hadn't been so smart with your tongue, you'd had more friends and
not so many enemies in--"

"In the heavenly Syndicate, eh? Well, I have lived without--"

"You have lived, but--"

"But where do I expect to go when I die? Good theatrical
managers, Nance, when they die as individuals go to Heaven--they
get into the Trust. After that they just touch buttons; the Trust
does the rest. Bad ones--the kickers--the Fred Obermullers go
to--a place where salaries cease from troubling and royalties are
at rest. It's a slow place where--where, in short, there's
nothing doing. And only one thing's done--the kicker. It's that
place Mr. Tausig thinks I'm bound for. And it's that place he's
come to rescue you from, from sheer goodness of heart and a wary
eye for all there's in it. Cinch him, Olden, for all the traffic
will bear!"

I looked from one to the other--Obermuller, big and savage
underneath all his gay talk, I knew him well enough to see that;
the little man, his mouth turned down at the corners and a sneer
in his eye for the fellow that wasn't clever enough to get in
with the push.

"You must not give the young woman the big head, Obermuller. Her
own is big enough, I'll bet, as it is. I ain't prepared to make
any startling offer to a little girl that's just barely got her
nose above the wall. The slightest shake might knock her off
altogether, or she mightn't have strength enough in herself to