his recent interview with Ruth, we may dismiss. Like Clarence, she is
of no importance to the story. The other, who, not finding Bailey's
measured remarks very gripping, was allowing her gaze to wander idly
around the room, has this claim to a place in the scheme of things,
that she had a wordless part in the comedy in which Percy Shanklyn had
appeared as the English dude and was on terms of friendship with him.

Consequently, seeing him enter the room, as he did at that moment, she
signalled him to approach.

"It's a little feller who was with me in 'The Man from Out West'," she
explained to Bailey as Percy made his way toward them. At which
Bailey's prim mouth closed with an air of disapproval.

The feminine element of the stage he found congenial to his business-
harassed brain, but with the "little fellers" who helped them to keep
the national drama sizzling he felt less in sympathy; and he resented
extremely his companion's tactlessness in inciting this infernal mummer
to intrude upon his privacy.

He prepared to be cold and distant with Percy. And when Bailey, never a
ray of sunshine, deliberately tried to be chilly, those with him at the
time generally had the sensation that winter was once more in their
midst.

Percy, meanwhile, threaded his way among the tables, little knowing
that fate had already solved the problem which had worried him the
greater part of the day.

He had come to the restaurant as a relief from his thoughts. If he