"I'll write down the address for you," said Miss Verepoint, suddenly
businesslike.

* * * * *

Exactly when he committed himself to the purchase of the Windsor
Theater, Roland could never say. The idea seemed to come into existence
fully-grown, without preliminary discussion. One moment it was not--the
next it was. His recollections of the afternoon which he spent drinking
lukewarm tea and punctuating Miss Verepoint's flow of speech with
"yes's" and "no's" were always so thoroughly confused that he never
knew even whose suggestion it was.

The purchase of a West-end theater, when one has the necessary cash, is
not nearly such a complicated business as the layman might imagine.
Roland was staggered by the rapidity with which the transaction was
carried through. The theater was his before he had time to realize that
he had never meant to buy the thing at all. He had gone into the
offices of Mr. Montague with the intention of making an offer for the
lease for, say, six months; and that wizard, in the space of less than
an hour, had not only induced him to sign mysterious documents which
made him sole proprietor of the house, but had left him with the
feeling that he had done an extremely acute stroke of business. Mr.
Montague had dabbled in many professions in his time, from street
peddling upward, but what he was really best at was hypnotism.

Altho he felt, after the spell of Mr. Montague's magnetism was
withdrawn, rather like a nervous man who has been given a large baby to
hold by a strange woman who has promptly vanished round the corner,
Roland was to some extent consoled by the praise bestowed upon him by