“Oh, I can’t!  Thanks.  I—­” He wanted to terribly, but the thought was too much.

“Better.”

They had dinner together.  Even under the influence of Hahn’s encouragement and two glasses of mellow wine whose name he did not know, Wallie did not become fatuous.  They talked about music—­neither of them knew anything about it, really.  Wallie confessed that he used it as an intoxicant and a stimulant.

“That’s it!” cried Hahn, excitedly.  “If I could play I’d have done more.  More.”

“Why don’t you get one of those piano-players, What-you-call’ems?” Then, immediately, “No, of course not.”

“Nah, that doesn’t do it,” said Hahn, quickly.  “That’s like adopting a baby when you can’t have one of your own.  It isn’t the same.  It isn’t the same.  It looks like a baby, and acts like a baby, and sounds like a baby—­but it isn’t yours.  It isn’t you.  That’s it!  It isn’t you!”

“Yeh,” agreed Wallie, nodding.  So perfectly did they understand each other, this ill-assorted pair.

It was midnight before Wallie left.  They had both forgotten about the play manuscript whose delivery had been considered so important.  The big room was gracious, quiet, soothing.  A fire flickered in the grate.  One lamp glowed softly—­almost sombrely.

As Wallie rose at last to go he shook himself slightly like one coming out of a trance.  He looked slowly about the golden, mellow room.  “Gee!”

“Yes, but it isn’t worth it,” said Hahn, “after you’ve got it.”

“That’s what they all say”—­grimly—­“after they’ve got it.”

The thing that had been born in Sid Hahn’s mind thirty years before was now so plainly stamped on this boy’s face that Hahn was startled into earnestness.  “But I tell you, it’s true!  It’s true!”

“Maybe.  Some day, when I’m living in a place like this, I’ll let you know if you’re right.”

In less than a year Wallie Ascher was working with Hahn.  No one knew his official title or place.  But “Ask Wallie.  He’ll know,” had become a sort of slogan in the office.  He did know.  At twenty-one his knowledge of the theatre was infallible (this does not include plays unproduced; in this no one is infallible) and his feeling for it amounted to a sixth sense.  There was something uncanny about the way he could talk about Lottie, for example, as if he had seen her; or Mrs. Siddons; or Mrs. Fiske when she was Minnie Maddern, the soubrette.  It was as though he had the power to cast himself back into the past.  No doubt it was that power which gave later to his group of historical plays (written by him between the ages of thirty and thirty-five) their convincingness and authority.

When Wallie was about twenty-three or -four Sid Hahn took him abroad on one of his annual scouting trips.  Yearly, in the spring, Hahn swooped down upon London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, seeking that of the foreign stage which might be translated, fumigated, desiccated, or otherwise rendered suitable for home use.  He sent Wallie on to Vienna, alone, on the trail of a musical comedy rumoured to be a second Merry Widow in tunefulness, chic, and charm.  Of course it wasn’t.  Merry Widows rarely repeat.  Wallie wired Hahn, as arranged.  The telegram is unimportant, perhaps, but characteristic.