“Unless thou lendest me thy lips thou shalt not play in my comedy,” said Pinchas angrily.

“My trouble!” said the leading lady, shrugging her shoulders.

Pinchas made several reappearances outside the open shop, with his insinuative finger on his nose and his insinuative smile on his face, but in the end went away with a flea in his ear and hunted up the actor-manager, the only person who made any money, to speak of, out of the performances.  That gentleman had not yet consented to produce the play that Pinchas had ready in manuscript and which had been coveted by all the great theatres in the world, but which he, Pinchas, had reserved for the use of the only actor in Europe.  The result of this interview was that the actor-manager yielded to Pinchas’s solicitations, backed by frequent applications of poetic finger to poetic nose.

“But,” said the actor-manager, with a sudden recollection, “how about the besom?”

“The besom!” repeated Pinchas, nonplussed for once.

“Yes, thou sayest thou hast seen all the plays I have produced.  Hast thou not noticed that I have a besom in all my plays?”

“Aha!  Yes, I remember,” said Pinchas.

“An old garden-besom it is,” said the actor-manager.  “And it is the cause of all my luck.”  He took up a house-broom that stood in the corner.  “In comedy I sweep the floor with it—­so—­and the people grin; in comic-opera I beat time with it as I sing—­so—­and the people laugh; in farce I beat my mother-in-law with it—­so—­and the people roar; in tragedy I lean upon it—­so—­and the people thrill; in melodrama I sweep away the snow with it—­so—­and the people burst into tears.  Usually I have my plays written beforehand and the authors are aware of the besom.  Dost thou think,” he concluded doubtfully, “that thou hast sufficient ingenuity to work in the besom now that the play is written?”

Pinchas put his finger to his nose and smiled reassuringly.

“It shall be all besom,” he said.

“And when wilt thou read it to me?”

“Will to-morrow this time suit thee?”

“As honey a bear.”

“Good, then!” said Pinchas; “I shall not fail.”

The door closed upon him.  In another moment it reopened a bit and he thrust his grinning face through the aperture.

“Ten per cent. of the receipts!” he said with his cajoling digito-nasal gesture.

“Certainly,” rejoined the actor-manager briskly.  “After paying the expenses—­ten per cent. of the receipts.”

“Thou wilt not forget?”

“I shall not forget.”

Pinchas strode forth into the street and lit a new cigar in his exultation.  How lucky the play was not yet written!  Now he would be able to make it all turn round the axis of the besom.  “It shall be all besom!” His own phrase rang in his ears like voluptuous marriage bells.  Yes, it should, indeed, be all besom.  With that besom he would sweep all his enemies—­all the