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believe. I can’t say,” Peregrine added, rumpling up his hair, “that he did anything specifically objectionable in the later production and I must allow that personally I found him an amusing fellow. But apart from the two women in the company nobody liked him.
They
said
they
didn’t but you could see them eyeing him and knowing he eyed them.”
    “This,” said Meyer, raising a letter that lay on his desk, “is practically an order. I suppose yours is, too.”
    “Yes, blast it.”
    “You’ve been given a fabulously free hand up to now, Perry. No business of mine, of course, dear boy, but frankly I’ve never seen anything like it. General management, director, author — the lot. Staggering.”
    “I hope,” Peregrine said with a very direct look at his manager, “staggering though it may be, I got it on my reputation as a director and playwright. I believe I did. There is no other conceivable explanation, Winty.”
    “No, no, old boy, of course not,” said Winter Meyer in a hurry.
    “As for W. Hartly Grove, I suppose I can’t jib. As a matter of fact he would be well cast as Mr. W.H. It’s his sort of thing. But I don’t like it. My God,” Peregrine said, “haven’t I stuck my neck out far enough with Marcus Knight in the lead and liable to throw an average of three dirty great temperaments per rehearsal? What have I done to deserve Harry Grove as a bonus?”
    “The Great Star’s shaping up for trouble already. He’s calling me twice a day to make difficulties over his contract.”
    “Who’s winning?”
    “I am,” said Winter Meyer. “So far.”
    “Good for you.”
    “I’m getting sick of it,” Meyer said. “Matter of fact it’s on my desk now.” He lifted a sheet of blotting paper and riffled the pages of the typewritten document he exposed. “Still,” he said, “he’s signed and he can’t get past that one. We almost had to provide an extra page for it. Take a gander.”
    The enormous and completely illegible signature did indeed occupy a surprising area. Peregrine glanced at it and then looked more closely.
    “I’ve seen that before,” he said. “It looks like a cyclone.”
    “Once seen never forgotten.”
    “I’ve seen it,” Peregrine said, “recently.
Where
, I wonder.”
    Winter Meyer looked bored. “Did he sign your autograph book?” he asked bitterly.
    “It was somewhere unexpected. Ah, well. Never mind. The fun will start with the first rehearsal. He’ll want me to rewrite his part, of course, adding great hunks of ham and corn and any amount of fat. It’s tricky enough as it is. Strictly speaking, a playwright shouldn’t direct his own stuff. He’s too tender with it. But it’s been done before and by the Lord I mean to do it again. Marco or no Marco. He looks like the Grafton portrait of Shakespeare. He’s got the voice of an angel and colossal prestige. He’s a brilliant actor and this is a part he can play. It’ll be a ding-dong go which of us wins but by heaven I’m game if he is.”
    “Fair enough,” said Meyer. “Live for ever, dear boy. Live for ever.”
    They settled at their respective desks. Presently Peregrine’s buzzer rang and a young woman provided by the management and secreted in an auxiliary cubby-hole said: “Victoria and Albert for you, Mr. Jay.”
    Peregrine refrained from saying: “Always available to Her Majesty and the Prince Consort.” He was too apprehensive. He said: “Oh yes. Right. Thank you,” and was put into communication with the expert
    “Mr. Jay,” the expert said, “is this a convenient time for you to speak?”
    “Certainly.”
    “I thought it best to have a word with you. We will, of course, write formally with full reports for you to hand to your principal but I felt—really,” said the expert and his voice, Peregrine noticed with mounting excitement, was trembling, “really it is the most remarkable thing. I—well, to be brief with you, the writing in question has been exhaustively examined. It