'But can you write at all?'

'Certainly; certainly I can; but I need encouragement. My kind of talent, Edith, is like a sort of flower—are you listening?—a flower that needs the watering and tending, and that sort of thing, of appreciation. Appreciation! that's what I need—that's all I ask for. Besides, I'm a business man, and unless I have a proper contract with one of the Managers—a regular arrangement and agreement about my work being produced at a certain time—and, mind you, with a cast that I select—I just shan't do it at all.'

'I see. Have you taken any steps?'

'Of course I've taken steps—at least I've taken stalls at most of the theatres, as you know. There isn't a play going on at this moment that isn't full of faults—faults of the most blatant kind—mistakes that I myself would never have made. To begin with, for instance, take Shakespeare.'

'Shakespeare?'

'Yes. A play like The Merchant of Venice, for example. My dear girl, it's only the glamour of the name, believe me! It's a wretched play, improbable, badly constructed, full of padding—good gracious! do you suppose that if I had written that play and sent it to Tree, that he would have put it up?'

'I can't suppose it, Bruce.'

'It isn't sense, Edith; it isn't true to life. Why, who ever heard of a case being conducted in any Court of Law as that is? Do you suppose all kinds of people are allowed to stand up and talk just when they like, and say just what they choose—in blank verse, too? Do you think now, if someone brought an action against me and you wanted me to win it, that you and Bennett could calmly walk off to the Law Courts disguised as a barrister and his clerk, and that you could get me off? Do you suppose, even, that you would be let in? People don't walk in calmly saying that they're barristers and do exactly what they please, and talk any nonsense that comes into their head.

'I know that; but this is poetry, and years and years ago, in
Elizabeth's time.'

'Oh, good gracious, Edith, that's no excuse! It isn't sense. Then take a play like The Merry Widow. What about that? Do you suppose that if I liked I couldn't do something better than that? Look here, Edith, tell me, what's the point? Why are you so anxious that I should write this play?'