He came back, his laughter changed to rage.

“Look here, you impudent little upstart from nowhere! I invented you, and if you're not careful I'll destroy you.”

“Is that so?” she answered; then, like Mr. Charles Van Loan's baseball hero, she realized with regret that the remark was not brilliant as repartee.

Ferriday was too wroth to do much better:

“Yes, that's so. You little nobody!”

“Nobody!” she laughed, pointing to the newspapers spangled with her portraits.

Ferriday snorted, “Paid for by Jim Dyckman's money.”

“What do you mean—Jim Dyckman's money?”

“Oh, when I saw how idiotic he was over you, and how slow you were in landing him, and when I realized that the Hyperfilm Company was going to slide your pictures out with no special advertising, I went to him and tried to get him into the business.”

“You had a nerve!”