The advance sale of seats for the engagement of the Frolics opened that morning. Jimmy Martin stood chatting with Manager George Seymour in the lobby of the Lyric Theatre and watching the long queue of prospective ticket purchasers which stretched out to the sidewalk and curved up the street for nearly half a block. Jimmy couldn’t resist gloating just a little bit. He had adopted a more or less casual, “I told you so” attitude the day before when the first story appeared, but this morning he just naturally expanded.

“Well, Georgie old man,” he remarked cheerily. “You’ve got to give him credit. The kid’s clever.”

“What kid?” asked Mr. Seymour.

“That Martin fellow ahead of the ‘Frolics.’ I told you stirring up towns was a specialty of his. He certainly handed this one a jolt. Do you hear ’em all talking about this morning’s yarn? It’s the biggest press story in years.”

“Just luck—dumb luck.”

“Pretty good for the little old showshop and the little old show, though, you’ve got to admit. Come on, Georgie, act human. Own up that if it hadn’t been for the big idea I led in by the hand, little old Robert B. Luck wouldn’t have had a chance to sit in and draw five cards.”

“Say,” remarked Seymour irrelevantly, “did you know Meyerfield was coming over this morning? He phoned me from Washington last night after you’d gone.”

“I didn’t know it,” responded Jimmy, “but it’s music to my ears. I want to be lingering around when he lamps this line. You know he told me to smear the girls all over the front page, but he didn’t say anything about doing it two days running.”

Jimmy strolled down the lobby and loitered near the slow moving line. He felt a pleasurable little thrill as he listened to the comments on the Bulletin’s story. He walked out to the street and ran his eye along the queue that nearly reached the corner. Then a taxi drove up and Meyerfield alighted. Jimmy caught a flash of the Bulletin sticking out of the manager’s overcoat pocket. So he’d seen the story already, he thought. Well, he’d try to be modest.

“Hello, Martin,” said Meyerfield, holding out a clammy hand and giving Jimmy a barely perceptible grip. “Glad I caught you. Pittsburg’s cancelled and we’re going straight through to Boston from here. You’d better duck over there right away. Come back to the office a minute. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

The manager gave the line a look of quick appraisal as he passed quickly back to Seymour’s office. Jimmy followed him, a little shade downcast at the failure of his employer to make mention of his achievement. Meyerfield greeted Seymour pleasantly, slid into a chair, slowly lit a cigar and assumed his most judicial manner.

“Martin,” he said presently. “I want to talk to you about these stories that have been running in the Bulletin. Now——”

“Some little smear, eh?”

“It’s a smear all right, but it isn’t the kind of publicity I want.”

“But,” Mr. Meyerfield,” broke in Jimmy incredulously. “Did you see the line? Why——”

“Yes, I saw the line, but that doesn’t mean everything. It’s just a little flash in the pan, and besides it’s dangerous stuff—why you can’t tell what would come of it. Someone told me on the train coming over that there was a quarter of a billion dollars represented by the names in that story.”

“But that’s just why it’s good stuff! The more important the people——”

“I wish you wouldn’t interrupt me,” snapped Meyerfield. “I’ve got a silent partner in New York—a big banker—he’s going to back my new summer show. Why, if he ever gets wise to this stuff you can’t tell what’d happen. He may know some of these fellows you’ve mixed ............