ALES WINES LIQUORS AND CIGARS

TIM MALONE

At that, somewhere in his inside, he cried out, in a kind of
anguish: "Isn't there anything--anywhere--any more--except Wanda
Malone!"






IX


"Second act, ladies and gentlemen!" cried Packer, at precisely
ten o'clock the next morning.

About a dozen actors were chatting in small groups upon the
stage; three or four paced singly, muttering and mildly
gesticulating, with the fretful preoccupation of people trying
to remember; two or three, seated, bent over their typewritten
"sides," studying intently; and a few, invisible from the
auditorium, were scattered about the rearward rooms and
passageways. Talbot Potter, himself, was nowhere to be seen,
and, what was even more important to one tumultuously beating
heart "in front," neither was Wanda Malone. Mr. Stewart Canby in
a silvery new suit, wearing a white border to his waistcoat