telephone bell rang just then and he barked a rude “hello” into the transmitter. The voice at the other end was hearty and good-natured.

“Is that Mr. Martin—Mr. James T. Martin?—this is Easton talking—Easton—Junius P. Easton—thought I’d let you know that my sister is cured—can’t begin to thank you for what you did—tried to reciprocate this morning—told my brokers to carry a thousand shares of Consolidated Gutta Percha in your name—closed out at a quarter to three—ten point rise—you’ll get the check in the morning—had a little inside information, you know—did pretty well myself, too—say, you impress me as being a pretty clever sort of a lad—ever think of going into business on your own?—it’s the only game—why work for anyone?—think it over.”

Jimmy was still mumbling his thanks when the other excused himself and hung up. Mr. Denby, who hadn’t grasped the import of the telephonic conversation, betrayed an intense interest in the proceedings.

“What’s up?” he questioned.

“Consolidated Gutta Percha,” replied Jimmy. “Want a job?”

“You know I do. Who with?”

“Why with me, of course, you old highbrow. And look here. Don’t you go palmin’ off any fake dukes or rajahs or anythin’ like that. If you do you’ll get the bum’s rush and I won’t take the trouble to write you a letter about it, either.”

Mr. Denby raised a deprecatory hand.

“I’ll promise to be good,” he said, “but may I be permitted to ask another question?”

“Shoot—while the shootin’s good.”

“Well, then, in the parlance of the theatrical profession—with which, I take it, we are still to be identified—‘where do we go from here?’”

Jimmy pulled a pink letter out of an inside pocket and proffered it to his friend with a flourish.

“Cedar Rapids is our next stand, you old adjective hound,” he said heartily. “Take a look at this little message.”

It was, Mr. Denby found, a note from Lolita Murphy and it contained a contrite plea for forgiveness for her abrupt departure from Boston many weeks before and a hope that the diplomatic relations then severed might be renewed.

“Old Mr. Higgins,” she wrote, “wants someone to take the lease of the Opera House off his hands. He’s had a cataract on his left eye for two years, and now he’s got rheumatism in his right hip and he wants to go out to California. He’s been doing great business this season and on the nights when he hasn’t had regular shows he’s been putting on big extra special feature films and packing people in. I thought maybe you’d like to try your hand at settling down and running a theatre. Of course, Main Street isn’t Broadway, but I like it lots better and maybe you could learn to, too. It means home folks to me. Maybe it might come to mean the same thing to you—some time.”

Mr. Denby gasped when he read this. When he tried to talk the words did not come trippingly....

“You mean you’re going to—to—run the opera house in Cedar Rapids?”

Jimmy grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him in an outburst of fierce joviality.

“I mean that we’re going to run it,” he said. “All three of us. What do you think about smearing a catch-line all over town—‘A Homey Theatre for Home Folks’? I’ve got an idea that’d make a hit with a Certain Party.”