Mr.Belasco doesn't think so now, but at the time he had a notion that the public would find something humorous and attractive in the spectacle of a popular actress's leg swathed in several layers of stocking.

So he made a show of Blanche Bates.

The public refused to be amused at the farcical study in comparative anatomy, and when Mr.Belasco's friends began to fault him for having pandered to a low taste, and he felt the smart of failure in addition, he grew heartily ashamed of himself.

His affairs, moreover, began to take on a desperate aspect; the season threatened to be a ruinous failure, and he had no play ready to substitute for "Naughty Anthony." Some time before a friend had sent him Mr.Long's book, but he had carelessly tossed it aside.

In his straits it came under his eyes again, and this time he saw a play in it--a play and a promise of financial salvation.