"Fortunately they were not very pointed," ejaculated the great critic, wriggling uncomfortably at the suggestion. "I don't deny that, of course. All I say is, you're giving me away now."
"You give yourself away," shrieked Owen vehemently, "with a pound of that Cingalese tea. How is it Boyle managed to crack up our plays without being driven to any of this new-fangled nonsense?"
"Plays!" said Patrick, looking up moodily. "Anything is good enough for plays. You see I can always fall back on the acting and crack up that. I had to do that with Owen's thing at the Lymarket. My notice read like a gushing account of the play, in reality it was all devoted to the players. The trick of it is not easy. Those who can read between the lines could see that there were only three of them about the piece itself, and yet the outside public would never dream I was shirking the expression of an opinion about the merits of the play or the pinning myself to any definite statement. The only time, Owen, I dare say, that your plays are literature is when they are a frost, for that both explains the failure and justifies you. But, an you love me, Taffy, or if you have any care for my reputation, do not, I beg of you, be enticed into the new folly of printing your plays."
"But things have come to that stage I must do it," said Owen, "or incur the suspicion of illiterateness."
"No, no!" pleaded Patrick in horror. "Sooner than that I will damn all the other printed plays en bloc, and say that the real literary playwrights, conscious of their position, are too dignified to resort to this cheap method of self-assertion."
"But you will not carry out your threat? Remember how dangerously near you came to exposing me over your Naquette."
The Club laughed. Everyone knew the incident, for it was Patrick's stock grievance against the dramatist. Patrick being out of town, had written his eulogy of this play of Owen's from his inner consciousness. On the fourth night in deference to Owen's persuasions he had gone to see Naquette.
After the tragedy, Owen found him seated moodily in the stalls, long after the audience had filed out.
"Knocked you, old man, this time, eh?" queried Owen laughing complacently.