"At that we'd better get busy to feed it to 'em," Mr. Vandeford said, as he picked up and began to dig into the pages.
For the three hours ensuing he and his henchman worked with never a hitch in their growls and scratches and muttered exchanges. Then, as they came close to the climax of the last act, Mr. Vandeford sat up from his pillows, which were heated almost beyond endurance with his night lights and his [tousled] head, and gave forth a roar.
"I'll be hanged if I'll let that scene between Rosalind and her lover go with that filthy twist that Howard has given it! The words are almost the original, but what will Hawtry make of what he's put into it?"
"It will be the worst she makes," answered Mr. Meyers. "But it is for pep very good, Mr. Vandeford, sir, and can be tried out."
"That's right, Pops. I wonder if I am a Broadway producer or—or the czar of a young ladies' seminary," Mr. Vandeford growled as he lay down, and again went to work.
"It is that Miss Adair will not understand it until Miss Hawtry is at work, and before that all may be dead," Mr. Meyers consoled, as he, too, fell upon "The Purple Slipper."
At two-thirty the now soggy A. D. T. received the last manila [envelope] to deliver to the busy girls down in Mr. Vandeford's office, and that distinguished producer was stretched out on his bed in cool darkness while Mr. Meyers was in a subway nodding his way up to his humble room on One Hundred and Sixteenth Street.
"If I live through seeing her past the reading of the blamed thing to-morrow, I'll be stronger than I think I am," Mr. Vandeford murmured as he felt the calmness of sleep fall upon him.