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“Oh, no,” said Tinker easily. “Not all. Not by any means. No.”

“Show me one that isn’t sawdust!” the tragedian cried fiercely. “Show me just one!”

“We-ll,” said Tinker with extraordinary deliberation, “to start near home: Wanda Malone.”

Potter burst into terrible laughter. “All sawdust! That’s why I discharged her this afternoon.”

“You what?” Canby shouted incredulously.

“I dismissed her from my company,” said Potter with a startling change to icy calmness. “I dismissed her from my company this afternoon.”

Old Tinker leaned forward. “You didn’t!”

Potter’s iciness increased. “Shall I repeat it? I was obliged to dismiss Miss Wanda Malone from my company, this afternoon, after rehearsal.”

“Why?” Canby gasped.

“Because,” said Potter, with the same calmness, “she has an utterly commonplace mind.”

Canby rose in agitation, quite unable, for that moment, to speak; but Tinker, still leaning forward, gazing intently at the face of the actor, made a low, long-drawn sound of wonder and affirmation, the slow exclamation of a man comprehending what amazes him. “So that’s it!”

“Besides being intensely ordinary,” said Potter, with superiority, “I discovered that she is deceitful. That had nothing whatever to do with my decision to leave the stage.” He whirled upon Tinker suddenly, and shouted: “No matter what you think!”

“No,” said Tinker. “No matter.”

Potter laughed. “Talbot Potter leaves the stage because a little ‘ingenue’ understudy tries to break the rules of his company! Likely, isn’t it?”

“Looks so,” said old Tinker.

“Does it?” retorted Potter with rising fury. “Then I’ll tell you, since you seem not to know it, that I’m not going to leave the stage! Can’t a man give vent to his feelings once in his life without being caught up and held to it by every old school-teacher that’s stumbled into the ‘show-business’ by mistake! We’re going right on with this play, I tell you; we rehearse it to-morrow morning just the same as if this hadn’t happened. Only there will be a new ‘ingenue’ in Miss Malone’s place. People can’t break iron rules in my company. Maybe they could in Mounet-Sully’s, but they can’t in mine!”

“What rule did she break?” Canby’s voice was unsteady. “What rule?”

“Yes,” Tinker urged. “Tell us what it was.”

“After rehearsal,” the star began with dignity, “I was–I–” He paused. “I was disappointed in her.”

“Ye-es?” drawled Tinker encouragingly.

Potter sent him a vicious glance, but continued: “I had hopes of her intelligence–as an actress. She seemed to have, also, a fairly attractive personality. I felt some little–ah, interest in her, personally. There is something about her that–” Again he paused. “I talked to her–about her part–at length; and finally I–ah–said I should be glad to walk home with her, as it was after dark. She said no, she wouldn’t let me take so much trouble, because she lived almost at the other end of Brooklyn. It seemed to me that–ah, she is very young–you both probably noticed that–so I said I would–that is, I offered to drive her home in a taxicab. She thanked me, but said she couldn’t. She kept saying that she was sorry, but she couldn’t. It seemed very peculiar, and, in fact, I insisted. I asked her if she objected to me as an escort, and she said, ‘Oh, no!’ and got more and more embarrassed. I wanted to know what was the matter and why she couldn’t seem to like–that is, I talked very kindly to her, very kindly indeed. Nobody could have been kinder!” He cleared his throat loudly and firmly, with an angry look at Tinker. “I say nobody could have been kinder to an obscure member of the company that I was to Miss Malone. But I was decided. That’s all. That’s all there was to it. I was merely kind. That’s all.” He waved his hand as in dismissal of the subject.

“All?” repeated Canby. “All? You haven’t–“

“Oh, yes.” Potter seemed surprised at his own omission. “Oh, yes. Right in the midst of–of what I was saying–she blurted out that she couldn’t let me take her home, because ‘Lancelot’ was waiting for her at a corner drug-store.”