1
ROSE-ANN’S bobbed hair was generally applauded. There were more studio parties. Felix frivoled, theorized, and wrote jocund dramatic criticisms, with the thought of Hawkins always at the back of his mind.
Hawkins’s play had been cast, re-cast, rewritten, and finally tried out “on the dog,” that is to say, an audience at Atlantic City. And something was still wrong. So the cast had been dismissed, the scenery stored, and Hawkins was desperately rewriting his play for the seventeenth time—this time in collaboration with an expert farce-builder. And Felix remained for a while longer the acting dramatic critic of the Chronicle. He figured that if enough misfortunes happened to Hawkins’s farce, his own tenure in office might last long enough to entitle him to it in the end. With the most amiable feelings toward Hawkins, he nevertheless fervently wished “Tootsie-Wootsie” the worst of bad luck.
Meanwhile, early in January, he began having his portrait painted by Dorothy Sheridan.