"Yeou don't mean that yeou're goin' to write a play, do ye?"
"Why not?" smiled Frank.
"Waal, I be darned! When will yeou git time to do it?"
"In my spare moments."
"An' yeou really mean to write a play?"
"I'm going to try it."
"I dunno whut yeou won't try next. Do yeou s'pose yeou kin write a good play?"
"Well, that is something I don't know," laughed Merry. "Not even an experienced playwright can tell if his piece will be good or bad till after it is written and tried on the dog. Even then it is sometimes difficult to tell what there is in it, and many failures have been rewritten and become successes. There is nothing more uncertain in the world than the fate of an untried play. The very pieces that managers are most sanguine about often prove the greatest fizzles, while those pieces that do not promise very much, and are rushed on as 'stop-gaps,' often prove winners from the word go. Some playwriters produce one or two great successes, and are never again able to construct anything that will go. It is a great gamble, with the chances mainly in the favor of losing."
"You seem to know all about it."
"I've been studying up about it."