'In the twenty-first century you shall have twenty-one dollars,' said Kloot, recovering.
'Make mock as you please,' replied the poet superbly. 'I shall be living in the fifty-first century even. Poets never die—though, alas! they have to live. Twenty dollars too much, indeed! It is not a dollar a century for the run of the play.'
'Very well,' said Goldwater grimly. 'Give them back. We return your play.'
This time it was the poet that was disconcerted. 'No, no, Goldwater—I must not disappoint my printer. I have promised him the twenty dollars to print my Hebrew "Selections from Nietzsche."'
'You take your manuscript and give me my money,' said Goldwater implacably.
'Exchange would be a robbery. I will not rob you. Keep your bargain. See, here is the printer's letter.' He dragged from a tail-pocket a mass of motley manuscripts and yellow letters, and laid them beside the telephone as if to search among them.
Goldwater waved a repudiating hand.
'Be not a fool-man, Goldwater.' The poet's carneying forefinger was laid on his nose. 'I and you are the only two people in New York who serve the poetic drama—I by writing, you by producing.'
Goldwater still shook his head, albeit a whit appeased by the flattery.
Kloot replied for him: 'Your manuscript shall be returned to you by the first dustcart.'