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 Loamford sniffed assent.

“Very good,” continued Mr. Reitz. “Now it isn’t enough to have her taught to sing in good shape. She’s got to be prepared to face the world as a singer. She can’t go in for social foolishness or any lahdeda stuff. She’s got a big job cut out for her. Can she make good? That’s what you want to ask!”

“She will succeed!” insisted his sister. “She must succeed!”

“Good enough,” went on the speaker. “It costs money to put any proposition on the market. Now, look at those green hats everybody’s wearing this spring. Do you see any other color hat on a fashionably dressed man? You do not! Green has caught on. It looks like a natural enough thing, doesn’t it? Well, believe me, it took a long sales campaign to sell green to the men. Green’s a pretty color. All right. But you’ve got to convince the public of that. You’ve got to make em want green hats. We did it. But it cost us a damn big lot of money to make ’em want green.

“Now it’s the same way with everything else. It’s all right to talk about art. There’s an art to designing hats, too, but that isn’t what keeps the hat business going. It’s salesmanship. If Dorothy’s going to be a singer it won’t do just to let her sing. You’ve got to build her up into a big thing. I don’t say it'll cost as much as it would to put over a new style hat. I guess you can afford it if you keep her from getting any freak ideas. But it’s no use looking at it as an artistic matter only. Put the proposition this way: Has she got the goods and can she deliver ’em?”

He paused and drew a cigarette from a heavily embossed silver case.

“I’m not so much interested in the professional side of it,” Loamford began.