"Only you can't make out ten per cent of what she says," Edward Henry finished for him. "Well, I've got no use for that in my theatre." He found a singular pleasure in emphasizing the phrase, "my theatre."
"That's all very well," said Marrier. "But what are you going to do about it? I've tried everything. You've come in and burst up the entire show, if you'll forgive my saying saoh!"
"Do?" exclaimed Edward Henry. "It's perfectly simple. All you have to do is to act. God bless my soul, aren't you getting fifteen pounds a week, and aren't you my acting-manager? Act, then! You've done enough hinting. You've proved that hints are no good. You'd have known that from your birth up, Marrier, if you'd been born in the Five Towns. Act, my boy."
"But haow? If she won't go on, she won't."
"Is her understudy in the theatre?"
"Yes. It's Miss Cunningham, you know."
"What salary does she get?"
"Ten pounds a week."
"What for?"
"Well—partly to understudy, I suppose."