“Who is supposed to read the plays that are sent in?” asked De Hanna, turning his large Oriental eyes toward. Mrs. Gudrun.
“I read some,” said the lady languidly, “and the dogs get the rest.”
She stretched, and an overpowering combination of fashionable perfumes, shaken from her draperies, filled the apartment. The three men sneezed simultaneously. Mrs. Gudrun rose with majesty, and going to the mantel-glass, patted her transformation fringe into form, and smiled at the perennially beautiful image that smiled and patted back. Suddenly there was a whining and scratching outside the door.
“It’s Billy. Let him in, one of you,” ordered the manageress.
All three men obeyed, clashing their heads together smartly at the portal. De Hanna, with watering eyes, opened the door, and a brindled bull of surpassing ugliness trotted into the office, carrying a chewed brown paper parcel decorated with futile red seals and trailing loops of string. Lying down in the center of the carpet and carefully arranging the parcel between his forepaws, Billy proceeded to worry it.
“Vot has de beast kott dere?” asked Gormleigh.
“Take it from him and see!” said Mrs. Gudrun carelessly. Gormleigh’s violet nose became pale lavender as Billy, looking up from the work of destruction, emitted a loud growl.
“He understonds everyding vot you say!” spluttered the stage-manager.
“Try him with German,” advised De Hanna.
“Or mit Yiddish,” retorted Gormleigh spitefully.