was bright that it would have been churlish to concentrate the attention on the one dark spot. Business had been excellent all through the week. Elsa Doland had got better at every performance. The receipt of a long and agitated telegram from Mr. Cracknell, pleading to be allowed to buy the piece back, the passage of time having apparently softened Miss Hobson, was a pleasant incident. And, best of all, the great Ike Schumann, who owned half the theatres in New York and had been in Detroit superintending one of his musical productions, had looked in one evening and stamped “The Primrose Way” with the seal of his approval. As Fillmore sat opposite Sally on the train, he radiated contentment and importance.
“Yes, do,” said Sally, breaking a long silence.
Fillmore awoke from happy dreams.
“Eh?”
“I said 'Yes, do.' I think you owe it to your position.”
“Do what?”
“Buy a fur coat. Wasn't that what you were meditating about?”
“Don't be a chump,” said Fillmore, blushing nevertheless. It was true that once or twice during the past week he had toyed negligently, as Mr. Bunbury would have said, with the notion, and why not? A fellow must keep warm.
“With an astrakhan collar,” insisted Sally.
“As a matter of fact,” said Fillmore loftily, his great soul ill-attuned to this badinage, “what I was really thinking about at the moment was something Ike said.”
“Ike?”
“Ike Schumann. He's on the train. I met him just now.”
“We call him Ike!”
“Of course I call him Ike,” said Fillmore heatedly. “Everyone calls him Ike.”
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