“They are in the green room,” said the manager. “I must say that I was in hope, Dr. Goldsmith, that your critical judgment of your own work would enable you to see your way to withdraw it.”
“I decline to withdraw it, sir,” said Goldsmith.
“I have been a manager now for some years,” said Colman, “and, speaking from the experience which I have gained at this theatre, I say without hesitation that I never had a piece offered to me which promised so complete a disaster as this, sir. Why, 'tis like no other comedy that was ever wrote.”
“That is a feature which I think the playgoers will not be slow to appreciate,” said Goldsmith. “Good Lord! Mr. Colman, cannot you see that what the people want nowadays is a novelty?”
“Ay, sir; but there are novelties and novelties, and this novelty of yours is not to their taste.'T is not a comedy of the pothouse that's the novelty genteel people want in these days; and mark my words, sir, the bringing on of that vulgar young boor—what's the fellow's name?—Lumpkin, in his pothouse, and the unworthy sneers against the refinement and sensibility of the period—the fellow who talks of his bear only dancing to the genteelest of tunes—all this, Dr. Goldsmith, I pledge you my word and reputation as a manager, will bring about an early fall of the curtain.”
“An early fall of the curtain?”
“Even so, sir; for the people in the house will not permit another scene beyond that of your pothouse to be set.”
“Let me tell you, Mr. Colman, that the Three Pigeons is an hostelry, not a pothouse.”
“The playgoers will damn it if it were e'en a Bishop's palace.”
“Which you think most secure against such a fate. Nay, sir, let us not apply the doctrine of predestination to a comedy. Men have gone mad through believing that they had no chance of being saved from the Pit. Pray let not us take so gloomy a view of the hereafter of our play.”