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apartment together in Beverly Hills. Then the ex-comic, the business man of the theatre, saw the use to which he could put his handsome friend. A young girl was just coming up in pictures, could be made into a star. She had been, not a waitress as she usually said, but a hostess in a Wilshire Boulevard restaurant that bought time on the air for a little lunch-hour feature called Your Favorite Celebrity. When the regular announcer failed to show up one day, she had taken over the mike, and managed it with such tact, wit, and charm, that overnight she was a celebrity herself. Then she got a part in a picture. So one night at the Mocambo, Dmitri appeared at her table with a sketch he had made of her, and asked her to sign it. It was small, risqué, and good. Laughing, she signed, and the next night he presented his friend, Baron Adlerkreutz. The month after that she made a picture, The Glory of Edith Cavell. The month after that, not quite sure how it happened, she was the Baroness Adlerkreutz, rather pleased at the title, wholly captivated by Vicki, and a little surprised, but not unduly alarmed, to find that somewhere along the way she had signed a lot of contracts.
    From then on, Dmitri was successful indeed. Like most of his colleagues from the Danube country, he had a gift for the cute; i.e., for sentimental little situations with a slightly salacious twist, lending themselves to uniforms, peasant bodices, twirling slippers, and czarda music. Sometimes he used the same plot with goona music and South Sea atmosphere, with sarongs instead of bodices; once he switched to swing, with B-girls’ dirndles instead of sarongs, and the story became Love Pirate. Anyway he cut it up, it was the same old hotza; it didn’t make actresses but it made him; Sylvia slipped, but he grew rich. Now, as he sat here in this Western gambling hall, his appearance implied his career. The soft calfskin boots, now glowing under the Mexican boy’s fingers, suggested his present eminence, as well as his start among the horses. The whipcord riding breeches, fitted to his rotund rear, suggested the movies that now engaged him. The full duellist’s shirt, puffed at the throat by a silk handkerchief around his neck, suggested the mokos of Paris. His monocle, as well as his brown silk beret, suggested all the cafes of the world.
    He was playing the first four and the first twelve, risking two 25c chips at each spin, and greatly enjoyed Mr. La Bouche’s admiration, and Benny’s admiration, to say nothing of the admiration of the little blond croupier who was serving the table. He frowned when he saw Vicki come in, but was reassured when the sunny smile broke in his direction, and Vicki rattled something at him in German about ‘wir beide,’ which seemed to mean that Hazel was with him, and that the scheduled ceremony was not far off. Tony bustled up, told Vicki his ring was in the office, if that was what he came for. Dmitri went back to his game with zest, and paid no more attention to what went on in the forward part of the establishment, even when Mr. La Bouche held up his finger as though he heard something, and the croupier spoke of the backfiring of trucks, and how the road ought to be renamed Artillery Avenue. Presently, Benny said: “There goes Vicki.”
    “Is she with him?”
    “Must be. Tail light’s burning.”
    “She’s nuts.”
    “No law against driving with the lights on if she likes driving with the lights on, is there?”
    “No law gegen to be nuts.”
    Sylvia came into the casino and Dmitri looked at her in surprise, for he hadn’t known she was here. She said: “Dimmy, if you want to see that personal appearance contract you’ll find it back of Tony’s desk. I just signed it—in red ink.”
    Then she hurried outside, and he watched her uneasily as she stepped into the sunshine. Then, becoming aware of what she had said, he knit his brows in puzzlement, turned to Mr. La Bouche and Benny. But they, with that sixth sense