“Sure I understand,” replied Jimmy. “Who’s going on in her place?”
“Little Leona LeClaire,” said Meyerfield. “It’s a chance to put her on in the leading role, but I think she’ll fill the bill all right. She’s been under-studying all season.”
“I get you, Mr. Meyerfield. I’ll try and pull something different.”
“That’s the talk,” replied the manager, extending a fishy hand again.
As the door swung shut on the press agent, Meyerfield turned to Seymour and gave him a prodigious wink.
“How do you like my work, George?” he asked expansively.
“I don’t understand,” puzzled the theatre manager. “What do you mean? I thought that newspaper stuff was damned good, if you ask me. Best thing pulled off here in years.”
“Of course it was George,” responded Meyerfield with an air of great wisdom. “It was one of the best ever, but if I told that fresh gink I thought it was, there’d be no holding him. He’d take the bit in his teeth and bolt down Main street. He’d begin to think he was worth a thousand dollars a minute. Birds like that have to be held down. Don’t let ’em ever think they’re good, I know how to handle all his kind.”
Meyerfield’s office boy dumped a big pile of Boston Sunday papers on his desk the following Monday morning. The manager opened the Press and turned to the theatrical page. He skimmed it hurriedly and then uttered a low moan. Staring him in the face was a double column picture of Leona Le Claire. Over it was a headline which read: