"You know I'd help you if I could, Waldemar," said Mr. Quarterstone earnestly. "But I just bought my wife a fur coat, and she wants a new car, and that ranch we just bought in California set me back a hundred thousand."
Mr. Urlaub shook his head.
"I know. It's not your fault. But isn't it just the toughest break?"
Quarterstone shook his head in sympathy. And then he looked at the Saint.
It was quite a performance, that look. It started casually, beheld inspiration, blazed with triumph, winked, glared significantly, poured out encouragement, pleaded, commanded and asked and answered several questions, all in a few seconds. Mr. Quarterstone had not at any period in his career actually held down the job of prompter, but he more than made up with enthusiasm for any lack of experience. Only a man who had been blind from birth could have failed to grasp the idea that Mr. Quarterstone was suggesting, and the Saint had not strung along so far in order to feign blindness at the signal for his entrance.
Simon cleared his throat.
"Er — did you say you only needed another fifteen thousand dollars to put on this play?" he asked diffidently, but with a clearly audible note of suppressed excitement.
After that he had to work no harder than he would have had to work to get himself eaten by a pair of hungry lions. Waldemar Urlaub, once the great light had dawned on him, skittered about like a pea on a drum in an orgy of exultant planning. Mr. Tombs would have starred in the play anyhow, whenever the remainder of the necessary wind had been raised — Urlaub had already made up his mind to that — but if Mr. Tombs had fifteen thousand dollars as well as his genius and beauty, he would be more than a star. He could be co-producer as well, a sharer in the profits, a friend and an equal, in every way the heir to the position which the great Aaron Niementhal would have occupied. His name would go on the billing with double force — Urlaub grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil to illustrate it: