repeat we'll both enjoy an even better pay-off. Besides, have you looked into what your taxes will be?"

"Taxes? No, I really haven't, but I'm sure I have enough to last another year. Sorry, Mr. Crocker. Maybe later, but right at the moment—"

His broad-shouldered, lean athletic form drifted through my door and was gone.

Two weeks later Parodisiac arrived, typed on fools-cap, uncorrected, with pencil notations and coffee-spots on it, but it was by-lined, "Hillary Hardy," and after a single, quick scanning I was overjoyed to pay the expense of transcribing it to more durable paper. The play was powerful, witty and emotion-stirring. It was a work of art.

And on the last page was scribbled in the border: "I looked into my tax bill, and found you were right. I'm almost broke after Uncle Sam takes his cut, so here is the play you asked for. Hope you like it. (signed) H. H."

There was a P.S. "Expect to hit birth this week."

When I phoned him at the sanitarium, asking for Sam Buckle, the name he had left originally with Ellie, he refused to come to the phone. So I wired him. "Quit worrying about taxes. I accept your earlier offer to be your agent as well as producer. Good luck on your experiments."

Parodisiac was much too good to hold for the closing of Updraft. Indeed, the first play was showing no signs of weakening, so I began rounding up talent outside the original cast. This was a cinch. Meredith Crawley finished Act I, Scene I, and accepted the male lead without turning another page. So did Alicia Pennington, even though it meant giving up a personal appearance tour to publicize her latest Hollywood release that was supposed to win her an Oscar.

Not that I had to go after talent like this to put Parodisiac across. It was so potent I believe I could have made it a hit with a cast out of a burleycue revue.

The season was getting late, so I did the unthinkable. I cut normal rehearsal time in half and slammed it at the big town without even a trial run in the back-country. Nobody connected with the show objected—not even Hec Blankenship, my publicity manager. In fact it was he who suggested the sleeper treatment.

With nothing more than last-minute newspaper notices we opened the box-office to a completely uninformed public, and did it knock the critics for a loop! Only a couple 

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