“Why, this is good stuff!” he declared. “It’s different from the stuff usually brought in here.”
“Can you use it all?”
“Well, that is crowding us, but——”
“How many seats do you wish?” asked Merry, bringing out his passes. “Will six be enough?”
The editor thought six might do, and he got them. Then Frank made him promise to have the items set up the first thing after dinner and a number of proofs taken of them.
“You see, I have no copies to furnish other papers,” Merry explained; “and a dozen proofs of each one of these will be a great help to me.”
“You shall have them,” assured Jesper.
When Frank left that office, he was satisfied he had done as well as any person could.
Then he went to the hotel where theatrical people usually stopped, and, before dinner, he made arrangements for the accommodation of the “Empire Theater Comedy Company” when it arrived in town, getting a liberal reduction on the regular rates.
Riddle was in the dining room when Frank entered, and Merry took pains to get a seat at a table as far as possible from the fellow. He observed that Riddle surveyed him curiously, and he knew the fellow was wondering just what he had been doing.