REFERRED TO THE AUTHOR
YES, “Obedience” is a fine play. I'm glad they've revived it. Did you know that the first time it was produced, Morgan Edwards played the part of Dunbar? It's rather an odd story.
I never think of Edwards without remembering the dark, creaky stairs in that boarding-house on Seventy-third Street. That was where I first met him. We had a comical habit of always encountering on the stairs. We would pass with that rather ridiculous murmur and sidling obeisance of two people who don't know each other but want to be polite. I was interested in him at once. Even on the shadowy stairway I could see that he had a fine head, and there was something curiously attractive about his pale, preoccupied face. There was a touch of the unworldly about him, and a touch of the tragic, too. You know how you divine things about people. “He has troubles of his own” was the banal phrase that came into my mind. Also there was something queerly familiar about him. I wondered if I had seen Him before, or only imagined him. I was busy writing, at that time, and my mind was peopled with energetic phantoms. The thought struck me that perhaps he was someone I had invented for a story, but had never given life to. I wondered, was this pale and rather reproachful spectre going to haunt me until the tale was written? At any rate, whatever the story was, I had forgotten it.
One day, as I creaked up the first flight, I saw that he was standing at the head of the stairs, waiting for me to pass. A door was open behind him, and there was light enough to see him clearly. Tall, thin, beautifully shaven on a fine angular jaw that would not be easy to shave, I was surprised to see an air of sudden cheerfulness about him that was almost incongruous. Having thought of him only as a sort of melancholy hallucination living on a dingy stairway, it was quite startling to see him with his face lit up like a lyric poet's, a glow of mundane exhilaration in his eyes. For the first time in our meetings he looked as though to speak to him would not break in upon his secret thoughts. He was the kind of chap, you know, who usually looked as though he was busy thinking. I remember what I said because it was so inane. Some people don't like to cross on the stairs. I looked up as I came to the turn in the steps, and said, “Superstitious?” He smiled and said “No, I guess not!”
“Only in the literal sense, at this moment,” I said. An absurd remark, and a horrible pun which I regretted at once, for I thought I would have to explain it. Nothing more humiliating than having to explain a bad pun. But if I didn't explain it, it would seem rude. He looked puzzled, then his face lit up charmingly. “Superstitious—standing above you, eh? I never thought of the meaning before!”
I came up the last steps. “Pardon the vile pun,” I said. Then I knew where I had seen him before, and recognized him. “Aren't you Morgan Edwards?” I asked. “Yes,” he said.
“I thought so. I remember you in 'After Dinner'. I wrote the notice in the Observer .”
“By Jove, did you? I am glad to meet you. I think that was the nicest thing any one ever said.” His gaunt and pensive face showed a quick flash of that direct and honest friendliness which is so appealing. We found that we were both living on the fourth floor. For similar reasons, undoubtedly. I'm afraid he thought, at first, that I was a dramatic critic of standing. Afterward I explained that the “After Dinner” notice had been only a fluke. I was on the Observer when the show was put on, and one of the dramatic men happened to be ill.