"If it had failed, there would not have been a moment's doubt on the subject."
"Why, success is all very well; but you know, in such cases, the acting of the performers is every thing."
"Quite true. Just now I was standing beside a newspaper man, and he said that it was clever, but not written close, not dovetailed."
"Yes, that is the word I meant; the plot was not dovetailed."
"Decidedly not; and if persons will meddle with theatrical writing, they ought at least to have a good knowledge of dovetailing."
"Yes, the whole piece depends on that."
"But there are some people who imagine they possess every thing by instinct.
"Why, I think Gercourt a most excellent fellow, and very amiable and nice before he was seized with the mania for writing, but now he has such a mysterious, preoccupied air——"
"That is in the last degree ridiculous."
"Only look at Morville. In spite of his melancholy he has as self-satisfied an air as if he were the author himself."