Page:Bambi (1914).djvu/134

118 were probably badly trained. How did they live? Where did they go? They began to haunt him.

He was interrupted by hearing his name called. He rose mechanically, and followed the boy into a very large and ornate office. A fat Jewish man, in loud clothes, a brown derby hat, and a cigar, sat at a desk, dictating.

“H'are ye?” he ejaculated as Jarvis entered. He went on dictating and smoking, until Jarvis finally interrupted him, saying he wanted to see the manager. The fat man glared at him.

“Sit down until I get through!” he shouted. “I’m the manager.”

Jarvis took a chair and looked at the man closely. What would such a creature find in his play, with its roots in a modern condition, no more grasped by this man than by Professor Parkhurst? The absurdity of the idea struck Jarvis so forcibly that he laughed out loud.

“Let’s have it, if it’s any good,” said the fat man.

“I beg your pardon,” Jarvis replied.

The manager dismissed the stenographer, took up Jarvis’s card, looked at it, and then at his victim.

“Jarvis Jocelyn,” he read. “Good stage name. What’s your line, Jarvis?”