"I'd rather fill three minutes with dead air than that no-talent. Sweep 'em off the stage."
"This is a dress rehearsal!" Sachs roared on the P.A.
"This is a goddam trappisty!" Grabinett answered.
The dancer began to weep. Cooper left her and staggered off camera. Lennox ran up the steps from the green room to the stage and met him as he came into the wings. There was a confused uproar in the theater punctuated by Raeburn Sachs' repeated commands to the staff to stop their clocks. Lennox took Cooper by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back to the green room. He flung him into a chair and stood over him. Cooper shook and gasped for air.
"You son of a bitch!" Lennox shouted.
"Stand by me, Jake. I'm in a bad way."
"You're going to be in a worse way, you bastard."
"Please, Jake...."
Lennox pulled the telephone slips out of his pocket and shook them in Cooper's face. "Look at these. Look at them, you filthy Judas."
"Jake ... I need a drink. I'm in a bad way."