“Got any ideas out of them?” asked Hodgson, when the time came for us to say good-night.
“I'm thinking, if you don't mind,” I answered, “of going down into the country and writing the piece quietly, away from everybody.”
“Perhaps you are right,” agreed Hodgson. “Too many cooks—Be sure and have it ready for the autumn.”
I wrote it with some pleasure to myself amid the Yorkshire Wolds, and was able to read it to the whole company assembled before the close of the season. My turning of the last page was followed by a dead silence. The leading lady was the first to speak. She asked if the clock upon the mantelpiece could be relied upon; because, if so, by leaving at once, she could just catch her train. Hodgson, consulting his watch, thought, if anything, it was a little fast. The leading lady said she hoped it was, and went. The only comforting words were spoken by the tenor. He recalled to our mind a successful comic opera produced some years before at the Philharmonic. He distinctly remembered that up to five minutes before the raising of the curtain everybody had regarded it as rubbish. He also had a train to catch. Marmaduke Trevor, with a covert shake of the hand, urged me not to despair. The low comedian, the last to go, told Hodgson he thought he might be able to do something with parts of it, if given a free hand. Hodgson and I left alone, looked at each other.
“It's no good,” said Hodgson, “from a box-office point of view. Very clever.”
“How do you know it is no good from a box-office point of view?” I ventured to enquire.
“I never made a mistake in my life,” replied Hodgson.
“You have produced one or two failures,” I reminded him.
“And shall again,” he laughed. “The right thing isn't easy to get.”
“Cheer up,” he added kindly, “this is only your first attempt. We must try and knock it into shape at rehearsal.”