“I am tired of being bulldozed by him.”
“Havener is not in the habit of bulldozing anybody, Hodge, as you very well know.”
“I know he is in the habit of trying it on me. He doesn’t like me, and he doesn’t miss an opportunity to try to call me down. I’m dead sick of it!”
“You are altogether too sensitive, old man. Havener is the stage manager, and a good one he is, too. He has aided me immensely in getting the play into shape.”
“Oh, you’re inclined to give other people too much credit. I’ll guarantee there is not another playwriter who is starring in his own piece who will say that his stage manager has done much of anything for him.”
“I am not patterning my actions on those of others, Bart. I detest chaps who ape others. I believe in individuality. Be what you are. That is the maxim I go by. If others are selfish and ungrateful, it is no reason why I should be so.”
“Gratitude! gratitude! gratitude! It makes me tired! Has a fellow got to go through the world being grateful to everybody who is decent to him?”
“You know I did not mean that. You have a way of distorting what I say so that it does not mean what I intended.”
“Oh, yes; of course I do something I shouldn’t do! I’m always doing something I shouldn’t do! It’s been the way all my life! At home I was forever doing something I shouldn’t do! At school it was the same. At college it was no better. And now, in trying to be an actor, I am still doing something I should not do. Oh, what’s the use to try to do anything! A fellow might as well bump along and not give a rap what he does or what happens to him.”
“You are getting in a bad way, Hodge,” said Merriwell, seriously. “I believe your liver is out of order.”