VI

Canby walked fast, the clamorous dining-room seeming to pursue him, and

the thought of what figure he had cut there filling him with horror of

himself, though he found a little consolation in wondering if he hadn't

insulted Miss Cornish because he was a genius and couldn't help

doing queer things. That solace was slight, indeed; Canby was only

twenty-seven, but he was frightened.

The night before he had been as eagerly happy as a boy at Christmas Eve.

He had finished his last day at the office, and after initiating the

youth who was to take his desk, had parted with his employer genially,

but to the undeniable satisfaction of both. The new career, opening

so gloriously, a month earlier, with Talbot Potter's acceptance of the

play, was thus definitely adopted, and no old one left to fall back

upon. And Madison Avenue, after dark, shows little to reassure a new

playwright who carries in his pocket a note ending with the words,

“before deciding to put on another play I have been considering.” It was

Bleak Street, that night, for young Stewart Canby, and a bleak, bleak

walk he took therein.

Desperate alterations were already scratched into the manuscript; plans

for more and more ran overlapping one another in his mind, accompanied

by phrases--echoes and fragments of Talbot Potter: “Punch! What this

play needs is Punch!” “Big love scenes!” “Big scene with a man!” “Great

sacrifice for a woman!” “Big-hearted, lovable fellow!” “You dog! So on,

so on!” “Zowie!” He must get all this into the play and yet preserve

his “third act situation,” leniently admitted to be “quite a fair” one.

Slacking his gait somewhat, the tormented young man lifted his hat in

order to run his hand viciously through his hair, which he seemed to

blame for everything. Then he muttered, under his breath, indignantly:

“Darn you, let me alone!”

Curious bedevilment! It was not Talbot Potter whom he thus adjured: it

was Wanda Malone. And yet, during the rehearsal, he had not once thought

consciously of the understudy; and he had come away from the theatre

occupied--exclusively, he would have sworn--with the predicament in

which he found himself and his play. Surely that was enough to fill and

overflow any new playwright's mind, but, about half an hour after he had

reached his room and set to work upon the manuscript of the second

act, he discovered that he had retained, unawares, a singularly clear

impression of Miss Malone.

Then, presently, he realized that distinct pictures of her kept

coming between him and his work, and that her voice rang softly

and persistently in his ear. Over and over in that voice's slender

music--plaintive, laughing, reaching everywhere so clearly--he heard the

detested “line”: “What are you two good people conspiring about?” Over

and over he saw the slow, comprehending movement with which she removed

her hat and veil to let Talbot Potter judge her. And as she stood, with

that critic's eye searching her, Canby remembered that through some

untraceable association of ideas he had inexplicably thought of a

drawing of “Florence Dombey” in an old set of Dickens engravings he had

seen at his grandfather's in his boyhood--and had not seen since. And

he remembered the lilac bushes in bloom on a May morning at his

grandfather's. Somehow she made him think of them, too.

And as he sat at his desk, striving to concentrate upon the manuscript,

the clearness with which Wanda Malone came before him increased; she

became more and more vivid to him, and she would not be dismissed; she

persisted and insisted, becoming first an annoyance, and then, as he

fought the witchery, a serious detriment to his writing. She became part

of every thought about his play, and of every other thought. He did not

want her; he felt no interest in her; he had vital work to do--and she

haunted him, seemed to be in the very room with him. He worked in spite

of her, but she pursued him none the less constantly; she had gone down

the stairs to dinner with him; she floated before him throughout the

torture of Miss Cornish's address; she was present even when he exploded

and fled; she was with him now, in this desolate walk toward Talbot

Potter's apartment--the pale, symmetrical little face and the relentless

sweet voice commandeering the attention he wanted desperately to keep

upon what he meant to say to Potter.

Once before in his life he had suffered such an experience: that of

having his thoughts possessed, against his will, by a person he did not

know and did not care to know. It had followed his happening to see an

intoxicated truck-driver lying beneath an overturned wagon. “Easy, boys!

Don' mangle me!” the man kept begging his rescuers. And Canby recalled

how “Easy, boys! Don' mangle me!” sounded plaintively in his ears for

days, bothering him in his work at the office. Remembering it now, he

felt a spiteful satisfaction in classing that obsession with this one.

It seemed at least a step toward teaching Miss Wanda Malone to know her

place.

But he got no respite from the siege, and was still incessantly

beleaguered when he encountered the marble severities of the Pantheon

Apartments' entrance hall and those of its field-marshal, who paraded

him stonily to the elevator. Mr. Potter's apartment was upon the twelfth

floor, a facet stated in a monosyllable by the field-marshal, and

confirmed, upon the opening of the cage at that height, by Mr. Potter's

voice melodiously belling a flourish of laughter on the other side of

a closed door bearing his card. It was rich laughter, cadenced and deep

and loud, but so musically modulated that, though it might never seem

impromptu, even old Carson Tinker had once declared that he liked to

listen to it almost as much as Potter did.

Old Carson Tinker was listening to it now, as Canby discovered, after

a lisping Japanese had announced him at the doorway of a cream-coloured

Louis Sixteenth salon: an exquisite apartment, delicately personalized

here and there by luxurious fragilities which would have done

charmingly, on the stage, for a marquise's boudoir. Old Tinker, in

evening dress, sat uncomfortably, sideways, upon the edge of a wicker

and brocade “chaise lounge,” finishing a tiny glass of chartreuse, while

Talbot Potter, in the middle of the room, took leave of a second guest

who had been dining with him.

Potter was concluding the rendition of hilarity which had penetrated to

the outer hall, and, merely waving the playwright toward Tinker, swept

the same gesture upward to complete it by resting a cordial hand

upon the departing guest's shoulder. This personage, a wasp-figured,

languorous youth, with pale plastered hair over a talcum face, flicked

his host lightly upon the breast with a pair of white gloves.

“None the less, Pottuh,” he said, “why shouldn't you play Othello as a

mulatto? I maintain, you see, it would be taking a step in technique;

they'd get the face, you see. Then I want you to do something really and

truly big: Oedipus. Why not Oedipus? Think of giving the States a thing

like Oedipus done as you could do it! Of coss, I don't say you could

ever be another Mewnay-Sooyay. No. I don't go that far. You haven't

Mewnay-Sooyay's technique. But you could give us just the savour of

Attic culture--at least the savour, you see. The mere savour would be

something. Why should you keep on producing these cheap little plays

they foist on you? Oh, I know you always score a personal success in

the wahst of them, but they've never given you a Big character--and

the play, outside of you, is always piffle. Of coss, you know what

I've always wanted you to do, what I've constantly insisted in print:

Rostand. You commission Rostand to do one of his magnificent things for

you and we serious men will do our part. Now, my duh good chap, I must

be getting on, or the little gel will be telephoning all round the

town!” He turned to the door, pausing upon the threshold. “Now, don't

let any of these cheap little fellows foist any of their cheap little

plays on you. This for my stirrup-cup: you cable Rostand tomorrow. Drop

the cheap little things and cable Rostand. Tell him I suggested it, if

you like.” He disappeared in the hallway, calling back: “My duh Pottuh,

good-night!” And the outer door was heard to close.

Canby, feeling a natural prejudice against this personage, glanced

uneasily at Talbot Potter's face and was surprised to find that fine

bit of modelling contorted with rage. The sight of this emotion was

reassuring, but its source was a mystery, for it had seemed to the

playwright that the wasp-waisted youth's remarks--though horribly

damaging to the cheap little Canbys with their cheap little “Roderick

Hanscoms”--were on the whole rather flattering to the subject of them,

and betokened a real interest in his career.

“Ass!” said Potter.

Canby exhaled a breath of relief. He began to feel that it might be

possible to like this man.

“Ass!” said Potter, striding up and down the room. “Ass! Ass! Ass! Ass!”

And Canby felt easier and happier. He foresaw, too, that there would be

no cabling to Rostand, a thing he had naively feared, for a moment, as

imminent.

Potter halted, bursting into speech less monosyllabic but no less

vehement: “Mr. Tinker, did you ever see Mounet-Sully?”

“No.”

“Did you, Mr. Canby?”

“No.”

“Mewnay-Sooyay!” Potter mimicked the pronunciation of his adviser.

“'Mewnay-Sooyay! Of coss I don't say YOU could ever be another

Mewnay-Sooyay!' Ass! I'll tell you what Mounet-Sully's 'technique'

amounts to, Mr. Tinker. It's yell! Just yell, yell, yell! Does he think

I can't yell! Why, Packer could open his mouth like a hippopotamus and

yell through a part! Ass!”

“Was that young man a-a critic?” Canby asked.

“No!” shouted Potter. “There aren't any!”

“He writes about theatrical matters,” said Carson Tinker. “Talky-talk

writing: 'the drama'--'temperament'--'people of cultivation'--quotes

Latin or Italian or something. 'Technique' is his star word; he plays

'technique' for a hand every other line. Doesn't do any harm; in fact,

I think he does us a good deal of good. Lots of people read that

talky-talk writing nowadays. Not in New York, but in road-towns, where

they have plenty of time. This fellow's never against any show much,

unless he takes a notion. You slip 'dolsy far nienty' or something about

Danty or logarithms somewhere into your play, where it won't delay the

action much, and he'll be for you.”

Canby nodded and laughed eagerly. Tinker seemed to take it for granted

that “Roderick Hanscom” was to be produced in spite of “another play I

have been considering.”

“There aren't any critics, I tell you!” Potter stormed. “Mounet-Sully!”

“Well,” said old Tinker quietly, “I'd like to believe it, but people

making a living that way have ruined a good many million dollars' worth

of property in this town. Some of it was very good property.” He paused,

and added: “Some of it was mine, too.”

“Good property?” said the playwright with fresh uneasiness. “You mean

the critics sometimes ruin a good play?”

“How do they know a good play--or good acting?” Tinker returned

placidly. “Every play you ever saw in your life, some people in the

audience said they thought it was good; some said it was bad. How do

critics know any more about it than anybody else? For instance, how can

anybody that hasn't been in the business tell what's good acting and

what's a good part?”

“But a critic--aren't critics in the bus--”

“No. They aren't theatrical people,” said Tinker dryly. “They're

writers.”

“But some of them must have studied from the inside,” Canby urged,

feeling that “Roderick Hanscom's” chances were getting slighter and

slighter. “Some of them must have either been managers for a while, or

actors--or had plays pro--”

“No,” said Tinker. “If they had they wouldn't do for critics. They

wouldn't have the heart.”

“They oughtn't to have so much power!” the young man exclaimed

passionately. “Think of a playwright working on his play--two years,

maybe--night after night--and then, all in one swoop, these fellows that

you say don't know anything--”

“Power!” Potter laughed contemptuously. “Tinker, you're in your dotage!

Look at what I've done: Haven't I made my way in spite of everything

they could do to stifle me? And have I ever compromised for one moment?

Haven't I gone my own way, absolutely?”

“Yes.” Tinker's face was more cryptic than usual. “Yes, indeed!”

“Power! Haven't I made them eat out of my hand? Look at that ass--glad

to crawl in here and nibble a crust from my table to-night! Ass!” He had

halted for a second in front of the manager, but resumed his pacing with

a mutter of subterranean thunder: “Mounet-Sully!”

“Hasn't the public got a mind?” cried Canby. “Doesn't the public

understand that a good play might be ruined by these scoundrels?”

Old Tinker returned his chartreuse glass to the case whence it came, a

miniature sedan chair in silver and painted silk. “The public?” he said.

“I've never been able to find out what that was. Just about the time I

decided it was a trained sheep it turned out to be a cyclone. You think

it's intelligent, and it plays the fool; you decide it's a fool, and

it turns out to know more than you do. You make love to it, and it may

sidle up and kiss you--or give you a good, hard kick!”

“But if we make this a good play--”

“It won't be a play at all,” said Tinker, “unless the public thinks it's

a good one. A play isn't something you read; it's something actors do on

a stage; and they can't afford to do it unless the public pays to watch

'em. If it won't buy tickets, you haven't got a play; you've only got

some typewriting.”

Canby glanced involuntarily at the blue-covered manuscript he had placed

upon a table beside him. It had a guilty look.

“I get confused,” he said. “If the public's so flighty, why does it take

so much stock in what these wolves print about a play?”

“Print. That's it,” old Tinker answered serenely. “Write your opinion in

a letter or say it with your mouth, and it doesn't amount to anything.

Print's different. You see some nonsense about yourself in a newspaper,

and you think I'm an idiot for believing it. But you read nonsense about

me, and you believe it. You don't stop and think; 'That's a lie; he

isn't that sort of a man.' No. You just wonder why I'm such a darn

fool.”

“Then these cannibals have got us where--”

“Dotage!” Talbot Potter broke in, halting under the chandelier.

“Tinker's reached his dotage!” He levelled a denouncing forefinger at

the manager. “Do you mean to tell me that if I decide to go on with Mr.

Canby's play any critic or combination or cabal of critics can keep it

from being a success? Then I tell you, you're in your dotage! For one

point, if I play this part they're going to say it's a big thing; I

don't mean the play, of course, because you must know, yourself, Mr.

Canby, we could bribe them into calling it a strong play. We know it

isn't, and they'll know it isn't. What I mean is the characterization of

'Roderick Hanscom.' I tell you, if I do it, they're going to call it

a big thing. They aren't all maniacs about everything made in France,

thank heaven! Rostand! Ass! I'm not playing parts with a clothespin on

the end of my nose!” And again he mimicked the departed visitor: “'This

for my stirrup-cup: you cable Rostand tomorrow.' My soul! Does he think

I want to play CHICKENS?”

Sulphurously, he resumed his pacing of the floor.

Old Tinker seemed unaffected by this outburst, but for that matter he

seemed unaffected by anything. His dead gaze followed his employer's

to-and-fro striding as a cat's follows a pendulum, but without the

cat's curiosity about a pendulum. He never interrupted when Potter was

speaking; and Canby noticed that whenever Potter talked at any length

Tinker looked thoughtful and distant, like a mechanic so accustomed

to the whirr and thunder of the machine-shop that he may indulge in

reveries there. After a moment or two the old fellow ceased to follow

the pendulum stride, and turned to the playwright.

“I'll tell you the two surest ways to make what you call the public like

a play, Mr. Canby,” he said. “Nothing is sure, but these are the nearest

to it. Make 'em laugh. I mean, make 'em laugh after they get home, or

the next day in the office, any time they get to thinking about it. The

other way is to get two actors for your lovers that the audience, young

and old, can't help falling in love with; a young actor that the females

in the audience think they'd like to marry, and a young actress that the

males all think they'd like to marry. It doesn't matter much about the

writing; just have something interfere between them from eight-fifteen

until along about twenty-five minutes after ten. The two lovers don't

necessarily have to know much about acting, either, though of course

it's better if they happen to. The best stage-lover I ever knew, and the

one that played in the most successes, did happen to understand acting

thor--”

“Who was that?” Potter interrupted fiercely. “Mounet-Sully?”

“No. I meant Dora Preston.”

“Never heard of her!”

“No,” said the old man. “You wouldn't. They don't put up monuments to

pretty actresses, nor write about them in school histories. She dropped

dead in her dressing-room one night forty-two years ago. I was thinking

of her to-day; something reminded me of her.”

“Was she a friend of yours, Mr. Tinker?” Canby asked.

“Friend? No. I was an usher in the old Calumet Theatre, and she owned

New York. She had this quality; every man in the audience fell in love

with her. So did the women, too, for that matter, and the actors who

played with her. When she played a love-scene, people who'd been married

thirty years would sit and watch her and hold each other's hands--yes,

with tears in their eyes. I've seen 'em. And after the performance,

one night, the stage-door keeper, a man seventy years old, was caught

kissing the latch of the door where she'd touched it; and he was sober,

too. There was something about her looks and something about her voice

you couldn't get away from. You couldn't tell to save you what it was,

but after you'd seen her she'd seem to be with you for days, and you

couldn't think much about anything else, even if you wanted to. People

used to go around in a kind of spell; they couldn't think of anything or

talk of anything but Dora Preston. It didn't matter much what she did;

everything she did made you feel like a boy falling in love the first

time. It made you think of apple-blossoms and moonlight just to look at

her. She--”

“See here, Mr. Canby”--Talbot Potter interrupted suddenly. He dropped

into a chair and picked up the manuscript--“See here! I've got an idea

that may save this play. Suppose we let 'Roderick Hanscom' make his

sacrifice, not for the heroine, but because he's in love with the other

girl--the ingenue--I've forgotten the name you call her in

the script. I mean the part played by that little Miss Miss

girl--Miss-what's-her-name--Wanda Malone!”

Canby stared at Potter in fascinated amazement, his straining eyes

showing the whites above and below the pupils. It was the look of a man

struck dumb by a sudden marvel of telepathy.

“Why, yes,” he said slowly, when he had recovered his breath, “I believe

that would be a good idea!”