"But I had a very special reason for wanting to come here," Graemer explained. He had to be a bit wary of the starchy things too, though he still had a figure in spite of his weight. He was complacently vain of his prematurely gray hair, his fresh youthful skin and his dark eyes. He reminded one somehow of a husky widow, he was so feminine in spite of his size. He looked leisurely enough for a busy man. You wondered how he had time to manage so many player folk, write so many plays and yet dawdle over his luncheon as he did. He leaned forward to ask Edwina's husband something. The fat man laughed uneasily.
"Well, he does usually lunch here," he admitted, "and I did use to know him rather well, but I'm not exactly the person to introduce you if you want anything from him—he's not overly fond of me—"
"I understood from Edwina that you were boyhood friends." The fat man smiled and deliberately and delicately chucked his wife under her rosy little chin.
"Tattle-tale!" he taunted her.
"You were!" she persisted, "you know you were!"
"If you ever were," said Graemer earnestly, "Permit me to suggest that you renew your youth. What I want him for is partly on Edwina's account. "The Juggler" isn't going as well as it ought to—I haven't anything new in sight for her and I'd like to keep this going until I have. What we need is a press agent like Dudley Hamilt."
"He's not a press agent—" gasped the fat man.
"He's the prince of press agents," answered Graemer easily, "he gets more publicity, favorable publicity, for anything he touches than any one I've ever watched work. Look what he did for the coal interests— and look at that work of his in last fall's campaign—"
"But that was politics—" protested the fat man. "He wouldn't call that being a press agent and I doubt if you could interest him in anything theatrical."
"I can if I can get at him. Some one's bound to if I don't. It isn't only for 'The Juggler' that I want him, it's for all my things—what I'm going to offer him is something big—about the biggest end of the game—but I don't want to seem to go to him so I thought that if there was some casual way—if you should ask him to lunch with us—"