all right, Sato. You go and tell Mr. Potter that I'm here and
Mr. Canby came with me."

"Yisso." Sato stood back from the door obediently, and they
passed into the hall. "You sidowm, please."

"Tell him we're waiting in here," said Tinker, leading the way
into the cream-coloured salon.

"Yisso." Sato disappeared.

The pretty room was exquisitely cheerful, a coal fire burning
rosily in the neat little grate, but for its effect upon Canby
it might have been a dentist's anteroom. He was unable to sit,
and began to pace up and down, shampooing himself with both
hands.

"I've racked my brains every step of the way here," he groaned.
"All I could think of was that possibly I've unconsciously
paralleled some other play that I never saw. Maybe someone's
told him about a plot like mine. Such things must happen--they
do happen, of course--because all plots are old. But I can't
believe my treatment of it could be so like--"

"I don't think it's that," said Tinker. "It's never anything you
expect--with him."

"Well, what else can it be?" the playwright demanded. "I haven't
done anything to offend him. What have I done that he should--"