"I don't think it matters what it is like," said Craddock, "because there will still be 'The Lane without a Turning' at the bottom of it. It might be Macbeth and Hamlet rolled into one——"
"That remarkable combination would certainly have a very short run," remarked Frank. "You were saying?"
"I was saying that the public, and the critics, will know that at the base of your play lies the play they so unmistakably rejected."
"There was one critic who thought it promising," said Frank. "And he is reaping a very tidy little harvest for his perspicacity."
"You are girding at everything I say this evening, my dear fellow," said Craddock placidly.
Frank looked at him with scarcely repressed malevolence.
"I think the sight of this opulent room and this good dinner and delicious wine makes me feel vicious," he said. "I can't help remembering that it is I who have really paid for all I am eating and drinking a hundred times over. And yet it is you who ask me to dinner."
"I am sorry if I burden you with my hospitality," said Craddock. "And as a matter of fact, it was you who asked yourself."
Frank Armstrong laughed.
"Quite true," he said, "and I will ask myself to have another glass of port. But really I think the situation justifies a little wailing and gnashing of teeth."