“He never uses garden sets. Not intimate enough; and they're a nuisance to light. I wouldn't worry about it.”
“But it changes the whole signifi—”
“Well, talk to him about it,” said Tinker, adding lifelessly, “I wouldn't argue with him much, though. I never knew anybody do anything with him that way yet.”
Miss Ellsling, on the stage, seemed to be supplementing this remark. “Roderick Hanscom is a determined man,” she said, in character. “He is hard as steel to a treacherous enemy, but he is tender and gentle to women and children. Only yesterday I saw him pick up a fallen crippled child from beneath the relentless horses' feet on a crossing, at the risk of his very life, and then as he placed it in the mother's arms, he smiled that wonderful smile of his, that wonderful smile of his that seems to brighten the whole world! Wait till you meet him. But that is his step now and you shall judge for yourselves! Let us rise, if you please, to give him befitting greeting.”
“What—what!” gasped Canby.
“Sh!” Tinker whispered.
“But all I wrote for her to say, when Roderick Hanscom's name is mentioned, was 'I don't think I like him.' My God!”
“Sh!”
“The Honourable Robert Hanscom!” shouted Packer, in a ringing voice as a stage-servant, or herald.
“It gives him an entrance, you see,” murmured Tinker. “Your script just let him walk on.”