“You’ll have a better chance to write your plays,” Brainard remarked genially.
It pleased him to think that here, on the spot where he had experienced his last defeat, he was able to play the part of good fortune to youth.
“Somehow,” said Farson enthusiastically, “I feel it’s going to be like a play all the time with you!”
“The chap that’s coming up to see me,” explained Brainard, “is an actor and a manager in a small way. He calls himself Ferris MacNaughton—an odd genius, a Scotsman who has played all over the world. I ran across him in a small Arizona town, doing Shakespeare to the mining camps, and doing it well, too. He seemed interested in the idea, and so, when I got ready to pull out, I wired him to meet me here. He hasn’t lost any time,” he added as the door swung open.
II
It was a curious figure that entered the room. The Scotsman was short, thick-set, about fifty years old, with a round, bald head fringed with white hair. He was dressed with an evident attempt at youthful smartness, and dangled a small cane. Between his thick lips was the end of a black cigar. His large face, portentous brows, and mild blue eyes looked as if he had started as Falstaff and ended as a Scottish Hamlet.
MacNaughton bowed profoundly, and said in deep, measured tones, that were reminiscent of blank verse:
“Good afternoon, gentlemen! I received your telegram yesterday, Mr. Brainard. It found me at an unoccupied moment in my career, and I am happy to place myself at your disposal.”
Farson grinned. He judged from his acquaintance with Broadway that the unoccupied moments in the Scotsman’s career had been frequent of late years, and that he had spent a good many of them in the outer offices of theatrical managers. He wondered how his new employer, who seemed wide awake enough to capture one fortune and make a second, had come to mix himself up with this seedy actor.
“Good!” Brainard exclaimed genially, shaking MacNaughton’s hand. “This is my secretary, Edward Farson—Ferris MacNaughton. Let us get to work at once and see how we can spend the better part of half a million a year on the theater!”